Why I stopped using WhatsApp for bookings and never looked back
Dean Brooks
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Beauty Academy · Swindon · 3mo ago
I want to be honest about this because I wasted money making the wrong choice first. I started with Treatwell when I opened my nail studio in Edinburgh 10 years ago. It looked great on the surface but the client-facing booking page was clunky and I had eight people drop off mid-booking every week. Switched to Treatwell two years ago and haven't looked back. Here's what the switch actually involved and what I think matters most when choosing a system.
First thing: don't just look at the price. Look at the booking flow from a client's point of view. I had a client tell me my old booking page made her feel like she was filling in a tax return. That stung but she was right. Treatwell took me about half a day to set up properly, and within the first week I noticed clients were actually completing their bookings rather than dropping off halfway through.
Second: SMS reminders are non-negotiable. Email reminders get ignored. My no-show rate went from roughly 20% down to almost nothing once I turned on the automated text reminder 48 hours before each appointment. Worth every penny of the monthly cost.
Third: deposits. I introduced a £30 deposit about two years after switching and honestly I should have done it from day one. The people who complained were the people who would have wasted my time anyway. My regulars didn't blink.
First thing: don't just look at the price. Look at the booking flow from a client's point of view. I had a client tell me my old booking page made her feel like she was filling in a tax return. That stung but she was right. Treatwell took me about half a day to set up properly, and within the first week I noticed clients were actually completing their bookings rather than dropping off halfway through.
Second: SMS reminders are non-negotiable. Email reminders get ignored. My no-show rate went from roughly 20% down to almost nothing once I turned on the automated text reminder 48 hours before each appointment. Worth every penny of the monthly cost.
Third: deposits. I introduced a £30 deposit about two years after switching and honestly I should have done it from day one. The people who complained were the people who would have wasted my time anyway. My regulars didn't blink.
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The no-show stats in this post match my experience almost exactly. I was losing roughly £50 a month to no-shows and cancellations before I introduced deposits. That money was just gone. Now it's protected. The maths on deposits is completely obvious once you see it.
#1
This is really relatable. I went through almost the exact same process two years ago. The biggest thing for me was realising that the clients who pushed back hardest on deposits were the ones who'd let me down before. Once I saw it that way the decision became very easy.
#2