Like many small business today, Global Hair Limited, t/a Headrush Hair Salon considered using a texting service as a way to streamline customer communications and save money. With approximately 4,700 clients in their roster, the percentage of missed hair appointments was creating an increasing amount of spare time and costing the business hours of missed revenue. Headrush Hair Salon Global Hair Directors, Phil Saunders and Emma Fulgoney, began to look at different SMS services online and came across TextMagic which seemed the ideal choice due to ease and cost.

How has SMS messaging improved your hair salon business?

"TextMagic has improved our amount of no-show clients who may have forgotten the date and time of their appointment, therefore leaving a stylist in the salon with sometimes up to 2 1/2 hours of down time, which is clearly bad for business and profits.We calculate that our number of no-shows has been reduced by approximately 70% since we've been using TextMagic and we expect this number to improve further as we obtain more clients' mobile numbers."

SMS messaging takes customer service to the next level.

"TextMagic has also benefited our customers. Clients don't want to miss their appointments either and text messaging helps them stay in touch and keep us updated. We also use the Email to SMS service to send our clients special messages on their birthdays as well as unique salon promotions."

Acquired by Global Hair Ltd.in January 2009, Headrush Hair Salon is a high quality salon where customer satisfaction comes first. Their team of well-trained and experienced stylists cater to over 4,700 clients in the East Sussex area. For more information, please visit their website at www.headrushhair.co.uk.

According to a new study by Portio Research, worldwide SMS traffic topped 5 trillion messages in 2009 and is expected to exceed 10 trillion in 2013. These are staggering numbers for sure, but how many businesses can actually say they are taking advantage of this remarkable flow of communication? The most common way to reach mobile phone users, also know as YOUR CUSTOMERS, is through SMS. Because SMS is a neutral feature on all mobile devices, regardless of service provider or hardware manufacturer, it has become the mainstream form of international communication. And because it is also very affordable, businesses of all sizes from mom-and-pop shops to major corporations will be taking advantage of this valuable tool and succeeding. Here are some things to consider now to prepare for the future.

1. Mobile commerce is expected to grow by $119 billion by 2015 which means your Point of Sale will be altered as people respond and buy things from mobile messages.

2. The way you connect with your customers is becoming more localized giving you the opportunity to capture them as they are walking by your door. Find out what mobile tools offer Location Based Services (LBS).

3. Discovering and delivering the products and services your customers WANT is getting easier as feedback on everything from movie screenings to restaurant reviews are being generated in real time.

4. Your ability to resolve support issues is increasing customer retention.

5. Look for Direct Mobile Payments (DMP) to become more of a reality as seen by the recent successful text-to-donate Red Cross campaign for Haiti.

5. Today's mobile web is tomorrow's Internet web. With Smartphone sales up 24%, the DMA recently estimated that more people will connect to the Internet via their mobile phone than their PC within 5 years.

TextMagic founder Dan Houghton created TextMagic in 2001. Back then it was all one person: software was developed by Dan, he made all designs, and also provided customer support. Let us go back and look how TextMagic homepage design has evolved since.

During 2007 - 2009 we changed homepage three times. Finally we have a site design that pleases all our team members and we hope you like our latest update too. Please visit www.textmagic.com and post your feedback to comments section below.

For your amusement I will post some screenshots with original designs. If you too would like to see your old site just check out this cool service called The Wayback Machine.

Click on screenshot to see bigger image.

Very first homepage in 2001.

 

2006

2008 January. New logo was introduced

March 2009. Please post your comments below

Your feedback is appreciated. Please post in comments section below.