Stailer - Technical Case Study

How would one describe Stailer?

Stailer revolutionized the national beauty industry by leaving in the past the time-consuming practice of making appointments without even knowing the quality of the services one signs up for. 

The app improves the experience of both clients and beauty specialists. 

It boosts customer satisfaction through transparent reviews, ease in beauty professionals’ services visualization, appointment setting, location, and much more.

The partner salons can now easily digitize their activity within the app, as it allows customized configured systems managed by Stailer.

Available in all of Romania’s counties, and growing rapidly, Stailer has been built for international scale-up. The mobile app brings it all together in one place, creating efficiency, transparency, and last but not least, everyday opportunities.

Whose needs does Stailer respond to?

Stailer offers complete services to any individual using a smartphone regardless of demographics.

If the user wants to:

• Choose from a national database of stylists and salons, 
• Discover and save their favorite national stylist/salon,
• Save time and have appointments confirmed instantly,
• Check reviews from real users,

Stailer User App is the go-to beauty app to use for these needs.

If the salon wants to:

• Gain more clients,
• Establish their presence in the online world,
• Offer the clients a quick and efficient experience,
• Have a real-time visualization of the appointments through an interactive calendar,
• Have business support at a click away through tutorials and much more,

Stailer Partners App is the go-to beauty industry app for them.

What were the Stailer challenges?

Adapting to the client's needs

The usability test results came around with new feature ideas that made a real difference in creating ease of use. This way this innovative app could be implemented in the daily use of both salons and clients.

User App exponential growth

Besides the Manual Quality Assurance on the app, as the user app grew bigger and bigger, unit testing of code became essential. Thus, we implemented unit testing process for more than 50% of the code. 

Ease in-app exploration

Aside from the main flow of the app, we decided that account-less navigation of the app is a solid differentiator for the users.

‍

How were this product’s structure and functionality thought through?

To be complete for the target audiences the product needed to be divided into two applications.

One of them is used by the stylists and allows them to manage their appointments and schedule. Notifications help them to always be up to date with their latest appointments/reschedules/canceled. They can also upload photos of their work. 

The other application targets possible clients which are able to find the best/closest salons and create an appointment with their favorite stylist. 

They can see photos, reviews, and all available services from each stylist making it easier for them to choose one.

The first application developed was Stailer Partners, the first line of code being written in October 2020. Currently, the application is in continuous development, and the team working on the development of new features and performance improvements.

At the beginning of 2021, more precisely in April, we started the development of the second application, Stailer, just like Stailer Partners, the application continues to develop with new features.

Solution

Stailer Partners App

Main features

1. Interactive Scheduler / Calendar
2. Stylists Portfolio
3. Customer Relationship Management 
4. Notifications

Main challenge

Drag & Drop in Calendar Feature

To make it easy for the stylists to reschedule, cancel and create new appointments, we implemented the drag and drop feature to the calendar. This was a React Native challenge that needed a more complex implementation. 

Linnify solution

Step one: Used React Native Gesture Handler 

Step two: Created draggable items and thus implemented interactive, animated aspects of the calendar.

Stailer User App

Main features

1. Salons easy finding through search and geo-location
2. Appointment creation
3. Reminder notifications
4. Favorites: stylists, salons, looks

‍

Main challenges

‍React Native unsupported APIs 

Create complex and versatile native modules for APIs defaultyly unsupported by React Native

For example, React Native only provides the iOS module with the autofill PIN code received through SMS in the security two-step authentication process. 

Linnify solution 

Create a native Android module to embed in code and create the desired feature across all platforms.

‍

Navigate the app account-less

Being a revolutionary app, the challenge was to allow new users to explore the app before creating an account. 

Linnify solution

Create a user journey as long as possible without them having to create an account. The users can explore almost the entire app, up to the point where they would like to make an appointment.

‍

Results

‘Because of the user app, the appointment numbers skyrocketed: 70% of the appointments come through the app. 
Around 30-40% of our current success is thanks to Linnify’s implication in the process.’
- Vladislav Naliciadji - Chief Product Officer

‍

From an MVP for each app, the product development scaled up to two complete applications. 

As the development became more complex:

• the development team grew considerably,
• the processes became more defined with each iteration,
• the variation of tools in use expanded (such as AppCenter, Sentry), and 
• the number of appointments and installments grew exponentially.

‍

1 year | +50.000 appointments | +1.300 salons | +6.000 stylists | +120.000 installments

Platforms

Google Play: Stailer User App  | Stailer Partners App

‍iOS App Store: Stailer User App | Stailer Partners App

‍Huawei App Gallery: Stailer User App | Stailer Partners App