Gopinion gives users the ability to review their favorite establishments—restaurants, bars, stores and more—using a map-style application on their iOS or Android devices. What Gopinion offers that other apps have yet to achieve is an incentive to review these businesses. In exchange for their review, positive or negative, users receive special promotions and discounts for their feedback. Businesses even have the ability to directly communicate with reviewers thanks to an in-app messaging service.
“Gopinion offers a way for consumers to communicate and engage local businesses on their terms, and receive rewards for their patronage. On the other end, the application gives business owners a tool to listen to social buzz, analyze their overall performance, and respond directly to their customers,” explained Christopher Muto, Chief Technology Officer at Gopinion.
Getting Off the Ground
Gopinion began development of the mobile and web applications with an outside development partner, but after problems with the project arose the decision was made to stop work and find a new strategy. Hiring full time developers to the Gopinion team was not a feasible option, as the different skills and technology expertise required to build the application varied greatly, and no one or two developers could handle their needs.
After being referred to OSF Digital, the Gopinion team quickly realized that the ability to hire resources as needed throughout different phases of the launch presented a huge benefit for them. Not only did OSF offer the personnel flexibility Gopinion required, OSF resources had the experience and technical capabilities to work on all of the different components of the application.
“We had a poor experience with our original development partner,” stated Muto. “When we started working with OSF I realized how much of a difference finding the right partner can make. They came in mid-project and hit the ground running.”
Three resources from OSF worked with the Gopinion team to build the cross-platform mobile application for iOS and Android, as well as the web application where partner businesses are able to manage their profile, build feedback reports and communicate with customers.
“We used a wide mix of technologies and frameworks to achieve the functionality we envisioned. Everything we spec’d was within OSF’s range. Using a single development partner is ideal on a project like this, and it gave us peace of mind knowing OSF was on our team,” said Muto.
Changing the Social Scene
The founders of Gopinion set out to change the way customers interact with the businesses in their communities. Traditional sales and service channels such as email, phone and even social media don’t deliver the instant feedback consumers increasingly demand. By providing consumers and business owners a channel through which they can easily engage, and are offered incentives in the process, Gopinion is using technology to address the constantly evolving needs of modern consumers.
According to Christopher Muto this would not have been possible without the services of OSF. “I consider OSF a true partner in achieving our technology goals. Their development work was exceptional, and they were a pleasure to work with in every respect. I highly recommend their services to anyone that needs application development work.”
Consumers' online shopping behavior is constantly evolving, so having the right platform and innovative partners are key to meeting our customers' expectations. OSF assisted us with new technology and gave us the ability to deploy many brand sites in an efficient manner, making technology our driver for growth.
In terms of the aesthetics of the site and the design, OSF exceeded expectations. They weren’t just doing the work—they went above and beyond their responsibilities and got involved with every single person impacted by the relaunch, giving us a chance to understand the processes and work with them ourselves.
For any project, there are key attributes that an IT provider must have – and OSF delivered on all of them. First, you want to be confident they can deliver on their commitments, and OSF was able to do that. Second, in the development process changes can happen at a moment’s notice, and OSF was able to adjust to anything we threw at them. And finally, whether it was a new release or a redesign of the UI, OSF had the expertise to complete the job. What’s great about OSF is that when you choose to develop new applications in the cloud or on different platforms, you don’t have to hire new people with new skills. OSF already has a large talented group of people with the experience in the latest technologies.
I've now worked with OSF on two separate Salesforce projects and must say that I'm very pleased with the results, and their service level. For our first project, we had them create a timesheet app, full with bells and whistles, and since implementation, it's helped extremely. I haven't had to go back to them with any issues or oversights - they're very thorough with their testing and QA. The service rep I was assigned was great - friendly, professional and proactive. She always sent me updates and ensured I had everything I needed. Turn-around times were great, too. I didn't have to wait months for them to complete my projects. I'll definitely be using them again.
The expertise of the OSF personnel immediately paid off for us, and we realized very quickly that OSF was the right partner for a start-up like ours. By creating an integrated team of Mambu personnel and OSF developers, we have been able to quickly bring a solution to market that addresses the needs of our clients in a cost-effective way. The flexibility of the OSF team and our ability to tap into a network of developers with a wide range of skills has allowed us to expand our vision and meet the goals of our company.
I can't stress enough how important OSF Digital has been to us in our growth over time as our revenues continue to multiply. The few times we’ve had application issues, their response time is unparalleled. We wouldn't be able to provide the kind of consistency our customers have come to depend on without OSF. I consider them a true and loyal partner on the front lines as I sell. I would recommend OSF Digital to anyone as their IT solutions provider. They have help propel the eSkill application into a force to be reckoned with.
OSF Digital hit the ground running, taking our original code – which turned out to be shoddy – and rewriting our application that currently serves thousands of corporations worldwide. They have grown from being ‘just’ a strong programming vendor into my most trusted partner in product development, business processes, and analytics. I’m grateful to have been introduced to OSF Digital over 9 years ago.
We outsourced a time-sensitive project to OSF Digital. The team was organized, efficient and technically proficient. I would highly recommend their organization.
