Seeing a need for healthy skin care regimens, Áine Lavery opened Skin Future in 2018 and has grown her business to include three employees. Unlike other clinics, the mission of Skin Future is rooted in a more long-term holistic approach that includes thinking about nutrition, health and diet, stress, sleep, and supplements because it paints an overall picture of skin health.
The business, based in Hillsborough, Northern Ireland, is especially busy in the summer for weddings and holidays. Brides will often book weekly appointments leading up to their weddings; the same is also true for people who have long flights and want to keep their skin hydrated.
| Background | Skin Future is a a Northern Ireland based skincare business |
| Years in business | 5 years in business (2018) |
| Business size/locations | 3 employees, 1 location |
| Years with Square Appointments | 1.5 years with Square Appointments |
The Challenge
Skin Future needed to move from managing bookings with pen and paper to an online system that allowed them to take and manage more appointments electronically. Using pen and paper was hard to track over a period of time, created potential errors, and time consuming. The business needed a tool that could grow with them—they knew adding online appointments would be a key feature—and Square came recommended by others in the industry.
“Moving from a paper diary to Square Appointments allowed us to double the number of appointments we were able to take each day. That has significantly increased our revenue and the number of clients we can help.”
– Vicki, Front of House
The business had already been using Square for payments, and adding Square Appointments (appointment booking software) as their Point of Sale system was a logical progression. After looking at other tools, it made sense to have a centralised Point of Sale for bookings, payments and reporting. Square Appointments did all this plus offered the extra benefits of inventory management and team management tools, really offering Aine a full end to end salon management system in one.
By enabling clients to book online 24/7 freed up the team to think more strategically about marketing and pricing. Also, linking payments and bookings gave Aine one comprehensive view of the business’s performance in one dashboard, even linking client purchases and services together.
Before switching to online bookings, Skin Future offered less bookings per day, each with a wide booking window. This was not optmising their time and when they saw how they could set timings specifically to the duration of each service and still build in cleaning time, they were able to double the number of appointments they did each day. Clients who did not show up for appointments or canceled at the last minute were an issue for Skin Future. Using Square Appointments to manage confirmation messages and reminders helped mitigate this and also building in a cancellation policy with Square also protected their time.
How it’s going
| 40% | Increase in sales since implementing Square Appointments |
| 4 | Hours of additional business on Fridays |
| x2 | Doubled the number of daily bookings |
Using Square Appointments and the impact
Find out why Square Appointments remains their Point of Sale and appointment management system of choice, below:
Increase in daily appointments
Square Appointments is part of the everyday workflow at Skin Future. Because it is user-friendly across devices for staff and clients, bookings have doubled, and automatic reminders help clients keep their scheduled appointments.
Better productivity and use of time
Square Appointments allows Skin Future to set appointment blocks with the right time between each booking. This allows them to easily turn and prepare rooms for new clients, so there’s no confusion about appointment times or overlapped bookings.
“The efficiencies provided by Square Appointments have freed up time to help me do tasks that will grow the business. Newsletters, social media, client management. We are looking to expand next year.”
– Vicki, Front of House
Offering a more personalised experience
Another benefit is that each therapist can now see a client’s history on their device before the appointment begins. Using the Square Customer Directory allows therapists to get an accurate idea of what clients liked or what services they had in the past, as well as special requests or even product purchases, creating a more customisable experience for each client.
“I really liked how easy it was to view on the screen and how, because it integrated with our till, we could see a clear history of what every client was buying. It meant everything was joined together. It gave us that much more information about our clients, their spending habits, and their booking habits.”
– Vicki, Front of House
Low maintenance 24/7 appointment booking system
One of the best elements of Square Appointments for clients—and the business—is that bookings can happen anytime and clients can even book through Instagram. With all the bookings happening online, this freed up additional time for the Skin Future team to leave the phones and manage other aspects of their business.
“The booking system is great for recording as much information about the upcoming appointment or the client that we need. So that’s also great that we can record, capture that and then see it there forever to review.”
– Vicki, Front of House
Optimised appointment length times
The biggest impact of Square Appointments has been in the ability to create more efficient time bookings. In the past, during their pen and paper method, every appointment was in a 2-hour time slot. Since moving to Square Appointments, bookings are automatically adjusted to reflect more accurate timing, allowing them to schedule double the number of appointments each day.
Provision of data and actionable insights
It all comes together with detailed insights that connect the point of sale and online bookings into a single set of reports. Staff can log in and get a clear overview of appointments and expected workflow, see product inventory, and track sales. These reports have resulted in Skin Future changing the way they work to help generate 100% more appointments, and offering tailored services during days and times that had traditionally been slower.
Additionally, Skin Future is using the reports to see what days are bringing in the most revenue to help manage client bookings and schedules in-house to maximise productivity and revenue.
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