I was reading this morning about Zeel: Massage on Demand. With an app on your smart phone you can book a same-day, in-home massage, designate the type and duration (60 or 90 minute), and the practitioner comes to you.
Zeel is membership-based, and for $99/month (more in some upscale areas) plus built-in tip and taxes, you receive a monthly massage plus a massage table you retain in your home. You can purchase more massage sessions at the same $99 price if you choose. Zeel also offers a corporate chair massage service.
Zeel counters the greatest obstacle to in-home massage…the practitioner having to lug in the table every time. In using smart phone technology to select, book and pay for your massage, Zeel has maximized convenience and time savings for the user while appealing to our ego’s need to be nurtured in our own space.
How much more often will users book a massage when they’re regularly reminded of the massage table in their home? I predict this will be very, very big.
Another service, Pager, provides a similar service but by bringing physicians to you. Home visits by a doctor, no crowded waiting rooms with contagious people, no-surprise fees up front…wow. Truly service built around the patient.
Delivery-of-service models for massage therapy emerged from physiotherapy and nursing applications during the World Wars, the European Spa, athletic massage and the human potential movement in the 1970’s. However with the advent of technology and large companies in the rehab and spa sectors brokering massage services and creating new work opportunities for practitioners, it appears change is happening in the profession at break-neck speed.
Great concept!
Wondering if you had any info about the uptake of Zeel’s membership offering.
From what I can see they’re heavily promoting it on their website – must be working well I guess?
Thanks Don 🙂
It’s an interesting concept and I agree that the presence of a table in house may be useful as a constant reminder. But for me as a Sydney massage mobile therapist in an inner city market many of my clients would struggle (or be reluctant) to find the space to store a table + I would be anticipating that the table’s used by Zeel would probably be a generic (cheap?) table that might not be the most comfortable for the client, nor necessarily the best for the therapist to work on with good body mechanics.
Maybe for some potential mobile therapists the issue of lugging a table around is a disincentive to offer home massage, but for most of the full time therapists I know, other issues such as parking, space in the clients home etc are of greater importance – just don’t agree that the concept counters the greatest to obstacle to in-home massage (it just makes the therapist’s life a little easier). But I will watch this space with respect to Zeel to see how the concept pans out.