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App Development Case Study

Jovie

Jovie is the nation’s most complete, full-service, childcare resource – first as College Nannies and Sitters, and now as Jovie.

A Vision to Revolutionize Babysitting

As CEO of College Nannies + Sitters + Tutors (now Jovie), Joe Keeley still faced the challenge that most parents have – aligning his plans with the availability of his trusted babysitters. He imagined a date night with his wife where they were having such a good time that they wanted to book their next date night right then and there. He imagined meeting friends in a grocery store and confidently making arrangements for dinner, scheduling a babysitter as effortlessly as adding the event to his calendar.

Jovie had done the hardest part. For more than a decade they had been building a nationwide network of locations that matched families with trusted role models for their children. Jovie’s nanny and babysitter placement services took the hassle out of finding sitters and scheduling care. The vital matchmaking role would remain at the heart of Jovie’s business, with a mobile app easing the process of aligning calendars with those trusted babysitters.

 

Solutions for Both Babysitters and Families

First things first, Jovie needed to put a mobile app in the hands of their nannies and babysitters. The focus on employees would improve the information available to families and create efficiencies for their babysitters, too. The app for nannies needed to make it easy to:

  • Update availability – College-age students often have evolving schedules. An app would make it possible to transform availability from a general sense of their school schedule to a real-time reflection of when they could be available for a family.
  • View their calendar – Provide quick access to see their upcoming work schedule and the details of each assignment, including parent instructions.
  • Get directions – Launch a map to the family’s home directly from the assignment.
  • Enter timesheets – Enter time easily and efficiently at the end of an assignment to ensure accurate payroll and billing.

On the family side, the mobile app would build on trusted relationships and transform the way families connected with their babysitters. It needed to be easy to:

Find available babysitters – A quick way to see who among their trusted list of babysitters is available at the time care is needed.
Schedule care – Making scheduling a babysitter as effortless as adding an event to a calendar.
As long-standing technology partners who had built Jovie’s proprietary business system together, Jovie and Onsharp once again partnered to make this next evolution of the business a reality.

 

Taking Hassle-Free Childcare to the Next Level

Nannies and tutors began using the mobile app in the fall of 2014, giving the Jovie team a chance to test the system and identify onboarding/training needs that would ensure a good experience for their employees and, in turn, the families they serve.

The family app launched in the spring of 2015 and was initially rolled out to a pilot group of offices. Jovie expects that putting the power of scheduling into the hands of families will be a win for everyone – their employees will be busier, their families will be happier and Jovie will realize its vision of transforming the way families manage their childcare needs.

Since launching the app, the results have been outstanding. After just a few months, the business started seeing over 60% of their babysitting orders come through the app and hours booked were up over 20%. Jovie has now rolled out the app to their 100+ locations in 28 states, and is continuing to see positive results.

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