The app already existed four years ago. It was launched in Argentina in 2016. TimesApp is designed to save its users lining up and using the time they would spend on it at their convenience.
They started in Spain in November, when they designed a system that allows users to print out a ticket with their shift number and estimated time for the famous and busy lottery store Doña Manolita, in the heart of Madrid. The lines to buy the Christmas lottery at Doña Manolita are usually very long.
Now that the state of alarm has ended throughout Spain and what the government calls the “new normality” is opening, commercial premises and services are restricting customer capacity and using hygiene measures. This is why there are lines and more waiting time.
“Let’s avoid crowding people and lines. Let’s avoid contagion.” TimesApp, which is owned by the Spanish company Corcamp SRL, then offers a “virtual line”.
The businesses or services associated with the app, which is free, have the option of giving the turn in person or an appointment in advance. If the user wants to or must line up in person, they can scan the QR code on the screen of the premise. The app sends notifications to the cell phone of the user with the waiting time and number of people in front. The last notification announces that the user’s turn has arrived. If an appointment is to be made, it can be done directly in the application, by choosing the date and time.
Timesapp has a location map of the area where the premises are located so that the user can trace other places to use the waiting time.
On the other hand, the app offers companies that adhere to it to organize their appointments 24 hours a day, seven days a week; to connect them with new clients; an automatic reminder of the appointments to the users so that the provider reduces the absences in the reservations.
In its advance booking section, the app is designed to book appointments with services such as “doctors, hairdressers, beauty salons, veterinarians and other services”, according to its presentation.
Timesapp was a finalist in the social innovation call “COVID-19: All With The Most Vulnerable”, in which the Andean Development Corporation, the Latin American Development Bank and the magazine Compromiso Empresarial summoned the social innovation projects in the Spanish-speaking countries.