Success Story – Tandem

Intro

Tandem is an award-winning language exchange app that helps users learn a new language by matching them with native speakers for conversation. Named one of Google Play’s “Best Apps of 2017”

Status

When contact was made with AppInChina, Tandem had already been publishing a free version of their app on the Chinese market since 2015 but had not yet offered payments in China. They had tried to integrate WeChat Pay themselves, but discovered difficulties with the documentation and requirements for overseas companies and eventually gave up the attempt.

Challenge

Our main goal was to set up Tandem with a mobile payments system that would provide the maximum number of options for Chinese users, which meant integrating both WeChat Pay and Alipay into the app. WeChat Pay and Alipay work differently in Mainland China than abroad, so even simply setting up accounts with these companies requires a lot of deep paperwork and usually requires some understanding of Mandarin Chinese and China policy to navigate. Once the payments are integrated into the app, testing on the Mainland with Chinese devices and Chinese payment accounts is necessary to ensure the integration was successful, which is inconvenient for companies to accomplish without physically flying to China.

Outcome

The AppInChina team worked with Tandem to get the many documents and details required to set up accounts with these payment systems, and provided technical support to assist with integrating the WeChat Pay and Alipay SDKs.

Due to some conflicts at the time with Tandem’s current WeChat account, WeChat Pay integration proved to be more time consuming for the company. So the company decided to integrate Alipay payments and add WeChat Pay at a later date, once other projects are complete. Internal deliberations and workload at Tandem extended the typical 2-3 week process to two months, but AppInChina was able to answer all questions and provide the resources to help Tandem’s stakeholders make informed decisions.

We provided testing in China on Chinese devices to ensure payments would work successfully for Chinese Alipay accounts. We also set up analytics in the AppInChina dashboard for Tandem to track usage and payments in English and export the transaction data to their own financial system.Tandem also decided to implement AppInChina’s Analytics platform for website analytics and download tracking after experiencing unreasonable slowness and inefficiencies with Chinese systems, and has since used our marketing and user acquisition services as well.

To date, approximately 50% of Tandem’s pro-app subscriptions come from China.

Feedback

“We were a bit surprised by the requirements – how many details and how many deep documents we had to provide to get this done in China. But we are also happy that AppInChina offered its dashboard – and transparency – to get this done efficiently and well.

“My experience was great working with you. It is a huge plus when we need professional insight on the China side. Not just apps, but also marketing and other items, like user acquisition. We can only find limited resources online, but AppInChina provided us with deep insights. When we need someone to reach out immediately without a time delay, they are always available. I recommend you guys to all our friends!”

— Grace Wu, Growth & Marketing Manager at Tandem