Socar
SOCAR - the State Oil Company of Azerbaijan - is Georgia’s largest oil product importer, operating the country’s most extensive network of gas stations and Waymart stores. SOCAR is a brand that connects with millions of customers monthly, making loyalty management critical not only for consumers but also for their marketing team.
This wasn’t just about building an app for collecting and redeeming points - it was about delivering a powerful platform for SOCAR’s marketing department to create, manage, and execute loyalty campaigns that engage their customers like never before.
We are responsible for
Scope:
Dedicated Agile Team
Team:
7 people
Duration:
10 months
Challenge
SOCAR’s existing loyalty tools left much to be desired. On the consumer side, the app was clunky and unintuitive, failing to deliver a seamless experience. Customers struggled to manage their Energy Cards, track points, and find relevant offers.
On the business side, SOCAR’s marketing team lacked the tools to design and execute effective loyalty programs. They needed a comprehensive system to create campaigns with custom rules, target specific customer segments, and automate communications - all while increasing engagement and improving customer retention across their vast network of gas stations and Waymart stores.
Solution
We delivered a dual-purpose platform: a sleek mobile app for customers and a robust Loyalty Program Management System for SOCAR’s marketing team.
For consumers, the app makes loyalty easy. From managing Energy Cards to tracking points, exploring offers, and even fueling up via QR code, everything is now at their fingertips.
For SOCAR’s marketing team, we built a Filament-powered administration system that empowers them to:
- Design loyalty campaigns with custom rules and rewards.
- Segment customers for personalized offers, push notifications, and SMS automations.
- Analyze performance and adjust strategies in real-time.
Together, these tools modernize SOCAR’s loyalty ecosystem, enhancing both customer satisfaction and business efficiency.
Energy Card Management
Customers can easily add, block, or replace their Energy Cards via the app. For SOCAR’s team, the Filament admin panel provides full control over card management processes, ensuring seamless operations behind the scenes.
Offers, vouchers and gifts
Users can explore a range of tailored offers available at SOCAR stations or Waymart stores, which can be found directly within the app. Each offer comes with a unique set of requirements, and once completed, users are rewarded with vouchers—like discounts or “buy one, get one” deals—that can be redeemed at any Socar and Waymart location. Users can also earn bonus Energy Card points as gifts from Socar, such as receiving 100 points when filling up 10 liters of fuel.
Location and Branch Finder
The app provides a map view of all SOCAR stations across Georgia, with geolocation capabilities to show users the nearest branches. Each branch listing includes detailed information on available services, fuel prices, and more. Users can also filter branches by station type (standard, self-service), service offerings (Waymart, restroom access), and fuel types (Premium, Super, LPG) to find exactly what they need.
Fuel up with QR
At any SOCAR station, users can simply scan a QR code - either with their device’s camera or the app’s built-in scanner - to start fueling up. Once fueling is complete, users can instantly view details within the app, including how much fuel they’ve pumped, the points earned, and savings accumulated. They also have the option to provide feedback on their experience.
Transaction History
Users can access a detailed history of their transactions, whether it's fuel purchases, Waymart store items, or point transfers to other users. Users can filter their transactions by category and view overall statistics, such as the total amount of fuel purchased and the savings they've accumulated through the app.
Loyalty Campaign Management
SOCAR’s marketing team can now create campaigns with tailored rules and rewards. Want to reward customers who refuel 20 liters in a week? Or those who buy from Waymart stores? It’s all possible through the system’s powerful campaign-building tools.
Involvement & Process
Discovery & Requirements Gathering
The Loyalty Program Management System and Mobile App backend required deep integration with SOCAR’s core systems.
We kicked off the project with comprehensive workshops and interviews with SOCAR stakeholders to define clear requirements. These sessions allowed us to map out all necessary services and API endpoints for integration, ensuring compatibility with SOCAR’s existing infrastructure.
Charting user flows helped us pinpoint integration points and identify where adjustments or new endpoints were needed to meet the project’s requirements. This groundwork set the stage for smooth communication between the app and SOCAR’s systems.
Data Integration and Architecture
With requirements defined, we moved into system architecture design.
For loyalty program management, we developed a Filament-based interface tailored to SOCAR’s business needs. To handle the complex business logic and ensure secure communication with SOCAR’s core systems, we built an intermediary service layer. This layer aggregates data from SOCAR’s internal services and securely makes it available to the app.
A key milestone was enabling communication with gas station fuel dispensers, allowing fueling sessions to be initiated through the app. For streamlined API communication, we utilized Saloon, a PHP library that treats each API request as an object, ensuring clean and maintainable code.
Backend Development
The backend, built with Laravel and Filament, powers the mobile app and SOCAR’s Loyalty Program Management System. Filament provided a streamlined way to create the admin panel, ensuring an intuitive interface for SOCAR’s marketing team to manage loyalty campaigns and customer data.
We developed a comprehensive API for the mobile app and additional services for loyalty program and payment method management. These APIs are now utilized across SOCAR’s ecosystem, supporting other web platforms beyond the app.
Our development process followed best practices, using Laravel Pint for linting, PHPStan for static analysis, and Pest for testing. API documentation was generated using Laravel Request Doc, ensuring clear and accessible documentation for future integrations.
Frontend Development
The SOCAR mobile app was built using React Native, providing a seamless cross-platform experience that balances performance and user experience. To manage the app’s complex state requirements, we integrated Redux Toolkit, ensuring efficient and scalable state management across various features.
For improved development efficiency and error reduction, the app was developed in Typescript, offering robust type safety and enhancing code readability. To streamline form interactions, we utilized Formik, which simplified the handling of user inputs and validation processes. Additionally, we created a React Native version of Laravel Precognition, enabling efficient and real-time validation of form data directly in the app.
The entire build and deployment process was fully automated, ensuring smooth and consistent releases across all environments.
DevOps
Our infrastructure was built using an Infrastructure as Code approach with CloudFormation, Ansible, Docker, and AWS ECS. We also utilized AWS services like S3 and Elasticache for storage and caching needs.
We established CI/CD pipelines powered by GitHub Actions, automating the build, test, and deployment processes for both the backend and mobile app. These pipelines spanned four environments: development, staging, pre-release, and production.
Integrations with Slack and Jira streamlined communication, with automated notifications for successful deployments and environment updates.
Meet the authors
We are a 200+ people agency and provide product design, software development, and creative growth marketing services to companies ranging from fresh startups to established enterprises. Our work has earned us 100+ international awards, partnerships with Laravel, Vue, Meta, and Google, and the title of Georgia’s agency of the year in 2019 and 2021.
