Jaqs Hair Salon, Newport, sends text appointment reminders
Link: SMS Doctors Appointment Reminder Live In Ealing - Digital-Lifestyles.info
Sal, my wife receives SMS reminders from her hairdresser (Jaqs of Newport - BTW can we have her hair cuts cheaper if I plug your shop?) the day before her appointments
I caught this at the bottom of Simon’s post about the SMS alerts in Ealing and thought it deserved a second post.
For a LONG time I’ve been trying to convince the total airheads at various salons around here that texting appointment reminders — AND allowing customers to book appointments by text — would be a good idea.
One girl in one establishment seriously asked me, ‘So do you expect me to give my mobile number to EVERY customer?’
I explained that we’d assign a different mobile number for the salon but she just wasn’t getting it, ‘What about MY privacy??’ she kept on asking. Deary me. I got similar responses from each airhead place I walked into across the High Street.
So I’m pleased to hear at least ONE hair salon has got it right. Does anyone know about any other places doing SMS booking/reminders? Surely someone’s talking to TONI & GUY about implementing this?
It really is such a good idea isn’t it! I think that tied into some discount at non peak times it could really work with a services like Hair and Beauty.
I can’t think of a woman I know that wouldn’t sign up for that because it costs them nothing. And it would work all over the world.
What about something similar for blokes?… car tax reminders from the DVLA, MOT or service reminder from your garage with a time they have free to do it etc….
Posted by mark on November 23rd, 2006 at 12:06 pm.Second the idea of MOT reminders, no one told me my first MOT was due on my motorbike, only realised when I got the tax renewal two months later. Dropped it in for its MOT and a service, and the dealer said they’d call me when it was done. I ended up chasing them about 4.30pm that afternoon, to be told it was ready. WHY DIDN’T YOU JUST TEXT ME!!
Posted by Alex on November 23rd, 2006 at 12:34 pm.Ideal use for Fixed Line SMS, your phone would pick up the normal number and display the SMS with Hairdresser as the sender.
Nice to see Ealing as an inovator - I spent most of my life there before quickly legging it to the Shires.
BTW, Ealing hospital is actually in Southall.
On Ewans favorite topic of bad use of bandwidth, you will need ADSL MAX to view the TONI & GUY website, I gave up waiting for the flash intro to load.
Posted by Paul Worsley on November 23rd, 2006 at 6:27 pm.What’s even more interesting about this post is to note how much ‘local’ businesses have embraced text messaging (hairdressers, dry-cleaners etc) yet few of the ‘big boys’. I struggle to find a good example of mobile crm from a big brand or retailer and still revert to my ZagMe case study information from 2001. Admittedly, maybe I just haven’t been exposed to this as a customer (wrong demographic?), but it’s a question I ask routinely of my students on the various courses and lectures that I run and no-one has yet come up with any mobile CRM that they have received except local examples.
Posted by Helen Keegan on November 24th, 2006 at 2:02 pm.i saw an awesome case study by adam bird (esendex) and his client NTL (or telewest), back a year or so ago at an exhibition. Look it up Helen. I have referenced it in the past.
Posted by njar on November 24th, 2006 at 2:53 pm.I can atest to Telewest - juts had their TV service installed (had to since Lost moved to Sky - youngest duaghter insisted). They sent me a series of txts over the past week confirming the order etc.
I did an interview a week or so ago with a company up here in Scotland called Graham Technolgy. They just launched a new CRM system named ciboodle that gives an intergrated view of all channels - voice, web, IM, SMS.
They are starting to do a fair bit with mobile CRM but since their customers tend to be at the higher end of say finacial services, take up of mobile has been slow due to the type of transactions being handled. Msotly down to security concerns.
For smaller companies, people I speak to say that even though they know use text messaging, they just don’t seem to be able to make a connection between that and their own businesses.
Jim
Posted by Jim Black on November 25th, 2006 at 12:52 am.The problem appears to be that small business owners and marketers are not thinking of creative ways to use SMS.
A few months ago I blogged about a conversation I had with a friend who owns a hair salon. Ewan has a posting here somewhere about it. She couldn’t think of a reason to use SMS. Within 3 minutes I had her convinced. And that was just with the marketing aspects. But for reminders, taking reservations, making appointments and other customer interaction it could be really useful. Especially when it can be interfaced into your CRM system through an API.
http://blog.mobivity.com/?p=17
Posted by Greg Harris on November 25th, 2006 at 9:12 pm.I have heard of a small restaurant using it when their not busy, to offer discounts on particular evenings.
You dont even have to have a mobile you could do it from a pc using someone like http://www.voipdiscount.com .You can register your business name as the user/senders name.
Posted by costfighter on December 11th, 2006 at 7:41 pm.Saw the reference in this posting to the work we at http://www.esendex.com/uk have been doing with NTL. The case study link is: http://www.esendex.com/uk/esendex-Case-studied-ntl.aspx.
Also the post starts with a concern about individual stylists giving out mobile numbers in order for customers to text in for appointments. It is possible to use SMS Virtual Mobile numbers instead of SIM based mobile numbers to terminate SMS into applications. This can then be forwarded as an email, to an application or viewed in an online inbox. Most Business SMS providers, us included ;-), provide this service. It also keeps personal mobile numbers private, as they should be.
Posted by Adam Bird on March 24th, 2007 at 6:53 pm.I don’t think Toni&Guy will do this they are to cheap to pay the 10 cents per text to do it. I know I used to work at the corp. office for them.
Posted by Robert on October 15th, 2007 at 7:26 am.