HELPER is a flexible and multifunctional CRM system designed for companies in the care and beauty industry. It automates routine tasks and reduces the operational burden on staff, making it easier to manage a business and help it improve the quality of customer service.
Goals and problems
Our team developed HelperCRM from scratch. Initially, we created a web version of the project to reach the maximum number of potential clients, and this strategy worked - thanks to innovative capabilities and constant development, CRM quickly became popular and in demand on the market.
When HelperCRM's mobile traffic exceeded 50%, the client decided to launch a mobile application that would make the system even faster, more responsive and more accessible to end users.
Client's task
Mobile applications can use native smartphone functions to improve the user experience, so alternative development versions, such as a mobile version of the site or responsiveness, were not even considered by the client.
Our client’s goal is to introduce the latest innovations that will make using HelperCRM as simple and effective as possible for companies in the care and beauty industry. To achieve it, he set us the following tasks:
- Conduct a thorough analysis of the needs of HelperCRM users.
- Determine the required functionality of the application.
- Design and develop an application for IOS and Android, which will include the basic capabilities of the web version and innovative functions available only on mobile platforms.
- Conduct testing and prepare the application for release.
- Place the HelperCRM application on the Play Market and AppStore.
Technical solution
We conducted a thorough analysis of functional needs and decided to build development on Flutter. The platform allows you to create cross-platform mobile applications for the iOS and Android operating systems with a native design and in a short time, reducing costs for the customer and optimizing resources for administration and change management.
The HelperCRM mobile application uses the same server part as the web version, which ensures complete synchronization of information. This means that users will be able to switch between different versions of the CRM system without data loss or restrictions, providing companies with a smooth transition to a new version of the product.
To manage the mobile application and the web version of HelperCRM, a single administrator panel with superuser rights is used. In it you can monitor the list of active licenses, view information about each registered company and receive analytical data in real time. We refused to implement another admin panel specifically for the mobile application for rational reasons.
Features and Integrations
During development, we pursued the main goal - to make the mobile application as intuitive, easy and convenient to use as possible. Therefore, after agreement with the client, we decided to add only the main functionality that clients use constantly, and make the rest available exclusively in the web version. This is a popular approach used by many famous brands, such as Netflix. It allows you to unload the interface and focus on the main thing.
Application functionality:
- Visiting schedule . The application has a built-in calendar with daily and weekly visit schedules. Viewing the entire table of visits is available to companies only in the web version of HelperCRM.
- Branch management . Companies can quickly and without restrictions manage their branches right inside the application: add new ones or edit information about existing ones.
- View your daily balance . In HelperCRM, salons can monitor the amount of incoming funds on a daily basis: for each branch or individual employee.
- Customer base management . Beauty salon administrators can see information about all clients of their company and their phone numbers. If necessary, you can contact each client in one click.
- Personnel Management . The application provides comprehensive information about the company’s employees and foremen, and also provides the ability to add new employees.
- Service management . Complete information about the company’s services and groups of services is provided, with the ability to interact, change and delete each of them.
- Finance . The section is created in the format of an interactive table, which provides the company with complete information about financial transactions. It displays: payment statistics, the cost of each service, the size of discounts, the form of payment - cash or non-cash, and many other parameters.
- Analytics and statistics . HelperCRM tracks and collects data on the company's performance, and based on it generates analytical reports in infographic format. Here, the salon owner can track information on products or employees, calculate the percentage of customer returns and get other statistics - in the context of the entire company or an individual branch.
- Settings . In the settings, users can customize the application to suit their unique needs: change the language, theme and set a password. In the same section, you can change various business data, for example, increase the tariff, create service categories, new positions or roles, and also set up push notifications.
Features and features of the application
In the new application, HelperCRM users received expanded functionality available only on mobile platforms:
- Push notifications . Beauty salons are constantly in contact with clients: they inform about the time of the visit, inform about rescheduling or replacing the specialist, promoting loyalty programs, etc. To facilitate this communication and make it unobtrusive, we have introduced into HelperCRM the ability to send push notifications, which, according to statistics, have the highest open rate on mobile devices.
- Using native phone features . The administrator of a beauty salon can call a client or a specialist with one touch. To do this, when you click on the corresponding field, the application calls the standard telephone interface via the API and initiates the call process. This saves staff time and allows them to spend more time with each visitor.
- Native widgets . Development in Flutter allowed us to use native widgets in the HelperCRM application - user interface components that correspond as closely as possible to standard elements of the iOS or Android platforms. Thanks to this, the application has become convenient and intuitive for mobile device owners.
Result
We always dive deeply into the client’s business in order to understand in detail how it works, what its needs and real goals are. This helped us this time too: we were able to quickly and clearly define all the necessary functionality of the application, highlight the stages of development and consistently begin its implementation.
Choosing Flutter as the core technology also allowed us to save time and create a cross-platform application for iOS and Android operating systems, instead of creating a separate solution for each platform.