At WOLF, we recognise that our hugely popular community entertainment app, WOLF Qanawat, a place where Arabic-speaking users come together to create, entertain and interact – needs to continuously evolve to serve its discerning audience, satisfying their changing interests, wants and needs.
So it’s no surprise that an app of our size, which offers so much variety, can sometimes encounter technical glitches or issues. It’s how we resolve these that helps make the app experience the success it is. No one wants technical problems to affect their enjoyment, so we work determinedly hard to identify, understand and fix any issues as quickly and smoothly as possible, with the least possible disruption.
Ensuring that the introduction of new elements is effortless
Our aim is to regularly introduce exciting, engaging and rewarding new features, games, promotions and channels, to enhance the user experience and ensure that users remain loyal to the app community, whilst nurturing friendships, having fun and generating revenue.
Fortunately, in the WOLF Qanawat app, we rarely encounter technical issues when we introduce these new roll-outs. However, there may be initial challenges due to their operational complexity. We can also experience revenue-related or operational problems, but thankfully, these are extremely rare, with many months seeing no issues at all.
When teething problems arise, our specialist technology teams have installed a seamless process to overcome any initial hiccups. Our wonderful community can also easily flag issues through their app interactions, while our proactive monitoring detects them in the early stages after going live.
Working through issues with clear communication
When there’s a problem affecting the user experience, transparent and honest communication is key. Firstly, the Support Team identifies and replicates the issue to gather details, while also discussing the issue with impacted users to get more information, immediately sending them notifications to advise that we are working on it.
An internal bug-fixing mini project is created and assigned to the relevant tech team, which holds a follow-up catch-up to align on the issue. Once the problem has been understood, worked on and is resolved – typically within 24-48 hours – the Support and Community Teams are updated. We will then notify users through in-app notifications and, for VIPs, send broadcast messages as a special treatment. Lastly, the Service Status web page is updated and if there’s a financial impact to the user, we will promptly let the user know that we’ll provide compensation to maintain trust and fairness.
Monitoring and future-proofing through prevention
We use a multi-layered approach to monitoring any in-app issues, with automated logs notifying the development team 24/7, so even outside of regular working hours, we have on-call staff members to address any issues. Users can notify us of problems through the “Report this” feedback system and we have valued volunteer testers who also provide rapid feedback.
Our account managers continually run reports to make sure everything is operating smoothly and monitor User Support Channels to identify any issues. We’ve also recognised the importance of strengthening our prevention measures through multi-stage testing in controlled environments, with careful rollouts on pre-launch phases called closed beta and open beta, and then a gradual release. Prior to any launch, we have Quality Assurance teams that validate all scenarios, and staff and volunteer users carry out live testing. Our structured approval workflows for promotions and rollouts ensure we launch a new product with as few problems as possible, and maximise user satisfaction from the get-go.
Lessons learned for future app evolution
So far, our troubleshooting has highlighted some key lessons learnt, including the value of proactive monitoring and volunteer input, the need for clear, speedy escalation workflows, the importance of open user communication and rigorous preventive testing before any new launch. These have all made us both faster and more precise in addressing challenges and means users experience fewer, if any, issues when trying new app games and features.
Gary Knight, CEO of WOLF, says: “It’s always exciting for us to add new features to the WOLF Qanawat app, but before our users get to enjoy these, there are months of technical development, testing and applying previous learnings to offer our valued community the best new experiences with as few niggles as possible. We are looking forward to the next innovative additions that are coming soon for our users to enjoy.”