Inside Phorest

The Day We Walked In Your Shoes: A Salon Experience

2 min

The Day We Walked In Your Shoes: A Salon Experience

To get a taste of the real world for ourselves, and to get out from our usual working environment, we decided we’d go out to work at the reception desk of a beauty salon (for a day!). An horspair salon experience!

A Reflection On A One-Day Salon Experience

The Context

So early on in February and without quite exactly knowing what to expect, we headed over to the salon that kindly took part in the experience. To kick off the day, we first had a few updates to do on the computers in usage. We updated some of the installed software and also re-calibrated the computer’s touch screen. By the way, if you’ve noticed your touchscreen isn’t showing the accuracy it should, a quick calibration through the display settings of your computer screen will set it up good as new!

Then Came The Fun Part

Immediately, the first thing we noticed is that while we’re ‘experts’ in our software, the staff using it on the daily were absolutely mastering the art of it. Even as ‘experts’, nervosity was in the air when it came to dealing with the first client calls, arrivals, taking bookings and checking clients in.

To keep in sync with how the salon usually operates, we made sure to have a look at who was due in next, and give them a warm welcome by name once they walked through the door. For a client’s salon experience, all the little things can make a difference.

Getting ourselves into this frame of mind helped us understand what it’s like to use Phorest Salon Software. It’s not about simply sitting in front of a screen. It’s also about hopping up, greeting clients, making coffee while also answering calls! Salon staff are multitaskers! Our software needs to be quick and straightforward to use for it not to get in the way. This is something we’ll be keeping in mind as we continue to improve the product.

Thoughts

Something we noticed very early on, is that there are many of useful features across the Phorest platform that not all users are aware of. For instance, as we were being trained for the day, we noticed that the salon didn’t use the qualifications feature on the side of the appointment screen. This feature makes it possible for any staff, even newbies, to easily see which staff can perform which treatments. To summarise, it makes it easier to know what to book in with who.

Similarly, we noticed that some salons didn’t know of the free mobile app for owners and staff called Phorest Go. This app allows you to do things like check clients in/out, sell products, view/make bookings and even run reports from your home – naturally, with access controls and hidden contact information. We’ll definitely get our thinking hats on and come up with ways to help keep you informed of what the system can do.

Related | Phorest Help Desk

We also spent some time building and launching a Valentine’s Day email campaign. This showed us how important it is to take email addresses from clients. Having the ability to reach clients through different channels drives your business forward, and that’s often forgotten, unfortunately.

Conclusion

Overall, the biggest thing we learned is that for the main areas of Phorest – from taking bookings to moving appointments and paying out clients – the manipulations have to be as fast and as easy as possible. This is something we’re really good at already, but we can always make it better! And so we will!

Thanks for reading!

#LetsGrow

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