BOOKING APPS

Beauty booking apps and websites are no longer a rarity with many salons and spas making use of the convenient online service. Is this the future of appointment bookings?

How do your clients make appointments at your business? Do they have to call up reception, can they fill out an online booking form on your website, or do they e-mail you? As a salon or clinic, you want to make it as easy as possible for people to find your services and make a booking, so have you considered being listed in an online beauty booking directory? SPA+CLINIC talked to the people behind four leading beauty appointment services.

Natalia Pchelina, Founder of Beauro:

Beauro was founded in 2015, and I came up with the idea for it based on my own experience. As a customer, I wanted an easy-to-use, comprehensive platform to browse all quality salons and spas in town and instantly book treatments without having to pick up the phone. I couldn’t see why, in a world where practically everyone owns a smartphone and virtually anything can be accessed online (think: Airbnb, UberEats, Expedia), there wasn’t a hassle-free solution to finding and booking hair and beauty services. I then realised all the benefits an aggregate platform like that could offer to salons and spas, and thus Beauro was born in late 2015.

Beauro allows customers to book appointments 24/7, essentially working as a round-the-clock receptionist, so salons and spas don’t miss a single booking. We have a 24-hour cancellation policy, which helps beauty businesses to pretty much eliminate thousands of dollars they lose in no-shows and lastminute

cancelled appointments. When last-minute cancellations do happen, the salon still captures its revenue in full via Beauro.

Additionally, we have built a technology that allows salons to advertise and fill last-minute available time slots via the app in one click - we will make sure it’s filled by sending a push notification to hundreds of customers in the area.

When customers book through Beauro, we help salons to keep customers coming back by sending reminders when they are due for their next appointment. We are not big fans of mindless discounting and focus instead on attracting repeat clients.

We are unique in that we only list salons and spas that provide outstanding quality of services, which means the salons are always going to be featured alongside fellow reputable businesses and our users are guaranteed a great experience. As a result, we welcome all businesses in the hair, beauty and wellness industry, who offer excellent services and are looking to reach new clients and keep them coming back.

In terms of being listed, it is extremely easy for a business to jump on board. We take charge of all the initial set up hassle and walk you through how it works one-on-one. There are no fees involved with the onboarding process and we don’t charge any subscription fees. It is forever free to be a part of the app, the salon only pays a small commission fee when we actually generate a new customer for them. All businesses get a one-month free trial when they join.

We also don’t ask salons to switch from their current booking management software provider – Beauro syncs and runs alongside it as a complimentary service. Beauroapp.com

Matt Dyer and Nathan Airey, Founders of Bookwell

Australians are spending more on health, beauty and wellness services every year, and this industry has been relatively slow to adapt to new technology. There’s a genuine need from both businesses and consumers for simple, easy online booking management. Nathan and I saw a lot of opportunity in this market.

A huge part of it is that we saw in the online takeaway space that people don’t want to talk on the phone. If they have the option of using an app or a website, they will — because it’s just simpler.

So really that’s the premise — we built the business on that assumption that consumers don’t want to talk on the phone.

We provide businesses with free online calendar software to help manage their business. This includes SMS reminders, reports, product management and other useful features. Through marketing on our platform the businesses then get access to new customers who can book online.

Anyone can be listed on Bookwell as long as they have a shop front and registered business.

“My experience with Bookwell has been great,” says Ana Karina Troccoli from Ana Troccoli Aesthetics. “It’s given me some new clients, and it’s made it easier for clients to book in and choose services online. I’ve also found Bookwell has great customer service. Everything’s very quick and easy, with great communication between myself and the staff at Bookwell.”

“The staff are very responsive when there have been any issues or upgrades with the software,” adds Shantelle Quarrell, Dermal Technician at Timeless & Ageless in Camberwell Victoria.

We have big plans for the future. Our goal is to have 10k bookable venues on the platform and the best salon management software on the market.Bookwell.com.au

Lauren Silvers, Co-Founder and CEO Glamazon

Glamazon was founded in 2016 as a response to an emerging global trend towards peer-to-peer services, and to fill a gap in the market for at-home beauty services. With deep industry knowledge and connections, co-founders Lisa Maree and Lauren Silvers came together to build Australia’s largest real time marketplace for at home beauty services, making beauty appointments more accessible and convenient for busy women all over the country.

Glamazon is proud to be helping qualified beauty professionals around Australia run their own freelancer mobile businesses, by generating leads and income for them, and allowing them to have more work flexibility. We believe we are creating a fleet of ‘micropreneurs’ in the beauty industry, empowering these skilled workers to become entrepreneurs.

Glamazon has a strict and rigorous application and vetting process. All stylists must be qualified and certified beauty professionals, and once this has been validated we do background checks, look at work portfolios, call references and then screen them inperson in the form of an audition to not only assess their skills but their professionalism.

Nicole So, Co-Founder and CCO of Honee

Matt Jones had the idea for Honee after chatting to his hairdresser, Chris, who had a high-end salon located in the basement of his office building when he was at Zomato. They chatted about his work and what tech innovation has done for the food industry, then Chris said, “When are you going to build a Zomato for my industry?” Honee was then founded in 2016 by Matt and his co-founders, Nick Chang, Alexander Groom, and me.

After taking an in-depth look into the market, we discovered that the beauty and wellness industry received less than 0.2% of their bookings online, and many businesses were still using pen and paper for their appointment setting and client notes.

The first step for Honee was to get every single business online. When we compared our content to that of Google and other platforms, nearly 60% didn’t have an online presence besides their free Honee Business Listing. We walked the streets of Melbourne and Sydney to data collect publicly available information such as their contact details, address and services available, and then we digitised it so that potential customers can search by service and suburb.

We help customers find you online and then we send them your way (for free! We do not charge commission for your online bookings.). As Australia’s largest platform for beauty and wellness, we have 10,000+ venues online and we are only in two cities so far.

Our recurring customer rate on Honee is increasing at an exponential rate and it is because the most engaged businesses get highlighted in our search algorithm – so they get the most benefits and exposure on our platform. The rates are even higher for the venues that are operating their business on our salon management software, HoneeComb.

Keep your Honee Business Listing up to date, sign up to our free online bookings by going to honee.com. au and one of our support team will contact you to set the rest up! All booking requests from customers will be sent to your mobile and email.

The future of Honee is in the hands of our visionary clients – who have been instrumental in helping us mold the future of the industry. No matter what we are developing, the goal is always to help them grow their business from strength to strength, so the neverending plan is to build features for the beauty and wellness space. Honee.com.au