BISSELL reimagines a connected mobile experience

BISSELL launches a redesigned mobile app to boost engagement, increase customer satisfaction and deliver an innovative digital experience across 25 markets.

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3
week implementation time
100K
active monthly users
60K
app downloads in first 30 days

BISSELL wanted to modernize its connected product experience with a totally new mobile tech stack and CMS — one that would streamline localization and help support future goals to optimize their web presence. With Contentstack’s headless CMS to consolidate and manage content, BISSELL launched on the platform in weeks, developed a redesigned mobile app, and can now localize in a matter of seconds, providing customers with a robust customer experience that bridges the gap to connect support and e-commerce needs.

The challenge

To foster a direct and ongoing relationship with product end-users, manage the post-purchase journey more intentionally, and engage with customers all around the world, BISSELL had the goal of improving the brand’s digital experience through a redesigned mobile application. 

Traditionally, the mobile app experience had always been a digital extension of the physical products — but BISSELL is on a journey to create a reality where both e-commerce and customer support goals can be met via the mobile app and with a 5-star brand experience. The company was looking to update its mobile tech stack, with a secondary focus on improving personalization and localization. They started out with homegrown solutions for mobile, but as a result, found it increasingly difficult to translate for different markets to engage customers most effectively. 

Another key consideration for adopting a headless technology stack was redesigning their web experience. While the immediate priority was mobile, a robust content management solution (CMS) would be able to bridge both worlds, and enable growth in both tech stacks. “Consolidation of content management was clearly a huge opportunity for us”, David Baarman, Associate Director Digital Product, said. “We knew that we could punch at a level above our weight class by having content consolidation and being able to connect the mobile and web experience.”

With this in mind, BISSELL began looking for a new CMS that would ensure the product experience was excellent on both web and mobile — and then make it simple to expand that experience internationally. 

The solution

With experience in homegrown technology, BISSELL was drawn originally to an open-source solution that the business could host themselves. However, this became prohibitive in terms of costs very quickly and caused heavy overheads in terms of network configuration. BISSELL found themselves facing a lot of challenges, including downtime, poor user experience and maintenance costs.

“We spent close to a year struggling with [the previous] solution and realized we needed an alternative”, Aaron Pittenger, Sr. Manager - IOT, said. “But because we were transitioning from a system without restrictions, our content types were on the larger side, and we found porting the content over a challenge. Then we came to Contentstack, and from the first conversation to full implementation — all content in the system and ready for mobile — it took three weeks. It was so seamless and easy, it became very difficult to say no at that point!”

The ease of a cloud-hosted system, architected and managed behind the scenes so that BISSELL could focus on the app experience itself made Contentstack the clear choice.

BISSELL went live with its new mobile app in November 2023, with all content, images, PDFs, user guides and tutorials for all relevant BISSELL products entirely driven by Contentstack. Customers can use the app to interact with connected products efficiently and alleviate the stress of maintenance needs such as purchasing parts, getting product support or checking warranties.

Behind the scenes, the content translation process has been dramatically streamlined, making it easier for BISSELL to release new features, or validate translations quickly for specific markets. In regard to quality control, the environment configuration tools allow BISSELL to test, get feedback and ensure updates are looking good with optimal efficiency, and retain full management over the content being released.

“I love how we don’t have to involve development to tweak text or add a graphic,” Baarman said. “With the headless piece of it, any business user can go in, adjust the content as they see fit, or reorder content with built-in tools. That is leaps and bounds better than what we had before.”

The results

With Contentstack, we’re moving towards consolidation of content across all digital touchpoints, so that we can truly meet customers where they are. There are hundreds more BISSELL products that we can bring into the app. By doing that, we can bridge the two sides of the consumer experience, product support and e-commerce, in whatever format customers want, so that anyone who uses any BISSELL product can get the support they need.
Aaron Pittenger
Sr. Manager - IOT, BISSELL

BISSELL now has 50 different content types and 250 content entries associated with those types. This is all localized across nine major languages and 25 markets. By consolidating the content and capabilities for both web and mobile, BISSELL is confident about the next stage — continued growth on mobile, web optimization and scale. Today, Contentstack has helped the business achieve:

  • Localization in seconds: Before transitioning to Contentstack, the process of translation and localization could take anywhere from two weeks to two months. Today, it is done in seconds.
  • Reduced costs: Previous solutions struck the budget hard, with heavy development effort needed to maintain the system. BISSELL has had zero support tickets with Contentstack since launch, and 100% uptime in-app.
  • Robust customer experience: When something breaks in the content pipeline, this can’t help but manifest in a poor customer experience. BISSELL has eliminated those challenges entirely, and the app attracts 100,000 monthly users.
Customer Details

About

BISSELL is committed to helping people and their pets share happy, healthy homes. From patenting the improved carpet sweeper in 1876 to debuting the revolutionary CrossWave® wet-dry cleaning machine 140 years later, BISSELL continues to thoughtfully innovate pet-inspired products for every type of home, delivering a true clean you can see, feel and smell. Family-owned with a unique dedication to and love for pets, BISSELL® is the pet-inspired homecare brand you can feel good about purchasing. Through its support of BISSELL Pet Foundation®, every purchase of a BISSELL product helps save a homeless pet in need.

Industry

Retail & e-commerce

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