We are living in an exciting digital era where technology and smartphones have transformed the way we used to avail services.
We have seen the evolution of the on-demand service marketplace, which is gaining massive popularity all over the world.
The on-demand service marketplace makes the services available at customers’ doorsteps. Customers can search for the services they need and easily connect with the local vendors, who can provide all possible kinds of household services at a competitive cost.
The most used on-demand service is certainly the technician booking platform, which helps customers avail of the services of technicians to fix the usual technical problems with their digital gadgets and electronic components.
Technician booking platforms create a marketplace where vendors can also connect with their potential customers and other stakeholders who can avail of their services and provide the tools and components to serve them.
It also allows the Technicians to be listed on the app, where they must undergo an intensive training module and an adequate due diligence process so that their services are listed on the platform.
The technical booking platform offers the services listed according to location, budget, and type, and it offers the service providers a brilliant medium to reach their potential consumers with ease.
In this article, we will cover several aspects of a technician booking application, including its workflow, revenue model, advantages, and application development process as well.
At the same time, we will deep dive into the requirements, essential features, and application development strategy one needs to adopt to develop a successful Technician Booking platform application.
A technician booking platform usually offers two-fold functionality from the user and service provider perspectives.
A technician booking platform has the following standard workflow:
Here, consumers can book the service by selecting the job type, budget, and preferred visit time.
Once the service is selected, the app will notify the consumer about the probable cost estimate of the job. It will also provide the quotation, where all the charges along with the applicable taxes are mentioned.
When the service provider accepts the task and then assigns it to a technician, it will also help them schedule the technician’s visit based on their availability.
The technician can view the job details and accept or reject them based on availability and feasibility.
The technician can visit the customer’s premises to perform the requested task and update the work order with pictures or the customer’s validation.
Once the job is completed, the system will generate an invoice and ask a customer to make the payment. Once the payment is done, the job is closed.
The technician booking application is gaining massive popularity among users and service providers as it offers the following advantages :
The app allows consumers to select from a wide number of service providers, based on their requirements, budget, and schedule.
The app enhances the overall service execution time by allowing faster technician scheduling, reducing travel time and helping the technicians reach their locations quickly.
The application eliminates all sort of communication hurdles, that ensures transparent billing and effective invoice.
The powerful technician booking app ensures there are no operation leakages, and it also reduces other administrative costs; ultimately, it helps an organization reduce operational costs.
The app helps all the workers stay connected around the clock, which improves productivity and communication of technicians and other workers.
The software has too many checks and balances in place, which ensures better accountability for employees.
A technician booking platform helps a service provider break away from conventional methods and offer innovative services to end-users, which not only improves the customer experience but also provides an opportunity to improve revenue.
Technician booking app helps vendors offer personalization and a wide variety of services to their consumers. It also helps a service provider develop a loyal customer base by addressing their concerns in an effective way.
A Technician booking application uses a very simple business and revenue model. As we know, it is just an intermediary platform that uses a perfect matching algorithm to offer the required technician to the end-user.
This app utilizes the following revenue generation techniques:
A major part of revenue for Technician booking applications comes from this model. Here, the Technician must pay a certain amount as a commission for every job order they receive via the app.
The app will act as an intermediary entity, which will charge an appropriate amount for any order booked by the customers.
Every work will have different charges depending on the complexity and efforts required to fulfill it. It is quite a simple aspect that the more work is booked and completed, the more money the app owner will earn.
This is another method to generate revenue. The Technician booking platform can list the professionals and offer the required information to the customers as per their requirements.
Once any lead generated by the app is converted, a certain amount is charged by the technician or service provider who got the work order from the customer.
The potential app must contain the following features so that it can fulfill the requirements of consumers and service providers:.
Automate order assignment: This feature will help administrators automate the order assignment process.
Advertisement and Promotions: This will help administrators create, execute and manage the advertisements and other promotional campaigns.
Sales Analytics: This will offer reporting and visualization of sales figures, that will help the management keep a track of all activities and make future decisions and course corrections.
Notification Control: This allows administrators to manage the notification services, which helps them engage customers.
Price and Subscription Plan Management: Admins can utilize this feature.
In this section, we will be explaining certain important aspects which need to be taken care of before starting the development process. We will also talk about the technical constraints, stack required, different modules, and the estimated cost of the final solution.
Well, we have already given you a glimpse of a Technician Booking platform, and in this section, we would like to provide you a better insight into the business model on which such applications are developed.
A technician booking application offers professional services for household tasks like electricians, computer experts, smartphone technicians, household item experts, and many more.
A technician booking app generally uses an algorithm to search for and find the best match for the customer’s requirements and then help them book a technician, avail of the services, and make the payment.
Before developing such an application, one should ensure that the business model is well defined and that application purpose, location, pricing, and technology constraints are well addressed.
That’s the first step to conceptualizing an idea for the application. We must know what kind of technical services are in demand in a specific area and what kind of services one can offer, which could be profitable for both consumers and the service provider.
This requires thorough market research, where it is required to understand the competitors’ reviews, the services they are offering, and the kind of services consumers are expecting.
This is an important step, as it helps us shape the concept into a feasible being. One must divide the idea into three broad categories and label them as must-haves, would-like, and add-ons.
We should start working on must-have components and then move towards would-like and add-on components.
