Every campus is different, every cafeteria is different, and student needs are all different. That is why being flexible is the name of the game when it comes to a campus mobile app. You need to be able to make changes on the fly, drive student behavior, and ultimately create an app that works best with your campus. Adding a third party app that doesn’t cater to each school’s unique needs can be ineffective, and difficult to work with. That’s why building a campus branded app with all the features third party apps only individually offer is the way to go. It’s a home for everything with your name on the door.
Hangry’s API
With Hangry’s loyalty and rewards feature, coupled with our API (Application Programming Interface) we allow any auxiliary service to communicate with our system and securely add loyalty points to any user’s profile—which ultimately drives behavior. To learn more about how you can drive behavior through our loyalty feature, click here. An API is a set of commands, functions, protocols and objects that programmers can use to create software or interact with an external system. It provides developers with standard commands for performing common operations. That way, they do not have to write the code from scratch.
This is extremely convenient for the campus because of how flexible it allows the operations to be. For example, if a student prints something off a copy machine at the library, the campus could send us the student ID and the amount of points they’d like to allocate on the backend, and we can apply those points to the student’s account.
How Does It Work?
This interface also allows us to work with existing applications. Let’s say the campus has a parking app and a student has just paid for their parking. That parking app can use our API on the backend to send us the student ID and transaction amount. We will then apply loyalty points to that account. It also doesn’t matter what system the campus is running on, or what technology is being used. The REST API allows us to work with any different programming language or system—flexibility is the name of the game. We recognize every campus is unique and has different technology stacks. The campus is able to kick the loyalty points over to our system, so all campus-wide loyalty is housed in one place.
As the campus grows with their mobile strategy, those points can eventually be used in broader contexts. What do we mean by this? Well, campuses can essentially start applying points where ever they see fit in order to drive behavior. Points can even be allocated for retail locations or the book store; it doesn’t matter what system is being used. The campus simply kicks over the points on our API back end, and then we can apply those points to any specific user ID. Most importantly, the campus controls all the loyalty points and determines how these points are assigned, and what they are redeemed for. You can even build your own rewards store filled with campus merchandise, tickets, coupons, and gift cards etc. to boost marketing and provide on-campus incentives for your students.
We Want to Help
Our goal is to provide the ultimate flexibility for your campus allowing you to essentially assign points anywhere. With the flexibility of this process, the options are endless in terms of point allocation and driving student behaviour. Hangry’s system can be used as both a loyalty and marketing tool that leaves tons of room for your own creativity. For example, if a campus wants to promote attendance they can have students scan a barcode when they’re entering a classroom. Then, they’re automatically rewarded a certain amount of points on their profile.
At the end of the day you are left with two options.
1. Bring on multiple different apps that offer multiple different services to your students. This means asking students to download a number of different apps to cater to the services they offer.
2. House all the features of these third-party apps under one umbrella. Thus you are in control and you call the shots.
We know the answer is simple. However, if you’re not convinced, feel free to peruse the following links:
- Campus Mobile Apps – Why Your Brand is Better
- The Best Campus Dining Customer Service with Hangry
- Minimize Mistakes with Hangry’s Mobile Ordering
- Loyalty and Rewards Program: For Campus Dining and Auxiliary Services
- Hangry Unveils Campus Branded App + More!
