A stylist asked for by name
The client wants her person. The booking goes into that person's calendar when skill and availability line up; otherwise the receptionist offers a substitute the front desk has approved.
Hair salons and barbershops
A cut with a regular barber, a colour transformation and a walk-in request need different handling. Your receptionist follows each professional’s skills and schedule, identifies services that require a consultation and applies the rules you set for your waiting queue.
$29 CAD / month · 50 Standard calls · 1 local number
When calls spikeNovember and December — the holiday party seasonApril to June — weddings and graduationsLate August — back to school
For the requests you receive
Colour or transformation
Processing time, product, colourist experience: duration cannot be read off a service name. The request becomes a consultation, not a booking of arbitrary length.
Barbershop with a walk-in queue
Two flows to reconcile: the people already waiting and the ones calling. The receptionist gives an honest window, puts the request in the queue, and texts back when the window moves.
Other requests you can delegate
Two cycles under one roof
A cut comes back on its own — sector research describes a return every three or four weeks at a barbershop — while colour and treatments are planned and follow your busy stretches. Those are two scheduling rhythms, not two trades: the receptionist places the returning cut in the first slot that suits the caller, and sends the long service to the consultation you require. Your busy stretches are written down once, and she keeps to them.
Late cancellation
The freed slot is offered to clients who were waiting for that service, and it is held for whoever answers first.
Match the requested service with the right professional
The request becomes a short consultation instead of a badly estimated colour block. The following Saturday's book stays intact, and Anouk walks into her appointment knowing what is coming.
Read the full conversation
Saturday, 11:20 a.m. Four stations are busy. A client calls about a small colour job.
ReceptionistSalon Rive-Nord, good morning. Let me take your name and a callback number, then we can look at it together.
CallerJosee Bergeron, 450 555-0119. I want to go back to blonde; I went dark with a box colour last month.
ReceptionistThank you. Going back to blonde after a box colour is a correction: I cannot give you a length or a price over the phone. I am booking a consultation with Anouk, who handles corrections.
CallerThat works. Tuesday late afternoon if you have it.
ReceptionistTuesday at 5:15, a twenty-minute consultation with Anouk. You will get the confirmation by text and a reminder the day before. Anouk will give you the length and the price once she has seen your hair.
What she does for your salon
The moves she makes on calls to your salon, from identifying the service through to a booking at the right length, then what stays with your front desk. Every line is a call that lands while your stations are busy.
When a client calls for a service
She takes the name and callback number, then the service requested and the preferred stylist or the first available.
A service carries the skills it requires; the stylist asked for decides which calendar the booking has to land in.
She books by the real catalogue duration of the service, rather than the length its name might suggest.
A colour booked as a haircut blocks thirty minutes instead of two hours and derails the rest of the day.
She checks that the requested stylist has the skill the service requires before confirming, and offers another approved person otherwise.
An open slot alone is not enough to book when the skill is missing; the front desk has already written down who can do what.
She asks whether the client is new or already known to the salon, and retrieves her existing file before booking.
A returning client does not have to re-explain allergies or preferences already on file.
When the walk-in queue fills up, or a transformation comes in
For a barbershop with a walk-in queue, she gives a window rather than an exact time, and puts the request in the queue as the front desk configured it.
Two flows get reconciled: people already waiting and the ones calling, without one blocking the other.
She texts whoever is waiting when the announced window moves.
A window that slips stays visible to the person it concerns, rather than discovered on arrival.
She sends a colour or a transformation to a consultation rather than to a booking of arbitrary length.
Processing time, product, colourist experience: duration cannot be read off a service name.
The appointment at the right length, at the right station
She places the slot in the right station’s calendar, with the confirmation texted and a reminder before the visit.
The front desk reads every call’s summary in the app, along with what was promised to the client.
She cancels under your policy and offers an approved substitute when a client can no longer make it.
The substitute offered is one the front desk already approved, not an improvised choice.
Between appointments, with Rebooking and retention
Options added separately, when they are useful to you.
- Add-on
She offers the slot freed by a cancellation to clients who were waiting for that exact service.
Rebooking and retention option: gaps in the book are the most perishable inventory a salon has. Rebooking and retention
- Add-on
She sends the reminder for the next visit on the rhythm of the service given, for clients who return at a regular interval.
Included in Rebooking and retention: the reminder follows the service’s rhythm, not a generic calendar. Rebooking and retention
- Add-on
She sends the deposit link with the confirmation for long services and group packages, and stops the reminder on receipt.
Deposits and payments option: the reminder stops as soon as payment lands, with no action needed from the front desk. Deposits and payments
When a client writes, and if you already run Square
- Channel
She turns an Instagram enquiry into a service request with the wanted service and preferred stylist clearly identified.
Optional Instagram and Messenger messages: the request stays attached to the original conversation.
- Software
With Square Appointments, she locates services, team and locations documented on the vendor side; plan level and local rules may rule out some booking setups, to be proven on a real account.
What the vendor documents does not yet hold for your specific setup. Square Appointments
What she does not do on your salon
- She gives no opinion on hair or skin, and makes no diagnosis.
- She does not interpret a reaction or redness: she records it and alerts the salon.
- She recommends no product, no active ingredient and no colour formula.
- She promises no colour result and no absence of reaction.