Now as we know about the potential features and modules of our app, and have gained enough knowledge about the workflow and sequence of tasks, it is time to transform them into a visual entity.
We must study the existing applications in the market and write down their pros and cons, along with the kind of features they offer.
We can use this list to incorporate the required functionality into our application, which certainly makes it useful and user-friendly as well.
This is the most important part, which certainly is an important aspect that determines the success or failure of an app. We need to decide the service amount that could be charged to the customers and the service providers.
This could be a variable amount that depends on the type of service offered, the demand for that specific service, the location, and the budget of the customer.
We must incorporate multiple payment options for the customers, such as UPI payments, online wallets, net banking, debit or credit cards, etc.
We must establish a conflict management and refund policy to prevent any issues between consumers and technician service providers.
This will not only help the consumers avail themselves of the right support, but it will also help to build trust among all the entities. These policies also ensure that customers remain loyal to the service provider.
To turn an idea into a reality, we must have the support of an app development firm. We have a lot of professional software development firms which can assist us with app development.
We may also employ our own software engineering team, or hire freelancers, but it all depends on the work requirements.
The cost of developing a Technician booking mobile app is very much dependent on the efforts and hourly rates of the resources you are about to hire.
Here we have a fair comparison of average hourly rates in different regions.
Region | Price Range | Average Price (Per Hour) |
---|---|---|
North America | $80-$230 | $150 |
South America | $30-$110 | $40 |
United Kingdom | $80 to $180 | $120 |
India | $10-$60 | $30 |
Eastern Europe | $30-$100 | $50 |
Australia | $30-$120 | $80 |
Going by the hourly rates mentioned above, it is evident that the cost of the technician booking mobile app is higher in USA, UK, and other western countries, whereas the cost is on the lower side in India and South American countries.
It is always suggested to outsource the app development tasks to these countries, as they can provide you quality software development at a fraction of the cost.
Now, let’s see how many days it takes to develop different app features.
Feature | Days (Minimum) | Days (Maximum) |
---|---|---|
User Signup/Login | 2 | 4 |
In-app Chat or Video Call | 5 | 10 |
Search Function | 2 | 4 |
Appointment or Home Visit Schedule | 5 | 10 |
Service Cost estimation | 5 | 10 |
Loyalty Programs | 5 | 10 |
Payment Gateway | 5 | 10 |
Accept or Reject an appointment | 2 | 8 |
Appointment Status | 2 | 10 |
View local vendors Details | 2 | 6 |
Order Quotation generation ability | 2 | 4 |
Periodic Reports | 10 | 20 |
Earning Status | 2 | 5 |
Sales Analytics | 10 | 20 |
Voice search | 20 | 40 |
Augmented Reality | 20 | 60 |
Maps Integration | 2 | 5 |
CMS and Blog | 5 | 10 |
Technician Profile verification and approval | 2 | 5 |
User Management | 5 | 10 |
Technician Management | 5 | 10 |
Notification Management | 2 | 5 |
Advanced CRM and CMS systems | 5 | 10 |
Data Encryption and Safety | 5 | 10 |
Catalogue management | 10 | 20 |
Automated Order assignment | 10 | 20 |
Price and Subscription Plan Management | 5 | 10 |
Though this is still a rough cost estimate, it can still give you an insight into the efforts and costs required to develop a successful Technician Booking platform.
We would also like to add that the above cost estimate doesn’t factor in other costs and efforts, such as project preparation activities, project release, time spent on communication, and many other important activities that take place during the app development process.
The selection of the correct technology stack for the technician booking mobile app plays an important role in app development.
Though it totally depends on the project requirements and complexity, we can use the given technology stack and components to rapidly develop an MVP:
Well, the mobile application has been developed, but it isn’t over yet. An application is not successful until and unless more people start using it.
It is very important to promote the application, make people aware of its existence, features, and utility so that more people start using it.
Here are few promotional methods we can employ to improve the visibility of the app.
We can target the potential audience through social media platforms like Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook via organic posting and paid promotions.
It has been emerged as one of the biggest platforms to promote the brand and content. We can develop household service videos and then create paid promotions on YouTube so that every household person can relate to them.
We can promote the app by displaying its advertisements using the Google Ads service, as it will place ads all over the web and offer them to customers when they enter a specific keyword. Google Ads is highly successful in placing the right advertisements to the customer, and it attains a very high conversion rate as well.
In order to promote the application, we can engage a famous social media influencer for brand endorsement. It has been an innovative but highly effective method these days, and it fetches very high conversion rates.
We are living in an era where almost everyone is using smartphones with high-speed internet service. Every user installs multiple applications to fulfill specific types of tasks, and on-demand services are the most commonly used applications.
The technician booking platform is a kind of on-demand service application, that offers its customers the opportunity to avail of the services instantly at their location.
This application helps people who are working and have less time to contact the local vendors due to their long working hours.
For them, it is a big utility to search a technician using their smartphones, schedule the visit at a convenient time, and make the payment online.
It is high time for any technical service provider to build a technician booking platform to improve their overall service delivery and customer satisfaction.
Such applications can help improve the revenue, cost-effectiveness, and productivity of an organization. As far as the future is concerned, such technician booking platforms are going to gain massive popularity among the masses, and it is a great idea to develop such applications.