Swimply: Rent Private Pools 4+

Great idea—missing important information

I have yet to book but I think this is a brilliant idea. However, I have a couple of reservations (no pun intended 🙃)

1. I don’t see a way or a process for connecting with the owner prior to paying. How do I know what to do? Do we just show up? Do I go to the front door or is there a side/back gate or entrance? What are the rules? Can we bring snacks? So on and so forth. It seems awkward to just show up at someone’s house and haven’t spoken with them or at least emailed with them about expectations and general info. I think there should be a tutorial or steps listed for how this all works and what to expect. Perhaps all of this comes after booking but I’m very hesitant to put in my payment information without knowing fully what to expect and to what I’m committing. Quite honestly, I was ready to book today but when the payment screen came up so fast (no information about arriving, the pool itself, communication with the homeowner, etc.), I was turned off and decided not to book. I just need more information before paying.

2. It would be extremely helpful to have details of each pool listed. How deep is it? Is the depth gradual or is it-let’s say-5ft all the way around? I’d think this type of information would be tremendously helpful to families in making decisions about which pools fit their needs.

Potential to be amazing

I will definitely raise my rating to 5 stars once they fix a few things:

1. They offer a $5 credit for every person you refer (the referral also gets a $5 credit) but that credit doesn’t actually show up. I’ve had to email twice about this, and am still waiting on some credits to show. It’s a great incentive for helping promote this new service, and I’ve gotten a lot of interest from posting on social media about it, but it’s hard to tell people they’ll get $5 and then it doesn’t happen. I don’t know if it’s a technical glitch or if they just don’t want people to have the $$ so it purposefully doesn’t work. As a single apartment dweller desperate for some pool time, the credits will help me to afford some of the higher priced pools. It will also help more people to try the service out if they’re not paying the full amount on something they view as new and risky!

2. While I love that they now have a way to “favorite” pools, they need a function to hide certain pools. It’s frustrating to constantly sift through places that look uninhabitable or seem to be outright scams.

3. The locations on some of the pools seems way off. A pool shown to be in Studio City on the map is actually 30 miles away in Santa Clarita.

4. Other minor app issues like the stretching/altering of photos and things I’m sure they’re already working on.

Overall I loved my one experience I’ve had booking and swimming at a pool, and really wish to have many more!

Developer Response ,

Hey!


Thanks for the amazing feedback!

To address the referal system, we just check and it seems to be working great.
Make sure that you and the person you are referring have 100% complete accounts including a profile picture and a bio and then you should be all set!

Thank you for spreading the love and bearing with us as we continue to optimize our app!

Swimply

I’m blown away how fast money is taken off your debit card and as soon as it did all the things besides the pool that were shown in the picture started to cost me more!! some per hour like to use the chairs it’s $25 more an hour. Or the grill is $50 more an hour or whatever and even to watch the TV they have set out there by the pool. It’s $100 if I got to pay $25 an hour to sit somewhere in somebody’s chair you’re ridiculous! And the second worst part is as soon as I paid my money (it went through quick on my card.) That’s the only thing that went through quick. The guy who was hosting the pool tripled the rate right after I paid for it! No, he won’t return my message and he asked for me to get back with him ASAP for what so we won’t answer me?! This is ridiculous. This could’ve been a good thing, but it’s not. I reserved this pole for my grandkids to have a before school bash. End of summer thing but now it’s ruined their upset I’m upset! Bad business procedures now I just need to get my money back so I can figure out what else I can do with them at last minute! Enough through it all I have to fight to get my money back that took off my card really quick before I was even given a reservation number or anything!!! And my reservation is still pending. This is a mess which I don’t need right now. I gave you one star which I feel like isn’t even deserving. All I wanted to do was have fun with my grandkids before they had to go back to school. Now it’s all Ruined!