PlanInsta

In order to create a middle ground between beauty salons and customers our proposal is to develop a web platform that could handle the way appointments are made.
Businesses will be able to promote their services within the application and so the clients would have a way to find the best salon that suits their needs.
The platform will have an integrated calendar for the customers to see the empty slots for each salon and make it easier for them to get confirmation for an appointment.
Also, a reviewing system will be integrated within the platform that will allow service providers and clients to rate each other. This will offer clients the possibility to express their thoughts and make better decisions when searching for an appointment and will also add some consequences for the clients (e.g. if they cancel an appointment without notice).

As our initial solution was supposed to be used both by the beauty and wellness centers and their potential customers, we decided to split the problem validation in 2 different parts.
On one hand, we wanted to validate the customers' problem that currently they cannot find easily a place that fits their needs.
On the other hand, we wanted to check how widespread Adrian's problem regarding clients that don't show up is.

The form that was shared is firstly focused to find out more about the most commonly used methods of scheduling an appointment, level of satisfaction, the key elements in choosing a new salon and what are the most important features that our solution should have.
Also, because we wanted to identify what other problems the customers are facing and how they would solve these, we added some open questions which will allow us to rethink the solution in order to fix as many problems as possible.
The link to this form can be found here and the raw answers can be found here.

We succeded to collect 271 answers to our survey by sharing our form in Facebook groups, on our personal Linkedin or Facebook profiles or by sending direct messages to our friends and asking them to also spread our form among their acquaintances.
If you don't believe us, here are some proofs:

The age distribution of our survey subjects was the following:

The following charts present what services people are scheduling the most for and what the key elements in choosing a salon are:

When asked about reviews, we obtained the following results:

For the questions regarding the appointment method, people answered as follows:

If somebody chose the option about mobile apps or online platforms for making appointments in the previous questions, we asked him/her to tell us what solution are they using. The results are shown in the following table:

To find out which would be the best alternative, an online platform or a mobile application, we asked them what would be their choice:

Also, to see find out the most important features that our solution should have, people had to choose only 3 options from the given list:

In order to see if people are willing to pay for services in advance, we address them the following question:

For the open question regarding what other problems they are facing, we obtained 138 answers. After summarizing them, we were left with the following problems:

Also, for the open question regarding the possible solutions, we obtained 117 answers. After summarizing them, we obtained the following possible solutions:

Finally, because we wanted to see how many people are really interested in our solution, we asked them to provide us an e-mail address in case they want to get notified about our progress.
The result is that 55 people wanted to find out when our solution is out, which is more than we expected!

The form that was shared is focused to find out how the beauty and wellness centers manage and keep track of their appointments and, also, how satisfied they are with the current method and whether they are willing to change this method with an online platform or not. Furthermore, because we wanted to identify what other problems the salons are facing and how they would solve these, we added some open questions which will allow us to rethink the solution in order to fix as many problems as possible.
The link to this form can be found here. and the raw answers can be found here.

The process of sharing the form to beauty and wellness centers was very hard and during this process, we had faced a lot of problems.
Firstly, we tried to send emails to 230 salons...

After analyzing the survey data, we noticed that the majority of people would prefer a mobile application. In this way, we understood that we need to be very careful at our WEB Application as this should be mobile responsive and easy to use from a mobile device. Also, we need to invest some time in developing a mobile application compatible with both the Android and iOS Operating Systems.

Since we focused on solving the appointment problems for the beauty and wellness centers, we omitted some quite common problems of the clients with delayed and rescheduled appointments by the salons. Therefore, we decided that we should implement client notification and payment refund system (if applicable) in case of such an event.

Another problem noticed in the process of analyzing the survey data is the lack of reviews. Almost all people want to find and read the reviews of a beauty and wellness center, but very few of them are willing to write an evaluation of a purchased service or product.
Consequently, we must implement a rating system similar to the one from Uber applications where, after an ended appointment, a client will be requested to rate the salon and to check some customized qualities of the staff to be as useful as possible for the future clients.

As a result of the search for survey answers, we come across freelancers in this field who cannot afford to rent a place and who would like an application that offers them the possibility to offer services at the clients’ home. However, this involves many legal considerations and requires a thorough analysis on our part to find a solution to this problem.

Unfortunately, we are still not ready to move on to the Customer Validation stage as we noticed some contradictory aspects after collecting information from customer segments.
Firstly, we came up with the idea of an advance payment in order to ensure service providers that clients will attend their appointments.
After analyzing the answers to the forms, we concluded that even though it is a desired solution by the beauty and wellness businesses, clients are not willing to pay money ahead of time.
Secondly, although most of the clients are satisfied with their current method of getting an appointment at a salon, they still encounter some unpleasant situations that could find a solution within our application.
Therefore, we need to rethink our solution in order to cover as many of the identified problems as possible and become a desirable connection between clients and businesses that will benefit both sides.