Do you use a computer with broadband in your salon?

[Ruth Mills]

When i enquired about using xtensions they let me have a free trial for a week. They downloaded onto my laptop at home so i could have a play about and see if i liked it. Maybe you can give them a call and have a free trial to see what it's like.

Good idea, but I'd feel bad doing that, if I was doing it for the sole purpose of seeing what their product did. I wouldn't want to be accused of plagiarism or ripping someone else's product off! Although I guess that a lot of salon management systems do pretty much the same sort of thing anyway, e.g. maintaining lists of clients, a calendar/timetable view for booking appointments, etc.

 

[Curly Bamboo]

Good idea, but I'd feel bad doing that, if I was doing it for the sole purpose of seeing what their product did. I wouldn't want to be accused of plagiarism or ripping someone else's product off! Although I guess that a lot of salon management systems do pretty much the same sort of thing anyway, e.g. maintaining lists of clients, a calendar/timetable view for booking appointments, etc.

Technically speaking, it would be called research and development or creative marketing

 

[sknight]

I think this is very exciting and I can't wait to see what you come up with

 

[Ruth Mills]

I think this is very exciting and I can't wait to see what you come up with

Wow you're up early this morning! Thought we were bad enough getting up early to drive up to Wakefield to get Sonia into hospital for her op!

I may start on the preparatory work tonight after visiting hours at the hospital. Have got my laptop with me, which has all my Java stuff that I need on it - Eclipse, JBoss, PostgreSQL, Spring, Hibernate, eXist, etc...

 

[bombini]

Ah that's not so good if the "3" reception was no use. I've just got a Vodafone dongle, and they are meant to be the fastest in areas that have the right sort of 3G reception and whatnot.

The online salon management system I'm mulling over would include an online appointment system, so would also make it possible for clients to book appointments online via the salon's website. But it would also maintain a client's appointment history and any contra-indications etc. Plus offering marketing functionality like sending marketing emails and SMS text messages to clients who have signed up to your mailing list. And reporting functionality showing which treatments are most profitable etc.

Thanks for explaining.

An online appointment system has never really appealed to me as I would say 80% off my clients re-book at the time of treatment so it would only be worth getting to accomodate new clients from the website.

If it was something I was interested in then I would prefer the client specify the time they wanted the treatment for rather than a list of available appointments be listed as if you were having a very quiet day I feel this could put a client off because they may think you were not a very good salon. If I ever book a treatment last minute and am told I can pretty much choose anytime I want I always wonder if the salon is any good.

Having said all of that I think for a really big salon or spa it would be great, the amount of times I have called to book in for treatments at spas and its taken 10 mins to get a suitable appointment is more than i care to remember. To just book it online would be so much easier !

So to sum up as a business it wouldn't be something Id use, although a computerised appointment system does appeal to me and I would love one of those ! But as a client then I would pobably use the facility.

 

[Ruth Mills]

Thanks for explaining.

An online appointment system has never really appealed to me as I would say 80% off my clients re-book at the time of treatment so it would only be worth getting to accomodate new clients from the website.

If it was something I was interested in then I would prefer the client specify the time they wanted the treatment for rather than a list of available appointments be listed as if you were having a very quiet day I feel this could put a client off because they may think you were not a very good salon. If I ever book a treatment last minute and am told I can pretty much choose anytime I want I always wonder if the salon is any good.

Having said all of that I think for a really big salon or spa it would be great, the amount of times I have called to book in for treatments at spas and its taken 10 mins to get a suitable appointment is more than i care to remember. To just book it online would be so much easier !

So to sum up as a business it wouldn't be something Id use, although a computerised appointment system does appeal to me and I would love one of those ! But as a client then I would pobably use the facility.

Cool, thanks for letting me know

I guess, to clarify, then, the ability for a client to book appointments online via the salon's website could be seen as an "optional extra" to the core functionality - which would be an application where the salon themselves can manage appointments etc.