Ask the experts: What are the key areas we need to consider when creating a salon App?
We’re keen to create an app for our salon – what are the key areas we need to consider?
When I approach salons to tell them about BEEM, I often say that 10 years ago I would have been talking to them about a website, five years ago I would have been telling them about social media and now I am talking to them about adding an app to their digital portfolio. Not only is it important to tap into the current online habits of your customers but it’s also essential to monitor and maintain advertising and customer service service, which can be done more accurately than ever, via an app. If you’re considering creating a platform for your salon there are several decisions you have to make before you commission the service, namely deciding on the user interface, functionality and hosting.
Firstly, I would suggest working with a company in the UAE (plenty of them can be found in Knowledge Village, Dubai) rather than outsourcing to cheaper countries like Asia or India, as is very common in optimisation and positioning and therefore downloads. If you already have a website with an online booking section use it to create your wireframes (also known as building blocks), which map out exactly how the functionality of your portal will work. Keep in mind your current scheduling system and check with your developer as to how this will be intergrated into the backend of the app − in case something happens to it you don’t want your whole booking system going down at the same time. From the initial planning stage to first launch the whole process should take around six to eight months, depending on how complex you want the system to be. Post launch, the updates and costs of maintaining your app should increase if it starts to become a primary booking platform for your customers, so be warned that even after you’ve paid for the app to be built costs will keep rolling in.
Small bug and display fixes are common in the first few months of being live but listening to customer feedback and tracking their habits within the app will let the app world. This may be a viable option if you’re creating a basic game or simple web-to-app conversion but, as with everything in life, you get what you pay for and what you may save financially in the short term will equal long-term headaches with language barriers and often shoddy work. You also need to know whether or not you are going to launch immediately on both Android and iOS or release one before the other, both situations have benefits and downfalls. Even though women in the UAE largely prefer iOS to Android (roughly 60 per cent versus 40 per cent). I would suggest launching cross-platform straight away if you can − even though it will be more costly this will help give you maximum initial traction, leading to higher app store you know exactly what functionality needs to be improved and upgraded in order to keep the customers coming back. Once you commit to an app you’ll also need to be aware of what Android and Apple upgrades are coming up through your developer accounts to make sure your system stays compatible, this is no easy feat and even in the last Apple software update the Safari (Internet Explorer) app failed to work on a number of phones worldwide. Overall it can be a time-consuming and costly process but keeping up with the new wave of digitally-savvy women will not only widen your customer base but will also make sure you stay ahead of the competition.
Samantha Hamilton-Rushforth is the founder of BEEM, Dubai’s beauty salon-booking app. Having spent the past 20 years in the Middle East between Saudi Arabia and Dubai, Hamilton-Rushforth has an extensive knowledge of regional market demands. A former fashion and beauty editor, Hamilton-Rushforth left her post at Emirates Woman to found BEEM with the intention of creating Dubai’s first digital beauty concierge.
Read the feature in the March issue of Professional Beauty magazine here