• by Mark Walsh  @markfwal, August 21, 2013

Leading off the final day of the Mobile Insider Summit, Amit Shah, VP, mobile and social, at 1-800-Flowers.com explains the company’s approach to mobile development styled after coding “hackathons.” The online retailer has expanded that concept to run “user hackathons”—intense two-day sessions it typically holds once every two weeks or so across with staff across multiple departments to figure out how to make the user experience better. Each hackathon focuses on a different element of the customer journey.

Shah admitted that pulling these collaborative sessions together hasn’t been easy but has paid off with better user experiences in mobile that have led to improved ROI. He noted that an effort to reduce the steps to ordering flowers and other gifts on Mother's Day via mobile led to a 20% lift in conversions. It also saw higher conversion rates at Christmas and Valentine's Day. "Make the experience better for users, it wil translate into better business outcomes," he said.