Nicholas Nicola, founder of Allertons, on standards, scale, and why the right partner matters when your business is growing.
For premium salons, the danger rarely shows up as one big failure.
It shows up as friction.
Small moments where the experience you want to deliver no longer matches what your systems can support. Moments your clients might not articulate, but absolutely feel.
For Nicholas, founder of Allertons, that realisation came early.
“We used a competitor software back in 2014, and I felt like it just wasn’t providing the right kind of experience that Allertons wanted to give its clients,” he says. “And the clients expected from a business on our kind of level.”
That sentence carries more weight than it might first appear. Because when you are building a premium business, good enough is no longer good enough. The experience has to feel considered, seamless, and intentional at every touchpoint, especially the ones clients interact with most.
The first crack: experience-level friction
Nicholas was clear on what he wanted Allertons to stand for. A salon rooted in service, education, and hospitality, inspired by retail environments where the experience matters just as much as the product.
But the software underpinning the business was not keeping pace.
“I wanted something that had an app and great online booking,” he explains. “Something that matched what clients expect now.”
This was not about chasing shiny features. It was about eliminating friction that quietly undermines trust. If the booking experience feels clunky, if access feels limited, if the brand promise breaks at the point of interaction, clients notice.
That gap is where chaos creeps in. Not loudly, but persistently.
Growth exposes what systems are really built for
As Allertons grew, so did the complexity behind the scenes.
“The main thing that made me want to switch was growth options,” Nicholas says. “Once you start optimising column availability, your service menu, all of that, you have to start looking at the brains of the business. The software is essential.”
Growth forces clarity. It exposes whether your systems are designed to support complexity, or whether they simply tolerate it.
For Nicholas, the decision to move to Phorest Salon Software was about restoring control. Not just operationally, but culturally.
As Nicholas puts it, “clients expect it nowadays to have an app for literally everything, whether it’s booking appointments or managing their lives.” For Allertons’ clients, that meant being able to book 24/7, see their points, review past and future appointments, and rebook with ease. “It just makes it a much more seamless experience,” he says.
And that same logic mattered just as much for the team. “The guys’ favourite feature is being able to see their column,” Nicholas explains, especially in a salon of this size where “they don’t always have easy access to one of the PCs.” Being able to see their day, what’s coming next, and whether they’re running early or behind, even when they’re not at a desk, “is invaluable to them.”
Having something as intuitive and accessible as the PhorestGo app in your pocket, not just for clients but for running the business itself, removed friction on both sides.
The fear no one talks about
Switching software is rarely about features on a slide deck. It is about risk.
When your business runs on online bookings, when your clients expect frictionless access, and when your revenue depends on every hour being optimised, the downside of getting it wrong is very real.
Allertons found it the hard way. Having been with Phorest for several years, Nicholas decided to test another software provider, but quickly realised there is no other software that hits on all the notes Phorest does.
“We only left for two to three weeks,” Nicholas says. “Which shows you exactly that there isn’t a better alternative.”
In those two weeks, the impact was immediate.
“We get 94% of all of our bookings online,” he explains. “Which meant that the switch to the other software provider was just as disastrous as you could imagine.”
The cost was not theoretical.
“We lost in those two weeks close to £30,000, which meant that getting the switch back right was probably the most important thing we’ve done since opening.”
There is no glamour in that number. It is lost time, lost trust, and lost momentum. It is the kind of disruption premium businesses cannot afford, and exactly why so many owners hesitate to change anything once they are established.
Cutting chaos means respecting the basics
What ultimately brought Allertons back was not habit. It was alignment.
“At the end of the day, everything you do is time, revenue, and profit,” Nicholas says. “No matter how you spin it, every salon comes down to those three things.”
That mindset sits at the heart of cutting chaos out of a business. Not adding more complexity, but removing friction so owners can focus on decisions that actually move the needle.
“With Phorest, the flexibility of the online booking system is massive,” he explains. “Creating packages, services at different lengths, different times, different prices.”
“If you’re not using software that respects time, revenue, and profit,” he adds, “you’re either leaving money on the table or even worse, losing money without realising.” The switch to a different provider showed that.
Support is part of the system
Technology alone does not steady a business. People do.
“When we came back to Phorest, we just gave them a list of exactly what we wanted to do,” Nicholas says. “They did the rest.”
That confidence comes from knowing there is a team behind the platform.
“He’s just Scouse Max to me,” Nicholas says.
“Having a person like Max at Phorest is great for me because it means I’ve got a single point of contact for everything I need to do, whenever I need to do it.”
“I don’t expect him to answer the phone at midnight, which is usually when I’m working,” he laughs, “but if I send him an email, first thing in the morning he comes straight back to me with, ‘This is how you do it, you do this, this and this’.”
“For an entrepreneur, your brain is always doing something stupid at stupid times,” he adds. “You need somebody to sound off to and make that idea work. That’s exactly what Max does for me.”
That kind of support reduces mental load. It removes decision paralysis. It gives owners confidence to move faster, because they are not carrying the risk alone.
Built to scale without chaos
Today, Allertons is opening new locations at pace. By square footage, their current salon is the largest in the UK, with more already on the way.
“The fact that Phorest is so easy to expand with means that’s something I don’t have to think about,” Nicholas says. “I can open a new place, a new location, and have it up and running in a matter of days.”
That is what premium growth looks like when the foundations are right. Expansion without disruption. Scale without chaos.
Choosing partners who work as hard as you do
Nicholas is clear about one thing. Suppliers are not interchangeable.
“I look for partners that are willing to work as hard as I am,” he says. “We don’t just provide shelf space. Everyone has to operate at the same level.”
That applies to software too. Uptime matters. Reliability matters. Ease of use matters. Because when you are handling thousands and thousands of bookings every week, there is no room for systems that wobble under pressure.
“Phorest has to be able to handle it,” he says. “And it does.”
A comeback built on clarity
Allertons’ story is not about never making the wrong call. It is about recognising it quickly, owning the impact, and choosing the platform that gives you back control.
“We’ve tried to look at alternatives twice,” Nicholas says. “And really, there is no alternative. Phorest is by far the best available option.”
As he puts it simply, “The software running your company is literally running the entire company. And you need to make sure that your staff can use it, your clients can use it, and that you’re putting yourself in a position to succeed.”
A final thought: two paths, the same principle
What the Allertons story ultimately highlights is not a single decision, but a principle.
When a business reaches a certain level, the systems behind it matter just as much as what happens on the floor. And when those systems stop matching your standards, doing nothing quietly becomes the riskiest option of all.
From here, there are usually two positions owners find themselves in.
If you’re reviewing your software and thinking about switching for the first time
For others, this moment comes from growth. What worked when the business was smaller no longer scales. Manual workarounds creep in. Marketing feels fragmented. Control starts to slip.
Switching systems can feel daunting, but it doesn’t have to be chaotic. With the right onboarding, support, and planning, it can be a positive reset, one that brings clarity, consistency, and confidence back into the business.
The right switch isn’t about chasing something new. It’s about choosing foundations that will support where you’re going next.
