Customer of the Week: Vogue Avenue Hair

With a client focused approach that includes an in-depth consultation and check-ins throughout the service, Vogue Avenue Hair make sure every client leaves the salon looking and feeling great. To them, a happy client is a loyal client.

As owner and director of the salon, Abby believes that satisfaction is, and should be, a bare minimum expectation by the client. An amazing client experience though, is something over and above that. At Vogue Avenue Hair every client is treasured.

“We always strive to help clients feel comfortable and confident with our team.”

Located in Port Melbourne, Abby has created a salon with a New York vibe that boasts a talented team of professional stylists who back up their creative styling with a service focus that keeps their clients coming back. Abby is proud of the team environment they’ve created. “We have a great team who are experienced, fun, and work hard together. Our clients love visiting us for our friendly and relaxed atmosphere, and the knowledge they receive from our expert and caring stylists.”

Abby brings a wealth of experience to her business. Since starting her hair career fifteen years ago as an apprentice, she has worked in a variety of roles and countries including London, North America and as far away as the Caribbean, where she worked on a luxury cruise ship styling for VIP guests and preparing for events on board.

“Working in different salons in different countries has exposed me to incredible opportunities to work with some of the best stylists and best products in the world.”

Many of those experiences have influenced Abby’s approach to running her own salon. “After a decade of learning from incredible salon owners, there’s great satisfaction in being able to prove to myself that I can make it in the ownership world. The transition from stylist to a business owner is not at all easy, but it is very fulfilling. It’s full of sleepless nights, stressful days, but seeing our stylists grow and provide incredible client experiences makes it all worth it at the end of the day!”

One important step along the way to success has been implementing the right systems to support the creativity and client focus in the salon. Timely has played a part in enhancing that success with Vogue Avenue Hair finally able to offer clients an online booking option through the website that is very user friendly.

“Since integrating the online booking portal to our website we have spent less time answering the phone and more time creating positive client experiences.”

Timely also supports the salon’s strong team culture by offering clarity and specific information to both Abby and her stylists, which means she can now focus more on working on the business and not in it. The team has clearer, more visible KPIs, and Abby can get detailed reports and figures from anywhere in the world via the dashboard.

The search for the right software was a challenge initially. “My business partner and husband, Josh, is a software developer for start-ups so he was involved in the decision. We came from an existing software that was okay maybe for a solo operator, but we quickly knew we couldn’t scale the business, client engagement, or the team, without finding a new system that could handle our need for a deeper understanding of the salon’s efficiency and workflow.”

Together the couple looked at what they would need and created a list of features that they knew were non-negotiable. As a business owner, information, data, and reports are crucial to making the right informed decisions. This gives Abby valuable time to focus on the things she loves.

This year they are proud to be launching ABBY&Co., a salon professional product range that Abby has been designing, refining and testing for over a year now.

“Our focus is to create incredible experiences for salons and stockist that isn’t currently being offered by suppliers and wholesalers…so watch this space!”

We can’t wait to see what happens next at Vogue Avenue Hair!