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Community meeting video recording
DAY 1 - Tuesday November 20
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Women currently in beauty services coop / SEWA members
Other beauty workers just coming to see what it’s all about (first time at SEWA) and considering cooperatives
Women shared name, where they are from, something they are good at, why they are interested in SEWA/being in a coop
Dana and Michelle introduced the project
Namya gave introduction to worker cooperatives and platform coop
Benefits of being in the coop
Skills development
Learn with each other
Marketing power
Security and safety
Can cover the entire city
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Journey mapping outline - English / Gujarati
1st Group
Challenges
Customer comes late
Customer wants longer appointment than agreed
Customer asks for extra things other than agreed
Customer negotiates the price based on someone willing to do it cheaper
Customer gives wrong location
Customer is not ready for appoint
Customer not there and doesn’t answer phone when they get there
Not given proper address
Location is often easier to find using a low tech strategy like asking a shopkeeper in the general area.
Google maps often sends you to dead ends etc.
Customer complains about service, including that it’s not hygienic
Amount given to coop 15% is too much
Customer wants them to use their product
Traffic causes them to be late and appnt gets cancelled
materials/kit are heavy - eg. for pedicure they cannot carry the machine - customer complains
Customer wants to use good brand material but pay less
They don’t get back their materials - for example hair pins
2nd Group
1st step is training
Need information - where to go, finding the training, other?
Goal: learn more and become more confident in what you do
Challenges: hard to get info, costly, timing may not be convenient, distance to get there
2nd step is publicity
Advertisements
Goal: people should know you are doing something
Pamphlets are easy, inexpensive
Challenge: making higher quality pamphlets expensive (me - team up with other coop?)
Easy: word of mouth
Challenge - people don’t really look at your pamphlet they throw it away
Dana - testimonials?
Challenge: newspaper ads are expensive - especially for an individual
Social media marketing
Challenge: too much competition on social media
How to spread the word of good service - FB, WhatsApp?
Dana - have a “show”, live beauty services party?
A lot of people have started to do it through “the web”
Develop promotional packages - buy one get one free etc
Promotional tree: Pass this message onto 5 people
Points system - service with same person, points add up to reward/gift
Dana: maybe they lose points if they aren’t ready for the appnt
Journey
Get call, get bag, traffic (challenge), customer changes mind when they get there (wants less services than agreed on)
Security “always there in back of mind” - inside the house, the room, will it be ok - customers are strangers
Competition in the market - beauty parlours - understand what they are doing so we know how to compete (me: skills trade?)
Money - what we are giving - what extra the competition is doing so they can compete
Technology - e.g. what Urban Clap is giving to client
Worker needs to know how to communicate this to the customer
E.g. customer wanted X service but worker did not know and did not know that the competition is offering this - how can they know all of what everyone is doing?
Customer will order something on the phone then change it once worker is there
Customer asks for less things than agreed
Customer not there and doesn’t answer phone when they get there
Customer says use my product
Other women show up at customer house and say do me as well
bartering/bargaining for less
Customer is not ready for appoint
General discussion
Insist on 24 hours notice? But also want to be able to offer services on short notice
Get tired of workers saying no to appointments regularly (because they are busy with other appointments?)
Is there some way to allocate automatically?
3rd Group
Customer cancels and then next day says come at another time (but that time is booked for her)
Call comes and they learn of the location, they need to determine if they can get there in time, they might have a personal appointment beforehand
How much work, how much expense - how to calculate is it worth it?
Customer asks for less than agreed on (repeat)
If they are 15 min late order is cancelled (repeat)
Often they are late because the location is wrong
They may also have cancelled a personal appointment to get there
If customer cancelled previously, it’s always on their mind that they might cancel again - a tension for them
Customer and worker should have a price list so it is clear - no negotiation!
Personal vs coop work - how to juggle? Perhaps choose days of the week that you are working for the coop, and days you are doing personal work?
Dana - can the personal be transferred over to coop?
How to show availability clearly - green for available, red for not
Area-wise - getting appointments in your area - a system to show location and take appointments in your area so you don’t have to travel far
Wants certain type of facial but it’s not appropriate for her and worker needs to convince the customer to do something different
E.g. lifting facial is 1 hour - fixed time - customer complains that they didn’t do it long enough, when it is in fact harmful to do it longer - customer doesn’t know this / believe them
If travelling long distance need to charge a minimum treatment/cost
What to say when customer complains - “next time I will do my best”
4th Group
“All of our points have been covered”
Want visits to big salons to see what they are doing (have an appointment there?)
youtube videos how-tos?
We have to do better than Urban Clap!
General Discussion (coop meeting)
Have to be tough on prices because if you negotiate once that’s it
Have to convince customer on quality - this is worth more than what you are paying
Variable pricing based on where customers live?
What they like now and why
Putting pictures of hair and makeup in whatsApp and facebook
Big salons have Instagram accounts, they are edited nicely, searchable online
Albums w pictures of the work they have done
Some workers are keeping track in a daily planner/diary - appointments, what they did, what they got paid - some on mobile phone, some on paper
How are appointments made now?
A few women do the marketing and take the contact now and make phone calls to a list of women - mainly Stephyben
How do they decide who to call first?
