Supporting premium chauffeur service with a digital booking app

TheCar is a young company with big ambitions. With a current taxi park of 11 vehicles, they plan to expand to several Swedish cities and increase their car count to 400 cars to serve their clients within a few years. TheCar’s vision is to provide a personal and exceptional chauffeur service. Their clients have dedicated drivers and are always transported in premium electric cars, contributing to more sustainable transportation. As the company was expanding rapidly, they needed to optimize the booking process, making it faster and more convenient.  

TheCar was looking for a partner who would not only develop the application they need but also shares their mission and values and suggests improvements helping them achieve their goal; to create the best chauffeur service booking application in the world.

Sigma Technology’s team, headed by Anders Dahl, started with the requirements investigation to start the app development. During this process, the team also identified steps/phases of the booking process that could be digitalized to ensure the best client experience and optimize booking management for TheCar.  

The team chose a PWA (Progressive Web Application) to ensure that the launch would be smooth and fast. PWA allows downloading the applications on both mobile and web. The web solution is hosted on Microsoft Azure and Signal-R is used to keep certain pages updated in real-time. This solution has the advantage of being fast time-to-market and helps clients to maintain the same features on mobile and web.

The developed web application acts as several services:

• A booking app for the end customer where they can book their trips, and review their details and history. Based on the users’ permission level, they can also add and manage other users on their subscription. The app has a sleeker and more modern look. 
• A dispatch system for dispatching staff to receive bookings and plan them based on the available cars and drivers. The service has a more functional design where the way of working is the most important. This service is designed to allow employees easily plan and coordinate the work on the back office without unnecessary functions. 
• The drivers have their own interface where they can see and manage the rides planned for them and directly report back if anything unexpected occurs. 
• The entire system is administered by the super administrator and allows adjusting prices, subscriptions, cars, schedules, etc. 

The team has divided the development process into three stages. First, we have set up a development and test environment, secondly, we have revised booking management, and finally, we have developed a client application. The agile way of working on the process with regular sprints allowed us to work more transparently. It also meant that the client could follow the development process and comment on the features as soon as they come up. 

“TheCar is very positive about slightly different and innovative features and really wants to be at the forefront when it comes to technology.  TheCar is a bold company and using newest technologies is essential for them. We have many exciting updates to work on, such as the implementation of SMS and telephony services, integration with invoicing services, Mobile BankId and card payments,” shares Anders Dahl. “TheCar treats us as a cooperation partner and wants us to share knowledge and feedback on all their technical decisions and solutions. This has been a success factor in our cooperation and gives us a sense of ownership on the project that is vital for dedication, trust, and flexibility.”

When all customers start using our new system, TheCar will save several minutes of work for each booking!  

The first version of the app is already on the market and clients have already registered in the system. The Sigma Technology team is following up by conducting a UX analysis of the client’s workflow to find potential improvements and further areas for digitalization.