Comcast Business Pavilion Web & Mobile App

Background

The Comcast Business Pavilion is a relaxed, business-ready environment, where PGA TOUR partners and corporate guests can conduct meetings, take calls, handle email, and stay on top of their day jobs during tournaments.  The pavilion offers practical and technological amenities geared towards accommodating the fast pace of business, and provides a welcome respite for guests at select PGA TOUR events.  The Comcast Business Pavilion Web & Mobile App provides guests with an easy-to-use interface for visiting the Pavilion, booking meeting rooms, and learning more about Comcast Business solutions, while at the same time providing Comcast Business with tools to manage occupancy, handle scheduling, and collect visitor information to be used for sales outreach and communication.

Strategy

Comcast Business came to us with a challenge – they had the incredible opportunity to offer this business-ready Pavilion to PGA TOUR guests, but had no way to manage visitor throughput or scheduling.  They needed a way to accurately predict and track visitors of the pavilion, and they needed a solution for booking time slots between the two meeting room spaces the pavilion offers.  On top of it all the Pavilion was designed as a sales lead generator, so they needed a way to capture business-related visitor information in a secure, usable way.  Off the shelf 3rd-party products did not offer all of the solutions needed, or were in contrast to the Comcast Business brand, so after exploring all of the options we recommended a truly custom option: a bespoke web application and back-end solution with a custom companion mobile app.

Execution

We began this project by drafting a thorough front-end wireframe along with detailed plans for the back-end architecture.  UI & UX design followed, with multiple iterations and several rounds of review and revisions.  Front-end and back-end development were dual-tracked to expedite the calendar and enable an aggressive delivery deadline.  We stood up servers, built a custom database for user accounts, developed a customized CMS, integrated multiple 3rd party SDKs and APIs, and thoroughly and completely tested every inch of the platform.  We raced toward the launch, going from concept to Phase 1 delivery in less than two months, going live for the debut of the Comcast Business Pavilion at THE PLAYERS Championship in early March.

Soon after, we kicked off Phase 2 of the project, which included a few platform updates and more importantly, the development of the custom mobile app.  Data connectivity on the course can be challenging, and while the Comcast Business Pavilion is a data oasis in an otherwise digital desert, it was clear that users needed the platform features most when traversing around far flung greens or eagerly awaiting their favorite pro’s tee off, regardless of proximity to the nearest cell tower.  So wrapping up all of the features in a downloaded mobile app enabled better access for on-site users, and an overall easier and better user experience for pavilion visitors.

Our development team utilized a hybrid mobile development framework to parlay the web application code into the mobile app, saving time and effort and speeding up turnaround time.  Specific, mobile-only features were added to help users quickly and easily access the pavilion, keep tabs on booked meetings, and access all of the pavilion features without needing to rely entirely on cell coverage.  At the same time we integrated a robust system to manage user data so that old and inactive accounts were automatically purged from the platform, satisfying user data and privacy concerns.  A back-end metrics dashboard was also developed to collect, organize, and report important metrics to track pavilion use and lead-generation down to the hour across individual PGA Tour events.

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Outcome

With Phase 2 wrapped the Comcast Business Pavilion was set up to run, practically on auto-pilot, for any and all future PGA Tour events – enabling Comcast Business and their partners unparalleled control of pavilion management and throughput.  With thousands of users across multiple PGA Tours, the Comcast Business Pavilion web and mobile app has empowered countless visitors in conducting important business, because every day in business is a big day, even on the course.

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