27 April, 2022

Salon Evo magazine: An exclusive interview with Salon Tracker and Urban Calm!

One of our lovely Clients Urban Calm had the lucky experience of having an editorial placement with the fantastic Salon Evo magazine! And as Sacha and Leanne have explained how our Salon Tracker management solution has helped their business, in case you missed the edit, we really wanted to share their story with you. To see how we may be able to also benefit your salon too!

Interview:

A nail course 20 years ago, led Sacha Eastwell on a journey of working for herself. Working from her home salon was perfect for juggling her young family then, but when her sister Leanne came on board doing lashes, Sacha says that her ambition led them to join forces and open a salon together.

For the last four years Urban Calm Salon has been their base in Kent. The combination of the two sisters and the fact that they thrive in different sections of the business has been a great mix and has led to them having a successful, and very busy salon.

“We do lots of services, we have two Ergoline sunbeds, one being a red-light therapy bed, it’s a hybrid sunbed and we also do spray tanning. We offer lash services and nail services and we recently started with facials and massage too. We also have a young lad renting a spot who does barbering, and we have another person who comes in and does teeth whitening.”

Sacha herself is doing nails, brows, lash lifts, spray tans etc. It’s a busy place with many options on the menu. To keep track of appointments, the inevitable changes in appointments, and everything else that a busy salon owner needs to keep on top of their business, Sacha chose Salon Tracker which is a feature rich salon management solution.

“Initially, it was recommended to me, so I looked into them. I also investigated other systems to use for our salon to figure out what would be best for our needs. The thing that attracted me to Salon Tracker is that we needed a system that would allow us to sell block bookings. That is particularly for the sunbed side of our business. It is so helpful, when the client comes in to use the sunbeds, their minutes are taken off their account automatically without the team having to get involved. All the other systems didn’t have that feature, so this really fitted what we needed.”

Sacha offers her clients the chance to book through Salon Tracker too. “We call it our VIP booking, because they really are our very important people. If they want to become a VIP, they can go online and book a sunbed at their own pace. And now that Salon Tracker is offering Klarna payments which means that it can take deposits or the full payment. It allows our sunbed clients to pre-pay for their tanning courses before visiting the salon and make their appointments online using their own personalised booking link.”

Another plus for this system is that it offers a diary just for tanning. There’s a tanning tab at the top and then a tab for the salon side of the business. Two different diaries running in tandem.

“We started with a sheet of paper and were trying to write everything down and it was really tricky. Lockdown gave us the chance to take time and look at what we needed and also to take time to work out how to use the new Salon Tracker system.

“We’ve just built a new website and we have incorporated our VIP booking online onto our website. That, on its own, has taken away the pressure of having to book people in and explain our services. People can just go on there and look and make their own booking.”

Trust in existing clients means that they do not need to pay a deposit, but new clients that are booking online do have to pay a deposit which they do through Salon Tracker. Sacha said: “For us, it is an assurance that people we don’t know are less likely to cancel at short notice or not turn up. It’s a really helpful feature on Salon Tracker and if they don’t turn up, at least we still have the deposit.”

Clients are less likely to forget their appointments if they have a reminder sent to their phones and Salon Tracker provides a text message just as a gentle nudge to make sure that a trip to the salon is still on the priority list.

And Sacha has been impressed by the customer service she has received. “They are very hands on, if you have any problems at all they are there and will quickly talk you through any issues.”

The addition of Salon Tracker software to the business has been an incredible help in juggling multiple diaries for lots of different services and it has taken a huge amount of stress, worry and wasted time away from Sacha and Leanne leaving them to do what they do best. Run Urban Calm!