WEB APPS · SALONS
What a paper diary really costs a salon
A salon loses money twice over: when the phone rings mid-cut, and when the ten o’clock client simply does not turn up. The TERMIN demo shows how both costs disappear.
A hair salon loses money in two ways that nobody ever records: when a stylist puts down the scissors mid-cut and picks up the phone, and when it turns out at ten in the morning that the client is not coming. In the studio we built a demo of the TERMIN system to show how both of those costs disappear.
What a paper diary costs
A diary works. That is exactly what makes it hard to replace — it never breaks down and everyone knows how to use it. Its price is not the price of the notebook:
- The phone rings during a service. Every call is an interrupted client in the chair and a few minutes of delay that add up all day.
- A call outside opening hours is lost. Whoever gets no answer in the evening rings the next salon.
- No-shows are a surprise. An empty ten o’clock slot can no longer be sold.
- The client’s history sits in the stylist’s head. When the stylist is not there, neither is it.
The first three costs are measurable. The last one only shows up once somebody leaves.
What we built
TERMIN is a booking system for salons. The demo runs on invented data from a salon with four stylists, but it behaves like a real system — open it, switch the day, filter by stylist, open an appointment.
A calendar the whole team can see
Stylists in columns, hours running down the side, appointments coloured by status: booked, confirmed, in the chair, done, no-show. A red line follows the actual time. Clicking an appointment opens the detail and moves it forward — and every change immediately corrects the figures at the top (how much is booked, how much confirmed, the expected revenue for the day, how many slots are still free).
That last number is the one owners miss most. Empty slots only become visible when it is too late to fill them.
Reminders that run themselves
The message goes out 24 hours before the appointment. The client replies with 1 and the appointment confirms itself; they tap the link and the slot releases itself. In the demo the confirmation rate is 84 %, which is a realistic figure for a salon that sends its reminders consistently.
More important than the confirmation is the cancellation half. A cancellation two days ahead is not a loss — it is a slot you can still sell. A cancellation with no message is an empty chair.
Custom web applications
A booking system fitted to your workflow — connected to your site, your calendar, your reminders and your invoicing, with no middleman commission.
See the service →A waiting list that fills the gap
When a slot comes free, a message goes to the people on the waiting list. In practice the good slots fill within minutes — faster than anybody could ring around. It is the one feature that pays for itself almost immediately in a busy salon.
The client record
How many visits, when the last one was, who usually cuts their hair, how much they have spent, how many no-shows. That last figure is sensitive but useful: for a client with three no-shows the system can ask for a confirmation or a deposit, instead of the salon quietly ceasing to invite them back.
Paper does not text back. That is the whole difference.
Do you need a custom system
In fairness: for a salon with one or two stylists and an ordinary workflow, an off-the-shelf subscription is entirely enough, and cheaper. We wrote about it in detail in the article custom or off-the-shelf booking system.
Your own system pays off when at least one of these is true:
- you have several locations or you want one shared client database;
- your process has peculiarities (double appointments, colour preparation, two people on one service);
- you want one experience from the website through to the booking, in your own identity;
- per-user subscriptions will exceed the price of your own system within a few years.
What the client gets
They book when it occurs to them — on the bus, in the evening, during a break. They can see which slots are free and they do not have to listen to an engaged tone. This is not convenience for the salon but for the client; the salon only gets the consequence.
If you run a salon
Write and tell us how many stylists work with you and how you handle appointments today. From that we can quickly see whether an off-the-shelf solution is enough for you — in which case we will honestly recommend it — or whether a custom system is worth building.