The idea of creating a house cleaning service app is quite simple. Still, in the process of its execution, some unforeseen obstacles arise. However, a pre-built solution would ease all complexities. Pre-built apps are quicker and relatively less stressful compared to an app developed from scratch. In this article, learn about the challenges one faces during the development of a House Cleaning Service App from scratch.
Why is the House Cleaning Service App so popular?
We are living in a world that is moving very fast, where people, especially working professionals, are usually very busy. Nobody wants to clean the house after returning from a long, tiring day. Thus, house cleaning service demands have increased a lot. Subsequently, the development related to House Cleaning Service Apps also increased. These applications enable the convenience of booking professional cleaning from within the house through one’s smartphone by just tapping on a few keys.
House Cleaning Service App: How It Works
- The user logs in using social media or creates an account by giving basic information. A list of different home cleaning options is presented to the user.
- It even allows the user to select the type of cleaning they need and is shown a list of cleaners near them. They select one or more services and proceed to checkout, displaying an overview of their booking details.
- After that, the user inputs an address where the service is desired; then, a preferred method of payment, either in cash or card, is selected, followed by any desired time, which can be the same day or later, and the booking is confirmed.
- Once the cleaner accepts the request, the user is allowed to track the cleaner and communicate with them through messaging or calls within the app. The user is updated on the cleaner’s arrival with a message, “Home Cleaner Has Arrived,” and when the job is started with the message “Home Cleaner Started the Job.”
- Once the cleaning is done, an in-app notification entitled “Home Cleaner Has Completed Job” will summarize the service and the payment due to the user.
- The user will also provide a grade to the performance of the cleaner and a comment regarding the service.
Challenges in Developing a House Cleaning Service App
1. Searching for a Skilled Professional
Finding a skilled developers and building a team is one of the significant challenges in House Cleaning Service App development. This kind of project requires:
- Developers and Designers are crucial to making your application a reality, but skilled workers with proper experience are hard to find.
- Quality Assurance and Marketers: You will also need people to thoroughly test the application and experts who will market it once it’s up and running.
You can avoid this challenge altogether by applying for a pre-developed application. Still, the hiring process for custom development can take several weeks and be quite costly.
2. Selection of Proper Tools and Technologies
The tool and the selected programming languages will be critical to the functionality and scalability of your House Cleaning Service App. Since if some solution is already developed in which everything is designed with the best technologies, to create an app from scratch, you have to invest resources in the following:
- The Selection of Programming Language: The appropriate language is to be chosen for the on-demand app, whereas one can choose Java, Swift, or something else. The technology selected will decide its future performance.
- Technology Stack: You have to choose an entire technology stack which might include back-end and front-end frameworks, databases etc.
3. Time Investment: 2 to 3 Years
The development of the application in itself, with integrated House Cleaning Services, is no child’s play. You will at least need to invest 2 to 3 years in the following things:
- Laying down the flow of the application and choosing what features to put and what to drop.
- Designing UI/UX
- Coding and beta testing
- Launching the product and refining post-launch.
While the second option takes years to develop, a pre-built solution only requires 1-2 weeks of customization and launch. This is one of the main reasons for entrepreneurs to look towards immediate entry into the market.
4. Standing Out in a Competitive Market
After spending years developing your app, being noticed in the marketplace is a thing different altogether, you will have to:
- Run social media campaigns to attract users and expose them to your app’s offerings.
- Give a tough fight to established brands. It is challenging to fight these big and reputed platforms unless you have some USPs and good features in your app.
With the pre-built application, entrepreneurs can straight away jump into marketing from day one and give stiff competition to other competitors who might have just started their development process.
Pre-Built Solutions: A Time-Saving Option
Therefore, building an application from scratch requires several steps, from recruiting a highly professional team to choosing the right tool and investing quite a significant amount of time. In turn, this can save you from the most overwhelming, full-of-time-consumption, and expensive developmental elements, including:
Salaries and Assets: The overall development of an app, right from scratch, requires several vital developers, designers, and marketers who are on high wages. That’s the point that can be avoided once one buys a ready-made app.
Infrastructure: You need money and brains to build your infrastructure, while pre-built infrastructure means that you already have something and can skip that step altogether.
Time Saving: Since you are starting from scratch, you have to race against time to reach your target deadline, which may be stressful. With pre-built solutions, you head-start your way, as most of the work is done, so you can make your desired customizations and launch your app as quickly as possible.
Features Your House Cleaning Service App Should Offer
To build a successful house cleaning service app, some essential features need to be implemented into the wheel for customers and home cleaners. The following are the basic features:
1. User App
- Signup/Login: The Signup process should be as smooth as possible. At the same time, allow the customer to log in via social media or a google account. This will save not only the time of the customer but also help in avoiding spam registrations.
- Customer Profile: The profile of the customer should be minimal whereby he could edit only the information regarding his bookings and preferences.
- Service Search: Provide an accessible search facility that will be extended by a questionnaire to match services precisely.
- View Cleaners Profile: Enable the customer to view information about the service provider, such as reviews, ratings, and skills certification.
- Fare Calculation: To ensure customer transparency, the system must automatically calculate quotes based on a job’s specifics.
- Real-Time Tracking: The real-time tracking features help users monitor the location of cleaners and the progress of the cleaning services. This may give users peace of mind, knowing that cleaning will be done according to their expectations.
- Messaging: This feature is because sometimes customers need to clarify some details about their order, which might be easier for them to do with cleaners directly. Meanwhile, the platform should not allow customers and businesses to contact each other directly, hence ensuring that all transactions are performed through the platform. However, this might require prohibiting some keywords from preventing one from typing phone numbers, addresses, or prices.
- Payments: Integrate secure modes of payments like escrow for the security of users and service providers.
- Review and Rating System: These influence customer trust and should, hence, be among an app’s core features.
2. Home Cleaner App
- Registration: The home cleaner needs to register to the House Cleaning Services App using social media accounts or by filling in the information. At the time of signing up, the ale needs to upload the identification documents and go through background checks so that their reliability can be specified in terms of safety.
- Job Request: This would allow home cleaners to either accept or reject a job request depending on their availability or for other reasons.
- Service Management: The system should grant cleaners the ability to easily manage and access their booking details.
- Payment Management: It will be further enhanced by offering solid functionality for tracking payments, commissions, and income so that service providers can manage their financials.
- Job Location: It will enable home cleaners to track the location of job requests and get there on time.
- Availability Management: Provide the facility to the home cleaners to work any time they want. They can log in or off into the app when they feel free or busy.
Final Words
Organizing a team of skilled resources, choosing appropriate tools, and promoting an app are all challenges while building a House Cleaning Service App from scratch. An entrepreneur can avoid most of the issues by going for a pre-built solution. From bring together a skilled professional to choosing the right tool and marketing of the app, developing an on-demand House Cleaning Service App has a wide range of challenges from end to end.
A ready-made app will save money and time you can use for scaling and marketing your business. Knowing the challenges you might face will help you make a very apt decision, whether to build your app all from scratch or from a template.