Each Sunday night, Tori Spelling welcomes viewers back to The Look: All Stars, a TV series broadcast this summer on the CW network, showcasing top beauty experts as they compete through themed-timed challenges and makeovers while presenting beauty hacks, techniques and top looks. Each week, the audience texts in their votes for their favorite team and makeover.
Who else would the producers turn to for an interactive texting solution that would play such a critical role in their show’s success? None other than the popular St. Louis startup whose business texting platform has proven to be the perfect business texting solution for salon and spa industry: Textel.
“Our series isn’t just about watching, it’s about having fun while you learn to look your best,” said Gregory Butler, Executive Producer of The Look: All Stars. “Textel makes it easy to be a part of the action, driving engagement that is beneficial for our viewers and our brand partners. We are excited to be working with a such a great company, and a great product.”
Once texting took over as the premier form of communication among customers, the salon and spa industry quickly shifted to include this in their customer service strategy to save time (their own and their customers) as well as costs due to operational efficiencies.
Textel makes it easy to implement a text-first strategy by using your existing business landline phone number and offering easy price points to get started without any contracts or limits and unlimited texting.
Why Salons and Spas Choose Textel
Front Desk Efficiency
Textel’s cloud-based business texting portal serves as a “call center inbox” for salon and spa front desk employees with easy permission controls and even messaging history so they know right where the last conversation left off.
More Bookings, Less No Shows
By reaching out and replying via text, front desk or call center staff can increase bookings while cutting down on call times, voicemails, emails, etc. Plus, they avoid no-shows by confirming guests via scheduled texts or rescheduling appointments on the fly due to last minute changes.
Increased Profits
Along with increasing retention by making your front desk and call center employees’ lives easier, Textel helps organizations stay in front of changing customer needs. Salon and spas can recapture lost revenue by quickly confirming and rescheduling the cancelled appointment.
Improved (Measurable!) Marketing Results
It’s easy to drive traffic to your salon or spa by making keyword texting promotions part of your marketing strategy. Pick a keyword, program an auto-reply text that offers surveys, prizes, discounts, text to win, gift with purchase, etc. and then promote it around your store or on social media. The ROI is immediate and measurable.
See Textel in Action for Local Salon and Spa Owners
Textel offers a variety of business texting features that enable salon and spa organizations to provide top notch customer care and employee engagement. See why Ginger Bay Salon and Spa and Paul Mitchell turn to Textel to power customer communication and cut costs:
“We use Textel for a lot of reasons. We can communicate more efficiently and effectively not only with our guests but with our team. Texting has become an eco-system of communication from guests to our salons, salon to salon, call center to front desk and staff to call center or front desk. One of the most profound ways that Textel has changed the way we do business is in our call center. In the same amount of time we answer one phone call, we can respond to about 5 test messages. That saves us about 60 man hours per month which translates into about a $13,000 per year payroll savings. It has improved the way we do business over night and we couldn’t live without it.”
Laura Ortmann – CEO/Daymaker Ginger Bay Salon & Spas
“Textel gives our guests who prefer to text, the option to do that now. Textel also helps my service desk leaders not have to continually place guests on hold. They have the ability to respond to texts at a convenient moment. I also like the fact that we have the ability to perform virtual consultations. When a guest texts a style or inspiration photo to us, we can book them with the appropriate stylist for the appropriate time and we can also inform a guest if the style they are requesting is actually possible.”
Ginger Reed – Guest Service Leader/Co-owner, Paul Mitchell The School
Bring the Power of Textel to Your Salon and Spa
No one wants to be put on hold for booking or changing an appointment. Give your customers the freedom to text their ideas, pictures, questions and availability to your business and create happy customers who tell their friends why their salon and spa is the best in town.
If your organization is still considering the benefits of business texting, consider this:
It takes the average person 90 minutes to respond to email (if they respond at all), but only 90 seconds to respond to a text message (source: CTIA.org)
In a mobile-driven world where more people own a phone then they do a toothbrush (yes, it’s true) and 97% of those smartphone owners are actively using it to text according to the Pew Research Center, texting from your business number must play an active role in your overall customer and employee experience.
Not only is it the most used feature on your customers’ phones – it’s still growing in popularity – with the number of texts sent on the rise by 7,700% in the last decade per Statistic Brain Research Institute! This is the universal language of communication.
Business texting offers a cost-effective, efficient alternative to developing an app or trying to reinvent the wheel when it comes to how your prospects contact you. Apps can swing and miss because the average consumer spends 85% of their time using just 5 apps (source: TechCrunch). Good luck replacing their Instagram!
By using the latest in business texting software, you can send and receive SMS and MMS on existing business phone numbers. Plus, you can track key user engagement data like opens, keywords, replies and more. Implementing this efficient channel of communication reduces output by employees, connects with customers faster and drives more sales by increasing marketing efforts, response time and customer experience.
Textel makes it easy to step into a business texting platform with an easy monthly subscription where you can use your existing business phone number to text your client and prospect list. Just like email, you can set up a simple, cloud-based call center “inbox” from your desktop or mobile device and start elevating office productivity immediately.
10 Ways Textel Makes Business Texting a Breeze:
Start immediately with Same Day Activation
Enjoy subscription-based, transparent pricing
Avoid any porting or new numbers
Send and receive pictures
Import your entire contact database
Text entire groups
Set up Auto Replies for specific keywords
Create unique user logins to control permissions
Access easy-to-use reporting tools
Go further with Textel’s carrier-grade API
Get proven results: Textel customers report increased conversion rates, better marketing data and higher customer service scores after implementing this texting software for business.
