Delivering Memorable End-to-End Experiences in the New Normal
World-renowned modern garden destination, Gardens by the Bay, takes customer experience, safety, and convenience to new heights with its new mobile application.
Gardens by the Bay, a destination with spectacular displays of engineering design and beauty of nature, wanted to find a way to create an enhanced in-person experience but with safety as the top priority. Coming off another project with Monstarlab, Gardens by the Bay came with the challenge of transforming the existing mobile app into a more holistic mobile companion. Integrating contactless e-commerce solutions on top of fun features that will augment unique real-world experiences for the users.
Crafting Unique Experiences Tied Closely with Customer Safety
The entertainment and hospitality industry has been heavily affected by the Covid19 pandemic. Forcing businesses to rethink strategies to cope and sustain business operations, and Gardens by the Bay was no exception. So when the opportunity to re-open beckoned, they wanted to offer extraordinary experiences with an emphasis on safety. Monstarlab was commissioned for the project and talented team was set up for an end-to-end engagement. The task is to rebuild the previous app and expand capabilities to include contactless solutions to address safety in light of the Covid 19 pandemic. The team had to redesign the app architecture, UI and UX of the base app to integrate the new features. Working on 2-week sprints, priorities for inclusion were the ticketing and membership features integration. Given the good working relationship, the app was launched well within the three-month timeline in time for the re-opening of the popular venue to visitors.
App Experience
Gardens by the Bay app is the perfect digital companion for the “new normal” visitor experience. It takes into account the top two aspects of the experience, fun and safety. Contactless features allow users to complete transactions right in the app, minimizing the risk of exposure to more people. On top of that, the app enriches the real-world experiences with engaging and informative features made exciting with Augmented Reality.
Expanded AR Experience
AR adds a layer of excitement and a newfound appreciation for Gardens by the Bay. Features like Skyline 360º and Wayfinder enable engagement and discovery.
Integrating Gamification
The visitors earn points and get to build their own virtual Supertree by exploring the venue. This in turn increases foot traffic on more locations in Gardens by the Bay benefiting more business establishments.
Relevant Safety Features
Contactless solutions and crowd management features help reduce unnecessary person-to-person contacts. It enables smooth transactions for ticketing and membership and at the same time, they can monitor crowd build-up in various attractions in real-time.
- MVP with key features launched in only 3 months
- 75,000 app downloads in just 6 months
About Gardens by the Bay
Gardens by the Bay is a 110-hectare premier nature park located at Singapore’s Marina Bay District and made up of three main waterfront gardens. It started as a government initiative to transform its "Garden City" to the more ambitious "City in a Garden" way back in 2005. It was inaugurated in the middle of 2012 and has since welcomed more than 50 million visitors from around the world and counting.
The Future
Establishing an Enduring Partnership
On top of the first version app features, Monstarlab will be working closely with Gardens by the Bay to help realize their vision of creating unique experiences for their customers through new app features and functionalities.
"Challenges in creating an app will always be present since we introduced in the app one of the technologies that were fairly new at that time, Augmented Reality. As the project grew, I took on the position of leading the technical team which gives me the chance to be more exposed to the client and all the other things not visible to us developers. It also made me realize that in order for the project to be successful requires the team to work harmoniously and all of the members to be dedicated and committed to the project."
