Google Reviews
One polite ask after each visit, sent to everyone, the way Google’s rules require. Anyone unhappy reaches you privately first.
An extra €10 a month, on the free plan as readily as the paid one, free for the first 14 days. Everything above is included in your plan already.
Aoife, thanks for coming in. How did we do?
Friday, 15 August
Skin Fade with Dee
A word on Google helps people find us. If something was not right, tell us instead — we would rather hear it from you.
We ask at most once every few months. Stop asking me if you would rather we did not.
Everybody gets asked, and that is the whole point
Review systems that quietly show the Google link only to the customers who said they were happy break Google’s review policies, and when that is noticed it is the shop’s reviews that get deleted, not the software company’s. So this asks everyone the same question and offers everyone the same two buttons. There is nowhere in our database to record how somebody felt before the ask goes out — no rating, no score, no happy flag — which means the feature cannot be quietly turned into that later by somebody meaning well.
Straight into the review box
The Google button opens the write-a-review sheet itself, already signed in, on the phone they are holding. That is a different link from the one that drops somebody on your listing with the review box somewhere below the photos and the opening hours — and the difference between those two links is most of whether a willing customer actually finishes. You set it once by pasting your Place ID, and the screen shows you the exact page it will send people to so you can check it is your shop and not the barber three doors down.
A few hours later, not as they walk out
Three hours after the appointment by default, which is long enough that they have seen it in daylight and short enough that the visit is still today. Nothing goes out between eight in the evening and nine in the morning in your shop’s own time, so an eight o’clock cut is asked about the next morning instead of at eleven at night. Nobody is asked after a no-show or a cancellation, because there is no haircut to ask about.
It will not wear your regulars out
One ask per haircut, ever, and one ask per customer every ninety days however often they come in — you can lengthen that but not shorten it below thirty. Anyone who taps through to Google is left alone for a year afterwards; they have already done it. Every message carries a one-tap way out, and taking it stops the review asks and nothing else: confirmations and reminders keep arriving, because refusing to be asked about a haircut is not the same as refusing to be told when your appointment is.
The other button, the same size
“Tell us privately” sits beside the Google link at identical size, in every message, for every customer. Somebody who takes it writes to the shop instead of to the internet, and what they write is not published anywhere — not on your page, not on ours. It is kept for you and your managers and deliberately not for the barber whose morning it may be about: reading “the fade was uneven” about your own work, with no one in between, makes a worse shop to work in, and what to pass on is the owner’s call.
And a card for the mirror
One button gives you a PDF: an A6 card with your shop’s name in your own colour and a QR code that opens the review box. Print it on a sheet of A4 — the second page has crop marks, because no barbershop owns A6 paper — and put it on the mirror. It works on the customer standing there with their phone out and their hair looking its best, which is a better moment than any email will ever catch. The code goes straight to Google rather than through us, so a card on a mirror for a year does not depend on our servers having a good afternoon.
We will only tell you what we can actually see
Google does not say which review came from which tap, so this counts taps and calls them taps. You get asks sent, taps through to Google, private notes received and the running number of people who have opted out — that last one is the honest cost of asking, and it belongs on the same screen as the benefit. The figure that matters most is your own review count on your own listing, and you can watch that yourself without taking our word for anything.
The rest of it
Booking Page
Your name, your colour, your hours, your address with directions, your Instagram. Send the link, put it in your bio, or drop two lines into the site you already have.
Daily Diary
A column per chair, hour by hour. Tap a booking to mark it done, take a walk-in, or drag it to a new time. Works on the phone in your pocket.
Reminders
A confirmation with a calendar invite the moment they book, and a reminder before the appointment. Cancel the booking and the reminder cancels itself.
Deposits & Payments
Take a deposit or the full price when they book. Cards handled by Stripe, paid straight into your account. We never hold your money.
Rotas & Holidays
Two-week rotas, one-off changes, and a chair renter’s own hours. Irish bank holidays are already in, and a closed sign goes up when you are away.
Reports
Seven numbers you would act on. Takings, who earned them, what sells, no-shows, your busiest hours, new against returning, and the hours a chair sat empty.
Waitlist
When a booking is cancelled, the slot is held for the first person in your queue and offered to them by text and email.
Loyalty Cards
Stamps are added automatically after every visit, and the reward applies itself at the next booking. Nothing to scan and nothing to hand out.
Product Shop
Sell your products on your booking page. Paid for online, collected in the shop, so there is no packing, no courier and no delivery date to promise.
Gift Cards
Sold from your booking page at any hour, paid straight into your account, and valid for the five years Irish law requires.
Your Website
A full website on your own address: hero photo, your story, your reviews, opening hours, a map, and a Book now button on every screen. Included in every plan.
Photo Gallery
Your best cuts on your homepage and on a page of their own. Upload from a phone and we handle the cropping, sizing and loading.
Winback
FreshTrim learns how often each customer comes in and tells you the day somebody is overdue. Bring them back in one tap.
Chair Manager
Every renter gets a weekly statement built from real bookings: takings, rent due, and the cuts behind both, so the number is the same on both sides of the counter.