What was the project?
Despite their expertise in running successful brick-and-mortar stores, H-E-B was significantly alarmed by the news of Amazon’s purchase of Whole Foods. This purchase accelerated the digital retail revolution, and H-E-B’s expertise threatened to become their Achilles Heel.
Mutual Mobile’s engagement with H-E-B started with a request to place a renewed focus on bolstering its presence in the online grocery space. At the same time, they wanted to make their online shopping app more sophisticated while providing additional benefits to consumers.
Challenge
Translating 100 years of brand value into an app
Translating 100 years of brand value into an app
H-E-B’s storied past as a choice brick-and-mortar store encountered the unfamiliar prospect of reintroducing itself to its patrons in an app. Not only did the digital recreation have to convey over a century’s worth of brand goodwill, it also had to unfailingly deliver.
Blending creative strategy with calibrated engineering, we had to help them chart out a path that would feel like a natural extension of their in-store customer experience to sway new customers and retain the existing ones.
Approach
An inclusive approach to revamp customers’ digital experience
An inclusive approach to revamp customers’ digital experience
To revamp the H-E-B experience for customers, Mutual Mobile started by looking at the UX design for coupons and product search and filtering. To understand the grocery experience shoppers preferred, we engaged them in an extensive user research exercise.
At the same time, we entirely took over from the development team at H-E-B, which helped in improving efficiency and workflow. Additionally, we also stepped in to handle the QA for the app since it wasn't an area of expertise for H-E-B.
Finally, we designed and developed a long-term digital strategy to keep up with the industry’s evolving requirements, which helped H-E-B attract more consumers. This resulted in a successful collaboration and release of H-E-B’s new app—My H-E-B.
Impact
An easy-to-use app experience rated highly by users
An easy-to-use app experience rated highly by users
This was an exciting project that our team had the opportunity to work on, and by the end of it, we had numerous achievements to be proud of:
Accessible coupon experience
H-E-B’s winning feature was its coupon experience, which we made accessible for every shopper. The app also encouraged shoppers to jot down their shopping lists within it, ensuring that the app became synonymous with value in their minds.
User-friendly app design
The app’s final design overturned H-E-B’s Achilles Heel and made it its biggest strength.
Highly-rated and popular app as declared by users
Across the Google Play Store and Apple App Store, My H-E-B has an average rating of 4.75 with combined reviews of 33.1k.
Project Team
1 Mobile Architect
1 Director of Engineering
2 iOS Developers
2 Android Developers
3 QA Analysts
1 UX Designer
1 Art Director
1 Director of Engineering
2 iOS Developers
2 Android Developers
3 QA Analysts
1 UX Designer
1 Art Director
How the project was managed:
Scrum with two-week sprints
Release every other sprint unless a production bug was deemed critical
IT security required to sign off
Release every other sprint unless a production bug was deemed critical
IT security required to sign off
H-E-B Core Team Celebration
When you just get on the project and you have 4 weeks to release a 2.0 version of teh app, you white board it!
Planning work before 2.0 and after 2.0
Diagraming a new process to resolve issues in UAT
H-E-B 2.0 Overnight Release War Room
New priorities coming in after 2.0 launch
