Remember the good ol’ days of running a walk-in based barbershop business? Yeah, COVID-19 came across and squashed that quick smart, now that contact tracing requirements are in place.
Suddenly barbers all over the United Kingdom are scrambling to figure out how the heck to keep track of the clients walking through their doors.
Stress levels are high!
So what can you do ASAP to safeguard your business against COVID-19 and get your contact tracing requirements up to speed?
Get yourself a Walk-In Manager
Nope, we don’t mean hiring a team member to stand at the doors and act as a contact tracing gate keeper to any guest that walks through your doors.
We mean Shortcuts’ nifty Walk-In Manager feature that does all the heavy lifting for you, so you can still run a walk-in based barbershop, but meet those all-important contact tracing requirements.
When a client arrives at your barbershop, they can check themselves into the queue by signing in on a tablet in your barbershop or on their mobile phone. Not only does it save you and your team time, but it captures those all-important details you need for contact tracing!
You can also set up a real-time integrated wallboard showing details of people currently on the list, so clients have up-to-the-minute information about how long they can expect to wait.
The Walk-In Manager compiles a waitlist of your walk-in guests, estimates wait times, lets you know how long clients have been waiting in the queue, and tracks how long they’ve been in-service for.
With this nifty feature, Shortcuts can automatically assign your walk-in guest to the next available service person, or they can request a specific staff member to be assigned to.
The Walk-In Manager will recalculate the wait times around employee’s clocking on and off, so your guests aren’t left in the dark.
When clients check in remotely via your app or website, you can send them a text message telling them their service time, guaranteeing they will be waiting when you are ready. A guest can also delay their visit if they want to be on the waitlist but aren’t ready to be seen straight away. The Walk-In Manager will recalculate accordingly.
For those of you who run a more blended barbershop with both appointments and walk-ins, then the Appointment Book and Walk-In Manager can work hand in hand. Your pre-booked appointments will appear in the waitlist alongside all the walk-in guests so you can keep track of all the bookings for the day.
Make sure that you check with each of your clients that they’ve checked and updated the details they’ve given you. It’s super important for contact tracing purposes that these details are kept up to date so you can get in touch with the client in the event your business comes in contact with a positive case of COVID.
Keen to learn more about how you can manage contact tracing for your walk-in barbershop? Get in touch with our super helpful Customer Care team here!
