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Back office
The systems that keep a business running: bookings, members, customer records, staff, branches and numbers, for when doing it by hand stops working.
6 of 6 articles
Back officeBack-office systems for service businesses: when every question waits for the owner
It's 8 pm, the owner has finally sat down to eat, and the phone won't stop buzzing, because every question in the shop waits for one person. That's the day a business needs a back office. Here's how to start, one piece at a time.
Back officeCustomers who book and don't show up: the empty slots quietly costing you
Saturday, 2 pm, the best slot of the week. The customer doesn't come and doesn't message. Almost every appointment business has been here. Why it happens, what it costs, and what the shops that rarely see it do differently.
Back officeHow to choose an online booking system: it should think like your shop, not a calendar
Friday, 7 pm. Two customers booked the same oil massage slot and the system said yes to both, but only one oil therapist was free. A good booking system knows things like that. Here's how to tell which ones do.
Back officeShould you take a deposit when customers book? A deposit is an agreement, not a punishment
Sunday, 11 pm, after the third no-show of the week, a salon owner types out a post: deposits on every booking from now on. It fixes one problem and quietly creates another.
Back officeCustomer data and PDPA: a list spread across five places is a list you can't use
A nail salon owner wants to message customers she hasn't seen in three months. The names are in a notebook, LINE chats, an ex-employee's spreadsheet and several people's phones. Two hours later she has forty names and isn't sure she can message any of them.
Back officeMemberships and points: do they bring customers back? What does is a shop that remembers them
A drawer under the counter holds two hundred stamp cards, nearly all with two stamps. A few doors down, a small yoga studio has no cards at all, yet one customer comes back every week, because the teacher remembers her tight left shoulder.