Two years ago, Rianne van Tuijl decided to open a second location in Maarssen in addition to the existing Blue Lagoon tanning salon in Rijen. A tanning studio at number 15, the Pieter de Hooghstraat was bought, thoroughly renovated, modernized and fitted with professional Ergoline tanning beds. The biggest challenge turned out to be attracting and retaining skilled personnel. A bump in the road that turned out to be a reason to think creatively. This is how Rianne van Tuijl came up with the idea of an unmanned tanning salon, a concept that is still quite unique in the Netherlands.
Setting up an unmanned tanning salon
After extensive research in Belgium, where this concept is better known, Rianne van Tuijl eventually ended up in the Netherlands again at vanBeurden Professional, importer of, among other things, the luxury, innovative sunbeds from megaSun and developer and supplier of the Tanworld software solution.
“Our customer Blue Lagoon wanted to offer services to customers outside of regular opening hours (10 am-3pm, Tuesday and Thursday 4 pm-9pm) without any involvement of staff. We were already familiar with KUARIO's payment and device management platform, so we felt that this could be achieved.
Together with Rianne van Tuijl, we then worked out how such an unmanned tanning studio should be set up. Consider, for example, opening the door of the studio, offering paid products and paying and activating the solarium. With KUARIO it is possible to connect all these different services in the cloud, so that you do not have separate monthly costs for each service or connection. “This made it a very interesting and affordable solution for Blue Lagoon”, says Albert van Beurden of vanBeurden Professional.
1 mobile app for all services
The new concept also requires a new approach. Customers who want to use the unmanned facilities of Blue Lagoon must first register with an employee where the general terms and conditions are agreed. This describes code and conduct of the customer during the visit to the unmanned studio. Once this onboarding has been completed, the customer receives a link to download the KUARIO mobile app and create a personal account.
“Customers are only allowed to enter the studio under their own name. They can use the studio for 1 hour and can visit the studio again after a period of 24 hours. At the door, a customer scans the QR code with the KUARIO mobile app, to open the electric lock. The entrance door then closes automatically. The paid products such as sachets and bottles of cream, chilled drinks and tan shots are offered via a vending machine for which mobile payment is made with KUARIO. The customer then chooses an available sunbed, which is recognizable by the green light. The sunbed is activated for a number of minutes after the payment via the KUARIO app. “Our customers are enthusiastic about the fact they can now pay and activate everything by using their mobile phone through scanning a QR code, ”says Rianne van Tuijl.
“I personally find it very convenient that I can continue to offer our services to my customers, even without staff. That way, everything just keeps going. Because we want to avoid as many risks as possible, it is paramount to security that our customers can pay cashless with the mobile app. The money is "in the air" (cloud) and therefore no cash can be obtained in the unmanned studio. The fact that everything, from the entrance, vending machine, sunbed and busy light, is linked via 1 system, is very user-friendly for us”, says Rianne van Tuijl.