3 filters -
1. Type of Service (beauty/hair/makeup/mendhi) - depending on what the order is
2. Location
3. Equality of appointments - ensure that all workers are getting fair amount of work/pay
E.g there are these 4 women - talk to them - give them the name, amount, location, mobile number, confirmation (phones client)
Customers request a particular worker? Have decided that that is not possible
Workers say - it might not be me (next time)
Same worker if it is a multi-stage treatment
Whatsapp groups that others have created with information about how to do things etc
7 people use google to find information, videos etc on new techniques
12/17 have smartphones, others have flip phones
Flip phone users have access to computers?
not everyone has access to a computer
Now - marketing through pamphlets, WhatsApp, old clients from workers that they no longer personally service
Can they transfer personal appointments to the coop?
If there is more work at the coop will go to coop
Don’t want to give up personal clients - lucrative
The issue isn’t not enough customers, issue is marketing
Even poor women want these services now - there is a trend
Private clients would have to agree to use the coop and wouldn’t be guaranteed the service provider
Want to offer training through SEWA - women want work - come and do training at SEWA and then join coop
Retention ?
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DAY 2 - Friday November 23
Small Groups
Group 1
Customer not doing what was agreed upon
Complaints
Group 2
Location/Travel
Wages
Safety
Group 3
Scheduling
Group 4
Training
Group 5
Marketing
Small Group Design Feedback
Group 1
Customer not doing what was agreed upon
Worker needs to have customer phone number (SEWA didn’t agree to this request)
This could be an issue because it is a coop and it would be better to go through a central switchboard (possible?) - UrbanClap does this
Can we indirectly connect people without exposing phone numbers? Call goes to a central number and then redirects to the individual
Worker needs to set a clear time of appointment beforehand
Wait 10 minutes - penalty for customer - UrbanClap does not do this, it wouldn’t be a good idea now to do this since we are so new and trying to establish customer base
What about limiting the number of services (i.e. appnt still ends at the same time)?
Customer asks worker to go and purchase a product in the market - they don’t want to do this
Customer wants extra treatments - call SEWA - then what? She will convince the customer otherwise?
They can decide to do it or not - if they can’t, then call someone from the office to explain
Minimum order must be set and communicated on site/pamphlet/to customer
Customer wants only partial order from what was agreed - could set another appnt to do the rest
Have a returnable deposit
Have products listed on website - hygienic, good quality
Feedback form, registration form - SEWA will decide ?
Want easy way to calculate earnings (income less expenses)?
Dealing with Complaints
Poor services
Can’t carry appropriate equipment because too heavy
Poor hygiene
Workers want to know how to respond appropriately to complaints
Group 2
Location/Travel/Wages
Now - client texts location (to SEWA?), or they use WhatsApp location
Ask for landmarks
Write it down (when talking to customer/scheduling appnt) is best because it will be correct
Send a reminder with an extra ½ hour buffer - to get there on time
Contact customer on the way if you are late
Communicate that the worker might be ½ hour late and not to cancel
How to appease the customer when they are late
Offer free service
Offer a product gift? (general disagreement to this idea) - maybe chocolate? :)
Distance - Time calculation
Travel further they want higher minimum (500?)
Cooperative can compensate them for extra travel
15% taken by SEWA will be discussed by members
Safety
Talk to woman before entering house - if only husband answers etc wait
If woman never shows up leave and SEWA will pay for travel
Get a call from SEWA 15 min later - checkin
Or some kind of popup that says “are you ok?”
Michelle - coop members partner up to check in with each other?
Pepper spray
Self-defence training - yes they are planning this
Calling 181 - new initiative on violence against women - female police officers - very responsive
Group 3
Scheduling
Conflict between personal and coop appointment
Weekly chart (see drawing)
name/area/availability(days)/location - customer/worker matching (SEWA)
Eventually automate: 3 stages - availability / location / value of your appnts so far (person earned least so far will get appointment)
Short-term bookings - SEWA scheduler can use the chart to make bookings
Group 4
Training
Visit big salons
Attend workshops in different areas
Expensive training - one woman from SEWA can be paid to go and then teach the others
Training as recruitment
Fix training times that work for everyone
Trainings in off-seasons (no festivals, no weddings)
Soft-skill training and communication - they can organise it, women just need to make time for it
Could make a video and distribute it but then there will still be questions for Stefy
DA - remote training?
How we are different from UrbanClap and others
Group 5
Marketing
Worker login page (see sketch)
Panic button (181)
red/green button - availability indicator
Integrated with weekly scheduling tool
Profile with photo
How much money they have earned/commission to coop
Tracking orders - e.g. how many they have had this month
Website!
See sketches
Join us - fill out a form
Gallery
Types of services (me - offer packages?)
Our Team - photos? maybe
Our Work
Each one has a page - price, description, team members?,
Testimonials (videos? quotes?)
Contact info, social media, location head office etc
Group photo at the bottom
True case studeis / featured case study of woman’s story - photo
Small videos of the women working - not with real clients, with each other
Website look
More images, less text
Before and after photos
Short videos about services - e.g. about hygiene
Customer feedback - star system
“Like” system
LinkedIn FB Pinterest Snapchat Twitter Instagram
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