T-Mobile’s app delivers news and information while connecting 50,000 employees

The challenge for a mobile carrier to create a useful employee mobile app is daunting. The mere fact that T-Mobile is the fastest-growing wireless company in the US meant the bar was high for delivering an app that held its own alongside some of the best apps customers (and employees) were installing on their phones.

Characteristically, T-Mobile delivered with an app called T-Nation that fundamentally put a built-from-scratch intranet on every one of T-Mobile’s 50,000 employees’ handsets. The app fulfills its basic role of delivering interesting and useful news and information. It also provides quick access to vacation time, schedules, saved information, links, and other personalized material. Employees can see what executives have been posting to their social media accounts. An internal Instagram-like feature lets employees share photos and messages. Employees can choose feeds to follow along with their own departments’ feeds, creating a tailored collection of relevant content. The app also serves as a social platform with group and 1:1 messaging.

An employee and store directory rounds out the collection of functions available in T-Nation. Since T-Nation’s launch, the company has seen a significant improvement in communication between call center staff and retail employees. How are they using it? A call center employee can text a staffer at a particular store saying, “I’m talking to a customer who lives near you. He needs a particular device. Do you have it in stock?”

The app attracted nearly 8,000 visits in the month following its launch and more than 74,000 at the time the entry was submitted. Twenty thousand messages were shared by employees in the first month and growth accelerates at more than 10% per week. That kind of adoption of a classy-looking app earns T-Mobile our 2017 Employee Communication award for employee app.