CASE STUDY
SoberBuddy
Virtual Chatbot-Coach
How do you rally support for people struggling with drug and alcohol abuse on a national level? Certified addiction specialists Paul Brethen and Tara Schiller co-founded SoberBuddy, an evidence-based drug and alcohol recovery chatbot.
10% treated
Only 10% of 21m Americans with addictions are treated.
$600b per year
Addictions cost the U.S. economy over $600b per year.
3x overdose
Drug overdose deaths have tripled since 1990.
A recent study found that patients who put themselves through “cognitive behavioral therapy” (CBT) using computer training modules reduced their drug and alcohol use as much as patients who received it through a clinician, and more than traditional methods.*
Fixing Chatbot’s Empathy
Our job was to take over a shaky prototype from the previous team and turn it into a thriving commercial app. We knew that the key to success was a chatbot that could empathize with the user like a real therapist.
Virtual Therapy Works
9.18%
Subscription rate
3x higher than the average install-to-subscription rate
58%
Retention rate
Compared to the industry’s 30% benchmark.
42%
Churn rate
Compared to the industry's 71% benchmark
Key Features
Daily bite-sized challenges
Support for medically assisted treatment
Works with other treatment models or on its own
In-app journal
Sober tracker
Tips and motivation
Giving Bot a Second Life
But before SoberBuddy turned into an empathetic chatbot, we had to deal with a multitude of bugs and UX/UI flaws.
Working with legacy code is always a challenge, especially when working with a cross-platform mobile app, but fortunately we have plenty of experience in this area.
We had to ditch buggy Dialogflow code and basically rebuilt SoberBuddy from the ground up, shifting from Ionic-Angular to Ionic-React along the way. That made it easier to maintain and upgrade the app.
To help the founders manage dialogs, we also built a CMS that visualizes a complex decision tree and streamlines the bot management.
Toolchain for Building a Successful Chatbot
Ionic-Angular
Laravel
Sentry.io
Ionic-React
AWS CloudFront
RevenueCat
Keeping in mind the monetization goal, we also integrated the app with RevenueCat. The tool enabled in-app subscriptions and provided SoberBuddy co-founders with insights into purchases and other in-app data across iOS and Android.
The result is a virtual recovery coach living in patients’ phones and taking care of his buddies as the COVID-19 pandemic settles down.
“We have 30% higher relapse rates, and isolation
and loneliness are some of the biggest reasons for relapse.”
Tara Schiller, SoberBuddy co-founder
Modernizing Group Recovery
Besides adding new features to personalize the recovery journey, we continue working on a group membership portal. The portal will allow nonprofit organizations to distribute the chatbot among its members and view anonymized stats on their group’s dynamics.
As you’d imagine, these efforts will help the SoberBuddy foundation reach more people, and we are proud to be part of this healing process.
Are you looking to
build a top-performing app?
We are a California-based mobile app development company that gets what your customers need. Let’s discuss how we can make their experiences more engaging.
© 2023 Topflight LLC. All rights reserved. Topflight is an equal opportunity employer.
© 2023 Topflight Foundation. Topflight Foundation is a 501(c)(3) and all donations are tax-deductible. EIN 82-2671514
Total Cost: 2,500 hours
Length: 1 year 3 months
Type: Prototype, Development, Ongoing
MVP v1: 600 hours, 4 months
Type: Prototype, Development, Ongoing
Length: 1 year 3 months
Total Cost: 2,500 hours
MVP v1: 600 hours, 4 months
RECENT POSTS