Gamification of a customer loyalty platform for a retail business

Spindy is a US-based company that specializes in customer engagement through gamification. They design marketing strategies for retail businesses that encourage further spending and improve customer retention.

Spindy is a novel take on the retail gamification model. Instead of providing instant standardized bonuses and gifts, it gives customers a chance to win cashback up to 100% on any purchase from a participating business. The name Spindy comes from the main action users take — spinning the rewards wheel in the mobile app.

Spindy kicked off with infrastructure issues — the bank our client chose for transactions did not have an API. We had to develop an algorithm to generate encrypted files and send them to the bank instead.
On the project itself we needed to develop a custom algorithm to balance rewards, so users could win up to 100% cashback while keeping the average reward below a threshold set by the merchant. Finally, the project required a complex process of rewards verification and payouts, which are semi-automated and take up to two weeks.

Our work was divided into three main parts: the back end, web admin panel for merchants, and admin panel for the super admin. Moreover, we spent a lot of time developing the rewards algorithm and integrating the app with the bank.
All system features and algorithms were properly documented by our business analyst to ease change management and onboarding for new project participants.