The Business Barbershop Stands Out in a Competitive Market with Text Messaging

About The Business

Located in Toronto, Canada, The Business Barbershop is a specialty men’s grooming lounge providing hair cuts, straight shaves, massages, hand and foot care, hair removal, and many other esthetic services. Their mission is to always exceed customer expectations.

The Challenge

For Kim D’Andrade, the Owner and Operator of The Business Barbershop, the most important aspect of running a successful operation is making communication easier for her customers. This was the challenge she was trying to solve when she started using DemandHub. “Emailing or calling to make an appointment for a haircut is antiquated, and having customers book through an online form is more work for them,” notes D’Andrade. “My customers prefer to text, and I wanted them to be able to do that.”

In addition to communication, The Business Barbershop wanted to make it easier for their customers to find their business through a quick Google search. “The world is online,” she notes.

Recognizing the importance of customer feedback, D’Andrade was initially texting her customers for feedback from her personal cell phone.

This process was time consuming and difficult to track. “You gotta do what you gotta do to stand out and respect customers,” she said. But she was looking for a better, easier, and simpler way.

“I use DemandHub Messenger to book appointments, offer tailored promotions based on customer history, reach out to dormant customers, and follow up with new customer feedback.”

Kim D'Andrade - Owner and Operator, The Business Barbershop

The Solution

In order to stand out in a specialty market, D’Andrade needed a technology solution that made it simple for her to open a two-way communication channel with her customers. “If you make it easy, they will come,” D’Andrade said.

DemandHub Messenger enables D’Andrade to text her customers from a central dashboard or from the DemandHub mobile app, where she can easily keep track of previous conversations. “I wanted to save my customers time so they wouldn’t hesitate to contact me to book an appointment.” As an added benefit, she no longer has to use her personal cell number as she received a dedicated business textable phone number from DemandHub. According to Frost & Sullivan, text messages have a 97% open rate, compared to emails which have an open rate of only 22%.

“When they come in the shop, my customers tell me how much they love having the option to text me,” D’Andrade notes. “I use DemandHub Messenger to book appointments, offer tailored promotions based on customer history, reach out to dormant customers, and follow up with new customer feedback.” With templates for each scenario, texts can be sent in just seconds.

To make it easier for new customers to find her online, D’Andrade uses DemandHub to text customers for reviews after each appointment. “It’s part of our process. Everyone on my team uses it because they see how invested I am in the solution.” An overwhelming 93% of consumers use online reviews to determine whether a local business is good or bad, according to BrightLocal.

By enhancing her already great reputation online, D’Andrade increases her visibility, which increases her traffic. This leads to building more trust in a highly competitive and niche market. Not only do the reviews act as a tool to validate the business for potential customers, they help to engage them by turning them into future customers.

To capture the increase in website visitors, The Business Barbershop uses DemandHub Web Chat, which allows the team to chat with customers on the go.

No one — neither the customer or the business — needs to be tied to a web browser because all communication can take place over text.

The Results

In the first 4 months of using DemandHub, The Business Barbershop has achieved — and exceeded — their initial goal of making communication easier for customers.

The numbers speak for themselves:

• Over 550 SMS conversations have taken place in 4 months, enabling The Business Barbershop to maintain strong relationships with its customers.
• The company’s Google ranking has increased from 4.6 stars to 4.8 stars, building trust online.
• The Business Barbershop now has over 436 reviews, compared to the 121 they had before using DemandHub, increasing online visibility.
• D’Andrade has garnered over 1,136 inbound leads from Web Chat, with a solution that makes it easy to book appointments and answer questions over SMS.

“I wasn’t surprised by the success we’ve had because I am committed to making this work and so is my team,” D’Andrade says. “But I was surprised at how simple DemandHub was to use. People usually resist change, but everyone on my team took to it immediately.”

D’Andrade notes that men generally wait till the last minute to book appointments. Now with DemandHub, she can bridge the gap between walk-ins and appointments because it’s much easier — and faster — to book. “It makes my customers feel more respected when they have an appointment.”

Not only has DemandHub helped to simplify communication, increase visibility online, and manage inbound leads, it enables D’Andrade to build her business by interacting with customers the way they want.

Ready to Grow Your Business?

Our mission is to help local businesses grow by making it easier to communicate with customers. With modern messaging technology, your business can text review invitations to your customers, enabling them to post a review with just a few clicks in under 30 seconds.

If you’re looking to boost your revenue, the best place to start is with the online reviews of your business.