Short format. Full analysis — in the deep dive, the tracker itself — here.
I built the competitor tracker together with an AI tool, but I decided the structure myself: I split competitors into 5 segments (direct, aspirational, scale/price pressure, informal, indirect), because each must be fought differently — you don’t lower the price on expensive injections to counter a discounting chain, and you don’t compete with a freelance cosmetologist by being “warmer” in tone. I took the core idea — mystery shopping — from the unit-economics analysis: response speed most strongly moves conversion, and I deliberately linked those two projects. My first version was too “pretty” — I showed an exact response time for each competitor in minutes, although in reality I don’t have access to their DMs to measure that. I noticed this and reworked it: I replaced the made-up figures with a real classification (Facebook responsibility badge thresholds) and the actual conversion curve from lead-handling data. It was important to me to show not a perfect first attempt, but that I can check my own work for numeric honesty.
A chain competitor, a premium mono-brand and a solo practitioner compete in different ways — by price, trust, or personal relationships. The same response doesn’t fit all.
Mystery shopping is when you message a competitor posing as a customer to honestly measure their real service. But I don’t have real access to their DMs in my portfolio, so instead of made-up minutes I use a real, publicly documented classification — Facebook responsibility badge thresholds — and assign each segment a realistic level, not seconds.
Brands don’t respond to 80%+ of social media enquiries [Sprout Social Index] — that’s market normal. And according to real research on 100,000+ leads, a reply in 5 minutes instead of 30 gives a 100× higher chance to reach the lead and a 21× higher chance to qualify interest [Oldroyd/HBR 2011]. So “responding fast” is not hygiene — it’s an open competitive niche.
No, they are fictional — this is a portfolio; I can’t make verifiable claims about real companies. But the segments reproduce the real market structure of medical cosmetology in Kyiv: a direct analogue — Slim (slim.ua, price anchors for the economics were taken from it in Project 1), tone poles — Lazerhouse (75 branches, promo) and Lumenis (27 centres, clinical). And every market regularity (Facebook responsibility badge thresholds, Oldroyd/HBR conversion curve, loyalty program effects, botox backlash in the media, Altegio ↔ VK) is cited with a source, Ukrainian where available.
Weekly — competitors' creatives. Monthly — mystery shopping. Quarterly — full price review and SWOT.
Three things: (1) SLA for first reply ≤1 minute “an admin replies with your doctor’s name” — Project 1 data show a fast reply improves both CAC and retention; a conveyor (mechanical) and a solo practitioner (not scalable) won’t deliver this. (2) Package a paid diagnosis ₴900 → annual care plan → ongoing support — this is how a plastic surgery clinic sells packages; a client on a plan doesn’t compare the price of a single injection. (3) Google Maps + fresh post-visit reviews + auto-reply outside hours — 46–50% of bookings in the industry happen while the clinic is closed.
A weakness can be fixed inside the company. A threat is something a competitor does that we don’t directly control.
The first version listed exact response times for each competitor in minutes — but I couldn’t actually measure that, so it was false precision. I checked every figure and where there was no real source I replaced it with an honest estimate or an actual industry classification with a source. To me that’s more important than pretty first-pass numbers.
SWOT is a list of observations; TOWS is an action plan. I matched the columns pairwise and saw that an SLA of ≤1 minute for replies closes two boxes at once: the strongest opportunity (the open niche “very responsible clinic” against the backdrop of botox backlash) and the sharpest threat (freelance cosmetologists win anxious clients with fast personal contact + price). So it’s priority #1, not just another idea on the list.
Forbes Ukraine’s investigation shows Altegio (ex-YCLIENTS) is linked to the Russian holding VK. A cosmetology client’s data are effectively medical; for a chain positioning on “the economy of trust” this is a principled choice. This is the conclusion for a separate slide, not a minor detail.