Case Studies / Beauty Salons

This salon changed their booking system to better manage their clients and multi-location business

Posted by Alex Davies-Parmenter on 20 May 2015

In 1994, Kelli Hicks started Body Image Beauty in Fleet, UK. Today, it’s a multi-salon company with over 10,000 clients, and it has achieved Guinot Crown status every year since the awards launched in 2000.

Recently, Body Image Beauty changed their salon booking system to Timely to allow them to better manage their clients and cross-location appointments.

Body Image Beauty thrives on Timely

The landscape is constantly changing for salons as new ways of doing things are introduced, and Body Image Beauty found that Timely helped give their business a competitive advantage in the new digital market.

“I always held the belief that ‘if it isn’t broken – don’t fix it’,” says Jason Hicks. “However, the beauty industry changed very quickly over the last few years with nails becoming a growth industry and many salon owners coming from non-beauty backgrounds, bringing greater competition and relying heavily on web technologies and marketing. This old dog was going to have to learn new tricks to keep one step ahead.”

“I don’t think there was single offering that escaped our scrutiny,” Jason says. “And yes, I became very despondent when I realised it hadn’t changed much in nearly 10 years. Yes, they had become better at the usual – texting, emailing and engaging with clients – but I was looking for something that eased the day-to-day, and it had to work across multiple locations. I didn’t think I was asking for too much… not in 2013.”

Jason discovered Timely in a magazine article, and decided to trial it.

The switch to Timely was painless, and the support is fantastic

Switching to Timely seemed like a daunting task, but Jason found that it was quick and painless. Body Image Beauty had a few hundred products and about a hundred treatments to load onto the system, which didn’t take long. Rostering staff was easy and uploading the 10,000+ client list was simple once the system had been configured with help from the Timely support crew.

“What a team they are – every email, question, rant or suggestion has been replied to, not days later but within hours. Astonishing!”

The Timely system is easy to use and the updates are convenient

Part of the switch to Timely involved educating the company’s 20 employees on using the system. This was one of Jason’s main concerns, but he says the staff found the transition even easier than he did.

“I’m now a Timely-wiz and I love all the advanced features,” Jason said. “The continual feature enhancements are a welcome addition that I don’t have to install myself. Because Timely is in the cloud – in my browser so to speak – I don’t have to do anything. You guys add something and I get the benefit immediately. How cool is that?

“And the additions are endless. When the red ‘New Notifications’ icon appears in corner, we all go ooh – what delights do we have this week! I’ve lost count of the number of new features that have been added.”

Timely changes the way Body Image Beauty does business

Body Image Beauty is now taking appointments online with Timely’s Book Now button on their website, and Jason says that about 10% of their bookings are made online. With a client base of over 10,000, 10% of bookings is a significant number.

Additionally, Timely has made the logistics of running three separate locations very easy.

“The back-office administrative tasks can be done from anywhere I have internet access,” Jason said, “and the salon-to-salon bookings just require a quick switch over to another calendar to check availability or to book a client in at another location.”

“Even without that, the software is modern, it feels fresh, clean and uncluttered. Easy things are easy to do whilst complex things are also easy to do.”