- She does not book a transformation of uncertain length: she turns it into a consultation.
- She does not bend the salon’s deposit and cancellation policy.
What you can ask her yourself
She answers from the appointments and calls you are allowed to access. A question about an option only applies once you have switched it on.
The questionWhich colour appointments were requested with a specific stylist?
She retrieves the recorded service and preference. Booking still depends on the permitted duration and resources.
Which requests went to a consultation instead of a booking?
She retrieves the transformations sent to a consultation. She did not estimate their length herself.
Who is waiting for a slot freed by a cancellation?
Add-onWith Rebooking and retention: waiting clients and the requested service. Without the option, she keeps no list.
What happens to the request
You describe your team and your menu
Who does what, real durations by service and by stylist, the services that go to a consultation, your cancellation policy and the approved substitutions. All of it is editable from the app.
She qualifies before she books
Name and callback number, service asked for, preferred stylist or first available, new or returning client, allergies or sensitivities to pass on, and the times that work.
The appointment lands at the right length
The slot goes into the right station's calendar, the confirmation is texted, and a reminder runs before the visit. The front desk reads every call summary in the app, including what was promised.
What the Beauty, fitness and lessons base covers
A receptionist who answers in the salon's name, in both languages, identifies the service and books it at the right station for the right length of time. You keep your number.
- Calls answered in French and in English, following the caller
- The requested service identified from your own catalogue
- Booking, rescheduling or cancelling within known availability and rights
- The professional, the duration and the station each service requires
- Menu prices, conditions and the cancellation policy explained as written
- A written summary after every call, readable in the app, and the option to ask her what happened
She does not book a transformation of uncertain length: she turns it into a consultation.
Decisions that stay with you
- She gives no opinion on hair or skin, and makes no diagnosis.
- She does not interpret a reaction or redness: she records it and alerts the salon.
- She recommends no product, no active ingredient and no colour formula.
- She promises no colour result and no absence of reaction.
- She does not bend the salon's deposit and cancellation policy.
Ask your receptionist, too
This is included in your base plan. She answers using the calls, requests and business information you are allowed to access.
Talk to your receptionistA question you can ask
Which colour appointments were requested with a specific stylist?
She retrieves the recorded service and preference. Booking still depends on the permitted duration and resources.
What else the salon can hand to her
Beyond the base plan. Each one is added on purpose, separately from the base. None is switched on unless you choose it.
When your customers prefer to write
You can add a channel so she can continue the conversation with your customers. Any action she takes follows the same rules and the options you have chosen.
Optional customer channel
Instagram messages
Turn an Instagram enquiry into a request with the service and preferred stylist clearly identified.
The transactional messages provided by your base plan and your own questions to the receptionist remain included.
Keeping your current software?
Check the actions supported, connection requirements and how to work when your software cannot perform the requested action.
Services, team and locations are documented in the vendor model. Plan level, localised rules and a cap on cancellation fees may rule out some booking setups: to be proven on a real account.
The costly one is not the missed call: it is the badly booked appointment
In a salon with several stations, everyone is busy at the same time. Requests arrive late in the afternoon and on Saturday, exactly when the floor is full. Nobody can pick up between two clients while a colour is on the timer or a razor is in hand.
And the real loss does not show up in a call log. A colour booked as a haircut blocks thirty minutes instead of two hours: the rest of the day slides, the next client waits, and somebody walks out. A mis-qualified service costs more than a missed call.
Your receptionist books by skill and by real duration: she knows which stylists do what, which service needs a consultation before it can be placed, and how much room is left in the walk-in queue. The relationship stays on the floor; what gets delegated is the logistics.
In the same section
The other lines of work in this section run on the same engine, with their own requests and their own rules.
Beauty, fitness & lessonsBeauty and wellness
Hair salons and barbershops — your questions
How does she know which stylist can do what?
Because you write it down once. Every service carries the skills it needs and the people who have them; an open slot is not enough to book when the skill is missing. The receptionist then offers another approved person or another date.
What about the walk-in queue?
She gives a window rather than an exact time, and puts the request in the queue according to what the front desk configured. When the window moves, a text goes out to whoever is waiting.
Can she handle a cancellation?
Yes: she cancels under your policy, offers an approved substitute and, with the Rebooking and retention option, offers the freed slot to clients who were waiting for that service.
Does she sound like a barbershop or like a salon?
Like yours. Sector research observes that a salon’s register follows its positioning, and it recommends no single tone: this is a setting, not an imposed default. You choose the warmth of the greeting and the trade vocabulary — chair, station, stylist, colourist, balayage, blow-dry, touch-up — and you write down what you do not want to hear. Two things are not adjustable: she does not venture into the technical vocabulary of a colour formula, which belongs to the practitioner, and she does not push a sale.
Can she quote our prices?
Yes for menu prices, while noting that hair length or treated area can move them and that the amount is confirmed in the chair. A colour correction goes to a consultation rather than to a number on the phone.
Does she replace our receptionist?
She takes the calls nobody can take: during services, in the evening, on Saturday, and when the line overflows. In a busy salon she works beside the front desk rather than in its place.
Your rules, before the first call
Start your free trial with your email. Your website can help prepare your business information, but it is optional. Confirm the facts, choose a first task and test your receptionist. You can try options too, starting with the ones you need.
Keep my phone numberHair salons and barbershops