By abandoning clunky systems and missed phone calls, business texting users save money with a user-friendly contact management portal and simple permission controls that promote better front desk efficiency and place more appointments on the books. The data proves that customers and prospects respond to texts faster than phone calls or emails, so will they be responding to your texts or your competitor’s?
Check out the different pricing plans available with Textel’s business text messaging service. There’s one to fit any business need and there’s never a risk with no contracts. You can even upgrade or downgrade your package whenever you like – for free.
See the difference Textel can make for your business with a free demo. Call or text us anytime at 844-483-9835.
TEXTEL, A BUSINESS TEXTING STARTUP, POWERS CW NETWORK’S THE LOOK: ALL STARS WITH “TEXT TO VOTE” AUDIENCE INTERACTION TOOL
Each week, viewers use St. Louis-based Textel’s keyword texting feature to vote for their favorite look and team.
ST LOUIS (July 2018) – Textel is excited to announce its partnership with The Look: All Stars, a TV series on the CW/MyNetwork TV stations of Sinclair Broadcast Group. Hosted by Tori Spelling, each episode provides educational how-to’s for the audience through themed-timed challenges that provide beauty hacks and tips to improve one’s overall look featuring top beauty experts and their best professional techniques and products. The reality beauty show is one of the first of its kind to make audience interaction a pillar for engagement week after week through texting, augmented reality and tie-ins with industry brands.
After each episode’s original airing date, The Look: All Stars’ audience chooses their favorite makeover transformations by texting 1-888-803-2426 with the keyword that represents their favorite Real Life Challenge Makeover, High Fashion Challenge Makeover and Team Vote. Voting ends Saturday at midnight ahead of the next week’s episode.
“Our series isn’t just about watching, it’s about having fun while you learn to look your best,” said Gregory Butler, Executive Producer of The Look: All Stars. “Textel makes it easy to be a part of the action, driving engagement that is beneficial for our viewers and our brand partners. We are excited to be working with a such a great company, and a great product.”
Textel, a cloud-based, two-way texting portal, powers that live participation through their popular “Text to Vote” feature that uses specific keywords to trigger a better voter experience. It’s the same functionality that is currently being spotlighted in salons across the country for its role in driving customer communication, managing call center volumes, increasing marketing promotions and optimizing the overall guest experience.
“Textel is very excited to bring text voting to The Look: All Stars,” said Mike Mixon, CMO of Textel. “Texting a keyword is easy for viewers since anyone can do it right away without an app. This partnership made sense because our keyword texting tool is currently being used by salons and spas across the country to attract first time guests and drive engagement. Textel is a proud supporter of the beauty industry and honored to bring our texting technology to such an empowering TV show.”
In the changing guest experience landscape, the salon industry and many others continue to seek more effective ways to drive traffic to their business while providing an engaging, efficient solution to match customer expectations. Textel’s business texting platform zeroes in on the preferred customer communication method to help save businesses time and payroll cost, while filling more appointments and decreasing no show rates, all from a manageable call center “inbox” on their desktop.
“As a 33-year veteran of the salon industry, I want to express a sincere thank you to the team behind The Look: All Stars for choosing such an efficient platform to showcase the passion, talents and serving hearts of our industry peers,” said Michelle Steimann, Textel Brand Ambassador. “This ‘Text to Vote’ functionality is the perfect way to show our support for the competing teams’ craftsmanship and the audience who’s eager to interact with them.”
ABOUT THE LOOK: ALL STARS
THE LOOK: ALL STARS is a one-hour reality TV competition series, airing prime-time Sundays from June 24th, 2018, syndicated nationally across CW and MyTV Network stations. The show is owned and operated by Sinclair Broadcast Group, Inc. and produced by Dreamventure Productions. The weekly program focuses on head to toe makeovers performed by respected established hair, makeup and fashion stylists who compete and deliver two makeovers per episode. Learn more by visiting https://www.thelookallstars.com/.
ABOUT TEXTEL:
TEXTEL makes customer communication simple with a business texting platform that helps enterprise to small businesses reach their customers in the fastest way possible from any location. This cloud-based software serves as an efficient call center inbox by receiving and sending customer texts from the existing business landline phone number. Learn more about TEXTEL features and pricing by visiting http://textellegacy.elikirk-dev.com/.
Haven’t you heard? Instagram is the new big thing for business!
Instagram is up to 800 million monthly users and nearly 500 million daily active users! (statista.com). That means more people are spending time on Instagram actually being engaged. Think about it, Instagram is appealing for many reasons, but one main one includes its simplicity. The platform holds user’s attention because it is sleek and beautiful. There’s less clutter than Facebook and it keeps users engaged. There are now 25 million active business profiles on Instagram (techcrunch.com). So what are you waiting for? Get on board and join the Insta-movement!
Part of Instagram’s new business account feature includes the ability to text directly from a company’s profile. How, you ask, can you connect with your customers through texting straight from an Instagram page? Well I’ll tell you in just a couple of short, easy steps…
Your customers can text you directly from your Instagram profile?
YES, but first things first. You also must have an Instagram Business Account.
1. Make sure you have a Business Profile.
Once you create an account, go to Settings then click “Switch to Business Profile.”
2. Go to www.textel.net and text-enable your business phone.
If you don’t have business phone texting, then check out Textel. You can start your free trial today!
3. Click “Edit Profile.”
4. Select “Contact Options.
5. Type your Business Number.
6. Choose “Text”
7. “Save” it!
8. Now your customers can easily text you!
Your customers can now easily reach you if they are checking out your business Instagram account! Which, of course, they will be because your page will be filled with exciting, enticing content.