The integrations and customization OSF performed for us has been vital to our growth plans. We are now able to add new clients to our system without scaling administrative resources. The system facilitates efficiency and growth which is exactly what we set out to achieve.
Anna and the team helped us implement tracking for AdWords including customised reports. We know our conversion spend and the reports are excellent. We also had some workflows implemented. Having used a few other Salesforce consultants with limited success we were extremely happy with OSF's knowledge and implementation of various tasks and would recommend and use again.
OSF Digital has been providing application support and a managed hosted environment for us for more than five years. Development support has been driven by them from start to finish, and their support is critical to our success. Our hosted environment has been extremely reliable and has been improved to meet our company's fast growth.
We’ve worked with other vendors in the past with varying degrees of success, but because of the deadlines we’d set for porting our application, we knew we needed a stronger partner than ever before. We were pleasantly surprised when we found OSF Digital because they had the exact expertise and communications and technical skills to complete this project within our incredibly tight deadlines and budget, and at such a high level of quality.
Having a partner like OSF Digital has helped us extend the reach of our solutions. Although the OSF team didn’t know much about aviation when we first met, they knew a lot about software development. So teaming with them created a winning combination that is helping us go to market with solutions that meet the needs of our customers.
Everyone who works on this project, as well as the company's CEO, is available 24/7 and 365 days a year. The fact that we were able to work with people as skilled, energized, professional and proactive as everyone at OSF has proven to be a major component in our company's success. We feel confident putting our technology needs in the hands of the OSF team. They go above and beyond to anticipate issues before they occur and interact seamlessly with all members of the DoggedHealth team. They tackle projects with an eye to detail and offer a keen understanding of our larger objectives.
We have been working with OSF to integrate a relational database into our SalesForce portal. From our very first meeting with them, we knew they were the team for us because they were able to immediately recognize our vision. Anna and Delia are extremely dependable, very detailed, and patient. We plan to continue to work with them on future projects!
We used Salesforce for 6 months before we really knew what a beast it was. There were so many things we weren't using to our advantage... but we just didn't know how to make it all work for us. Then we found the OSF Digital team and they have changed the game for us. We told them what we wanted to do, and they provided us with a variety of ideas and options to make it all happen. And when things in our business changed (which they do... often), the OSF team just rolled with the punches and helped to ensure Salesforce was keeping up.I don't know what we'd do without Anna and her team. [Oh wait, yes I do. We'd still be manually updating... everything!] They are patient, completely transparent, they know what they are talking about, and they execute it all brilliantly. We are so glad we found them.
Our revolutionary payment platform requires a highly skilled and diverse development team. OSF Digital provides us with an exemplary team of developers and consultants that seamlessly extend our own resources. The OSF team has proven to be the perfect choice for strengthening our development resources.
We had a great relationship with the OSF team throughout the development process. During the design of the solution some of our initial requirements changed. The OSF team quickly adjusted to those changes and was available to answer any questions we had. Because of the nature of our business, we deal with people every day, so we know how important it is to have positive working relationships. The OSF team made it very easy for us to create a strong partnership.
We contracted OSF to integrate our PHP billing forms with our Salesforce account information. We could not be happier. They have been fast, reliable, and great to work with from beginning to end.
OSF came to the table with a triple-dose of energy, business knowledge and process expertise coupled with technical abilities that complimented our own IT team. OSF was instrumental in helping us achieve our goal, which is to lead an entirely new space intersecting deals, social shopping, data and mobile services.
The whole team, including my contact Anna, were efficient, cost effective, and a pleasure to work with. The OSF team helped us with custom pipelines and reports and even took us through the steps of how to access and pull the information ourselves. We will use them again for any upcoming customization projects as we were grateful for their insights and help. Book with them, you won't regret it!
There is a sea of Salesforce partners out there. Finding one that possesses both technical expertise and the ability to execute in a fast-paced, collaborative environment is a rarity. OSF was extremely efficient, organized and was able to respond to our changing requirements and schedule. We knew that OSF could not only implement Salesforce Communities for us, they had the ability to customize, brand and integrate the solution into our existing ecosystem without disrupting operations.
We are extremely happy with OSF and consider them a true and valued business partner. They helped us develop an application that is unique in the industry and will transform the way companies operate and people perform their jobs. They are core to our business success: we wouldn’t be where we are today without the experience and expertise OSF brought to this project.
Everything that we’ve been developing in the last 9 months has had a very strong purpose and has made our product significantly stronger. And everything we continue to develop will have a very strong impact on the success of our company. We owe a large part of our success to all of you. You are the unsung heroes that allow us to do what we do. Without this team, our product wouldn’t be what it is today. I know that it is sometimes hard to see what you’ve accomplished when you’re buried in the code, but from my angle, everyone on the team has accomplished a lot. I’m very proud to be working with all of you, and look forward to what we can do in 2015.
Working with the OSF team in person made such a difference, because there is so much loss over the phone with someone who is trying to do software development work with you. Moreover, the OSF team was able to alter its work schedules so we could do a daily stand-up, get daily feedback, and get prompt responses on all counts.
We had a great experience with OSF developers, designers and project managers. They helped us realize our ecommerce vision and put the tools in place to make that vision a reality… I never felt like our problems were outside of their scope. I really look forward to working with OSF on future projects.
