In a market with high use of smartphones but still, in the early stages of adopting electronic wallets and QR payments, YPF wanted to connect with customers to facilitate a memorable experience on the move and strengthen its retail business. None of its competitors were offering a similar solution.

With advances in digital technology continually redefining what customers can expect, YPF needed to generate greater value from each customer interaction through the effective use of technology and analysis of data. In order to do so, YPF needed to complete an internal transformation by becoming more agile and comfortable with change and increasing the emphasis placed on customer engagement and service excellence.

The new digital ecosystem needed to enable the physical and digital worlds to connect and form a single, easily accessible point for customers and employees, particularly those using gas stations. YPF focused on maximizing convenience and removing barriers to improve their users’ experience. The solutions aimed to consider all aspects of the gas station experience – the weather, ergonomics, materials and textures, sounds and smells, distance traveled, and more – to ensure no detail of the customer or employee experience was left unimproved.

Our challenge was to connect people and craft memorable experiences by leveraging technology to create a simple, end-to-end solution. However, dated processes and operations made this more challenging. As a solution, we came up with two different approaches that could work seamlessly to reimagine the overall YPF experience: one for clients and one for YPF collaborators.

In order to create these solutions, we worked with three areas of the organization: business, technology, and retail experience. We conducted research and observation of industry case studies and envisioned a framework that enabled the organization to develop a holistic understanding of its current situation and how the dynamics of collaboration and co-creation across departments would lead to success. A vision for the program was defined, leading to the definition of business initiatives that would help the company meet its stated objectives. Then, we got to work on the agile execution of these initiatives.

We decided to tackle a heterogeneous tech stack and come up with an innovative solution for the industry: an agnostic cloud layer integrating every provider in the ecosystem. This breakthrough boosted the brand’s vision of providing state-of-the-art product innovation while delivering a frictionless experience across multiple touchpoints.