It is all about mobiles: Ziffi.com sees 3-fold jump in bookings after app launch

Ziffi.com launched a mobile app a week ago. Since then, bookings have tripled, says Shantanu Jha, CEO and Founder.The app helps the user to find salons, spas, doctors, diagnostic centres in the locality, know their availability and make appointments.[caption id="attachment_2255690" align="alignleft" width="380" class=" "] Ziffi Logo[/caption]As of now, there is an option of payment through mobile wallet for salon services. Ziffi wallet rewards customers for repeat bookings at their preferred salon/spa. Tit also incentivizes consumers with a Rs.600 voucher with the first download of the app.The app can be used by customers in the four cities that the company has a footprint – Mumbai, Delhi/NCR, Bangalore and Hyderabad. The company plans to expand to Pune in a few weeks time and cover 20 cities by the year-end.Ziffi.com, earlier known as Docsuggest.com, changed its name to enable bookings not just for health but cover the entire beauty and wellness spectrum.“There is no one so far in India with a focus on the wellness sector,” says Jha, explaining why the company widened its scope.For instance, the frequency vis a vis a doctor’s appointment is less with hardly two or more appointment in a year against a monthly appointment at least with a salon. “A mobile app that is high frequency and most used makes the story compelling,” says Jha.With the beauty and wellness space growing 80-90 percent month on month for Ziffi, the company decided to come out with an app targeted at the sector.The company came out with a provider app for its backend users and they found it quite useful, said Jha.The company plans to come out with an app for diagnostic centres along with a mobile wallet.The number of mobile internet users is expected to reach 213 million by June 2015, according to the Mobile Internet in India 2014Ziffi.com has a network of more than 3500 salons and spas, 19,000 doctors and 5000 of diagnostic centres and hospitals. It has an existing database of 1.3 million users thus far. Consumers can avail the services on Ziffi for free of cost, enabling them to make appointments months in advance.The company,  founded in 2010 by four alumni of Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Bombay and IIT Kharagpur--Shantanu Jha, Keerthi Kiran Chennupati, Anshuman Pandey and Pushkar Soni, aims to be the largest wellness player within the next five financial quarters, with a potential to go global. “We are targeting partnership with 85 percent of the service providers market across multiple regions in India in coming months. We currently provide bookings across 75 percent of Tier I and Tier II salons and spas across Mumbai, Delhi-NCR, Bangalore and Hyderabad,” added Jha.