The eminent men’s grooming brand was built on a love of the convivial, vibrant atmosphere of the barber shops of his youth where founder, Johnny Baba, began his career in his native city of Limerick.
As Johnny grew in his career, he founded the Barber Barber brand in an attempt to unify a first-class customer experience with a first-class haircut. “It’s a lot easier to sell a service,” Johnny told us “than it is to sell a haircut. So we were lucky that we’ve managed to combine the two very well across all the sites”.
Today, there are Barber Barber locations in Manchester, Leeds, Liverpool and London, combined with a thriving range of hair care products sold via the company’s eCommerce website. However, the road to success did not come without challenges. We identify the barriers encountered by Barber Barber on the growth path and how Square helped the brand overcome them.
Key challenges and how Square offered solutions
- POS reliability: Barber Barber previously used a payment processing solution whose card readers were slow and prone to breakage. Incorporating Square Reader, and eventually Square Register, into operations made it much more frictionless to take payments.
- Complex reporting: Marrying reports across different locations and eCommerce operations was previously challenging for Barber Barber. With Square, reporting is greatly simplified, encompassing all aspects of operations with access to granular data just a few touches of a smartphone screen away. This enables Johnny to track data while travelling between Barber Barber’s multiple locations, leading him to refer to it as the “perfect all-in-one reporting tool”.
- Maintaining brand consistency: Johnny cites maintaining brand consistency across multiple locations as his biggest operational challenge. By simplifying operations and providing easy access to key data, Square empowers Johnny to spend more time providing the personal touch and oversight necessary to maintain brand consistency and create the quintessential Barber Barber atmosphere.
Implementation and training
Starting with Square Reader, Johnny reported a frictionless implementation. Square POS’s simple and intuitive nature made it easy to onboard new team members with virtually no training necessary.
“The ease of use of Square means [new trainees] pick it up very quickly and it saves us a lot of time and money.”
– Johnny Baba, Founder and Owner, Barber Barber
He also lauded the support he received from the dedicated account manager who helped to achieve a quick and easy onboarding.
Square’s impact on operations as told by Barber Barber
Instead of using several separate systems to manage different facets of operations, Square has empowered Barber Barber to consolidate operations into a single platform. This has impacted the company’s operations in several ways that have enhanced the brand’s growth and expansion.
1. Increased revenues
By switching to Square Appointments, Barber Barber was able to drastically increase revenues by almost doubling its bookings. The centralised nature of the platform means that Johnny and his team can fill gaps in barbers’ schedules at any location, no matter where they are.
The brand has also significantly increased its retail operations by incorporating a Square eCommerce website into its operations, enabling customers to purchase products and make appointments online.
– Johnny Baba, Founder and Owner, Barber Barber
During the previous days of integrating a custom website with another booking platform, it added friction and time delays for Barber Barber, resulting in lost time due to manual input.
2. Improved customer experience
Given that the customer experience is so central to Barber Barber’s brand, Johnny and his team wanted a payment solution that was more conducive to customer satisfaction.
Square’s POS hardware enables Barber Barber’s shops and eCommerce stores to accept a broad range of payments, adding more convenience for the customer. Meanwhile, Square Register’s customer-facing screen provides a greater degree of transparency. This shows customers exactly what they are spending and what they are spending it on, thereby adding value.
3. Reduced operating costs and friction
There are several ways Square has helped Barber Barber to reduce operational spending and friction. Square Appointments’ robust notification and communications have helped the brand to drastically reduce no-shows across its various sites, preventing wasted revenue and ensuring that barbers’ working days are profitable.
Robust integration with Xero accounting makes life easier for the brand’s outsourced accounting teams, helping to save money while ensuring accuracy.
Moreover, Square’s market-leading transaction rates and range of free capabilities allowed the brand to enhance savings by consolidating more aspects of its operations into a single platform.
Also, Barber Barber had previously encountered issues with gift cards being difficult to track and prone to exploitation. Square’s Gift Card programmes enabled the brand to eliminate lost revenue from gift cards and improve transparency in their use.
4. Improved financial transparency
Finally, Square’s robust reporting has allowed Barber Barber to improve financial transparency and allow for decision-making based on more accurate and recent data. Being able to track revenue across 5 sites and retail and eCommerce sales in a single place enables the brand to position and promote its offering strategically. And, because Square’s reports can be viewed anywhere, Johnny and his team can stay agile and pivot in their operations using up-to-the-minute data.
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