Building a mobile app to make spring breaks even better

Pollen, the owner of JusCollege, helps marketers create successful word-of-mouth sales programs for their events by engaging fans and influencers to sell tickets and promote experiences. Established in 2011, Pollen has raised over $30 million in funding and collaborated with over 700 brands on more than 5,000 event campaigns through its network of 200,000 ambassadors.

JusCollege is an online platform that organizes spring break trips for college students. We created a mobile application that helps them take full advantage of the available services and attractions.

Business

JusCollege organizes spring break trips on a large scale; they span over thousands of college students who spread between several hotels offering different packages and attractions. The company was looking to improve its service quality and boost customer engagement by providing students with a mobile app where they could see all the available attractions, create a daily schedule, and get support.

Technology

The primary technology challenge was the quick creation of a mobile app with maximum use of ready-made SaaS solutions such as:

• Prismic - a CMS platform that lets users define data in any shape and expose it through GraphQL API. That’s where we located all data about bars, restaurants, events, concerts, and other attractions.
• Sendbird - a ready-made backend system for building an online chat. It services channel creation, moderation, user blocking, and other functionalities.
• Imgix - photography scaling as a service.

We created a mobile application where students can view a daily schedule to plan meals, take advantage of the available attractions, and take part in events. They can easily see which elements are part of their package and which ones they need to purchase. Users get a list of bars and restaurants, as well as a functional map with all the locations to help in planning.

The app also displays Instagram posts marked with the branded hashtag #juscollegecabo. The company organizes a daily contest for the best picture, and customers can see the winner inside the app. The app also offers group chat options for colleges and student organizations. Users can easily get in touch with the support team to ask questions and get help when necessary.