The same approach, a different scale
A hair salon in Rijsbergen does not need a PIM. It needs a site that is right, where customers book their own appointments and where the craft is visible. On our server there is a working site built from a design delivery.
The situation
A salon sells time and craftsmanship. Things do not get stuck on product data there but on something else: a site that no longer fits the business, appointments arriving by phone and three apps, and questions appearing on WhatsApp in the evening while the scissors are in hand.
That is not a small problem because the business is small. It is the same problem as at a distributor with four systems: information sits in several places, nobody knows which place is right, and the work of keeping it up comes on top of the work the customer pays for.
The challenge
Building small is not easier than building big, it is different. There is no IT department, no project manager and no time to learn a system.
So everything we deliver has to work without a manual. And it has to look good, because in this trade the appearance is the product: a visitor judges the craftsmanship by what they see on their phone, long before they sit in the chair.
How we did it
First a design in the style of the business — colours, type, imagery — and we put that design up as a working site on its own address, with four pages and a responsive layout for the phone, because that is where virtually all the traffic comes from.
Only then the conversation about appointments and extensions. That is the same order as at a distributor: first something that works and that you can click through, then the question of what still has to be added. A design that exists only on paper produces an opinion; a working site produces a decision.
Why this case is on the site
To show that our way of working is not tied to the promotional trade. We first make a design in the customer's style, put it up as a working site, and only then talk about the rest.
For a salon that is a site with appointments; for a distributor a sales environment with quotes. The approach is the same, the scale differs. And the scale does not decide whether we build first: we always do.
The result
A site that works on the phone and fits the business, with four pages and a responsive layout. What happens next with appointments and extensions depends on the conversation that followed delivery.
There are no figures on appointments or visits. At a business of this size a percentage without a basis says nothing, and we measured nothing here. That is exactly why this case sits in the portfolio and not with the case studies.
What the customer says about it
This quotation is a draft. We wrote it down the way we understood it from the conversations, so that it can be put to the customer. It only goes live once the customer has approved it word for word and the name and role are in place.
“I am a hairdresser, not a system administrator. I was allowed to stay one.”
Three stories that belong with this one
The cases are connected: the same catalogue, the same technique rules and the same agent come back in several stories. These three sit closest to what you have just read.
Outside the promotional trade too
Do you sell services instead of products? Then we first build a design in the style of your business and put it up as a working site on its own address. After that we talk about appointments, questions and extensions.