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Why your Barbershop needs a ready-to-use mobile app?

A variety of companies nowadays are enjoying the benefits of having the mobile app for their businesses and the Barber industry is no exception. With the booking mobile app, the clients of the barbershops can easily schedule the appointments in a few clicks and get reminded about them while the business owners don’t need to worry that they’re losing some customers (as some of the calls might be missed by the receptionists).

While the value of having the booking app for barbers has already been proven, the most common dilemma which stands before any business owner is whether to develop a custom mobile app from scratch or use a templated solution. With the current mainstream of “sharing economy”, another alternative variant became available: monthly or yearly usage of the mobile app developed by a software provider. Let’s consider all three options in detail and compare and define which of them is the most compatible with the Barbershop business:

Option # 1. Custom mobile app for your Barbershop.

Custom mobile apps are usually developed  from scratch by a dedicated team of developers and optimised exclusively to the needs of a particular business, including a unique design and set of features optimising the work of a definite Barbershop. From one side, the development of the custom mobile app sounds like the most flexible approach, as there are no limitations in implementing functionalities, design ideas and further updates to distinguish the Barbershop among the competitors. At the same time, the business owner needs to invest a pretty big budget, while the development team spends a pretty big amount of time (needed for the actual app design, development, testing and deployment). As a result,  this option turns into an expensive and time-consuming journey for both: the business owner and the team of developers.

Speaking about the most common features needed for a Barbershop app, here they are: booking and rescheduling appointments feature, “Photo Gallery” and leave review feature, notifying about the upcoming appointments and “Contact us” feature, etc.  Taking all of them into account, they don’t sound too complicated and don’t need to be always developed from scratch. So, let’s consider a templated mobile solution and how it can be applied to the Barbershop.

Option # 2. Templated mobile solution.

Templated mobile solution is the off-the-shelf software, which includes the most essential functionalities for the business and can be applied to the Barbershop as soon as it has been bought. However, to set up the purchased app template and organise its correct work, you’ll need to hire a development team anyway. While templated mobile apps sound more attractive for the business owners as they are much cheaper and can be used faster by the business (in comparison with the custom solutions, as no actual development is needed), they look similar to other apps and there are certain restrictions in any other modifications in the future. Therefore, it may have a great impact on further development of the product and the Barbershop business in general as sooner or later any business owner would like to add some new functionalities to his app to define himself among the competitors. Also, the developers’ help will be needed anyway from time to time, for further hosting, maintenance and support services.

Having a flexible, but expensive and time-consuming custom mobile app from one side and budget, ready to kick-off, but restrained, templated solution from another, there should be something in the middle. What about “renting the app” from the software development company which t also provides ongoing support while the app is used?

Option # 3. “All-inclusive service package”.   

As the sharing economy trend is extremely popular nowadays and such things as renting the properties, coworking spaces, car sharing, clothing rentals, buying or selling pre-owned stuff on Amazon and eBay have become a daily routine for everybody. Therefore, renting a mobile app for the Barbershop from the service provider company on a monthly or yearly basis sounds like a good idea as well. Along with the actual ready-to-use booking mobile apps for the customers and managers, admin panel for a business owner, their monthly or yearly service package also includes: setting up the app and organizing its correct work, hosting, optimizing the app design according to the company’s corporate colours and brand style, uploading the app to App Store and Google Play markets, further ongoing support. So, in case if any technical issues appear in the future, the separate a development team won’t be needed, as the service provider company will take care of everything. This saves the Barbershop’s owner additional headache.

Notwithstanding, such a service package will be much more affordable than a custom mobile app and the business owner will be able to use it for his Barbershop once the agreement with the service provider has been signed. It may take some additional time for design optimisation, but in comparison with the time needed for the app development from scratch, it will be definitely faster. Also, there is a possibility to grow the Barbershop app and implement some additional features in the future. The service package provider will turn any business ideas into reality as there are no such strict limitations as the templated mobile solutions usually have.

In the table below, there is the summary of all three options reviewed before:

In conclusion

 No matter if the Barbershop has been just opened or on the market for many years, having a mobile app is a must-have thing for the business nowadays. The business owner needs to invest his budget wisely as along with the app development and its release, he also should spend his funds  into promotion and marketing. In comparison with custom app development, buying a templated mobile solution or using an all-inclusive service package sounds more affordable for a business owner. However, with a templated solution  the Barbershop app won’t look really unique, any further modifications will be pretty restricted and the team of developers will be needed for its correct setting up and support. In case of “renting” the ready-to-use app from the software development company, app installation, design customisation, further support and hosting services will be included into their set. Moreover, if any additional functionalities should be added in the future, the templated solution will be pretty limited, while the app from all-inclusive set will be able to be expanded.

Thinking about how to enhance your Barbershop business with the mobile app and which option to choose to bring it to the next level?  All-inclusive Barbershop set will cover the majority of paint points of your business, attract more customers, improve the satisfaction of the current ones and help to increase the sales of your Barbershop.

 

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