The Requirements
The Guild of Beauty Therapists is the UK trade body for the professional beauty industry, with around 15,000 members in the UK and across the world.
The Guild required a salon appointment and booking service as a web based and mobile app for Guild members and non-members, as well as consumers. The initial service was to have two levels – a free level for Guild members and a chargeable level for non-members.
The client required a beauty services management application, where beauty related businesses could create accounts and book appointments for their clients while also keeping track of their existing clients, adding new ones, managing team members, and treatment lists. Depending on their subscription level, businesses would have access to mini websites to promote their services. Different subscription levels would come with different amenities, and pricing would differ for existing Beauty Guild members and non-members. The system would additionally feature automated SMS and email messaging capabilities, with the option to create bespoke marketing messages tailored to each business's needs.
Our Solution
Blueberry's solution was to build the application on the classic three-tier architecture, with a website application, server that processes all business logic, and a database for storage. The database used was MS SQL Server, and the server was based on ASP.NET Core Web API and .NET 6. The frontend was based on Angular 11. To ensure secure payments, Blueberry integrated the app with the Barclaycard platform, with Hosted Payment Page for all common payments and direct server-to-server communication for subscription payments (MIT transactions).
For SMS notifications, Blueberry used TextAnywhere and allowed salon owners to create their own email and SMS templates. To track all bookings against any therapist and day, we used FullCalendar, which was a flexible management tool for all salon bookings. Loqate was used for address verification and autocomplete, while Bing Maps API was used to calculate the shortest distance between clients and salons.
Blueberry also integrated the app with the Beauty Guild's API, which provided benefits to all salon owners who are Beauty Guild members. Different subscription levels were implemented with different amenities and prices for existing Beauty Guild members and non-members.
The Results
The My Time To Book app developed by Blueberry allows The Guild of Professional Beauty Therapists to provide an easy-to-use salon appointment and booking service for both members and non-members. The app helps salon owners manage their client lists, appointments, team members, and treatment lists, as well as providing automated SMS and email notifications for all booking steps. The app's integration with the Barclaycard platform ensures secure payments, while the use of TextAnywhere, Loqate, and Bing Maps API enhances the user experience.
The app's integration with the Beauty Guild's API provided benefits to all salon owners who are Beauty Guild members, and the implementation of different subscription levels with different amenities and prices helped attract new customers and retain existing ones.
Overall, the My Time To Book app has proved to be a successful solution for The Guild of Professional Beauty Therapists and its members, providing them with an easy-to-use salon appointment and booking service that helped them manage their business more efficiently.