The Vish promise to cut back on enormous product waste, streamline color management and boost color profitability may seem almost too good to be true. It felt a bit like that to Derek Lucas, co-owner with his wife, Kim, of Lucas Salon in Epping, New Hampshire. But after just a few weeks and tweaks, he is 100% convinced.
‘We love technology, and any time we can integrate technology into the salon that improves efficiency, it’s a must for us,’ says Derek. ‘We couldn’t imagine our salon not utilizing Vish now. We will be a lifelong customer.’
‘The integration between Vish and our POS software provides a seamless experience for our staff. All customer data is pushed into Vish, so the stylist doesn’t have to enter client details, and can fully focus on mixing and reweighing,’ adds Derek, who was tipped off about Vish by Booker, their POS software provider. ‘From the beginning, I could see where the value was. The ability to slash waste and control inventory in real-time, and to make creating formulas easy for the team promised to make a huge difference in managing the salon if it worked. But initially, it wouldn’t sync with Booker POS or our client database and it kept removing the guest data so we’d have to manually enter each person.’
But it wasn’t completely plain sailing from day one and Derek worried at first there were some bugs in a system that links the color bar to the front desk and stores all guest formulas. Derek gave the Vish team a call so they could get in touch with Booker to find out what was happening. All it took was a call and it was sorted.
‘It was to do with the API, the bit of code that enables integration between Vish and our various POS software partners, in this case Booker. But it was easy to work with Booker to ease the issue immediately,’ explains Joshua Howard, Vish co-founder and CEO.
Within a matter of days, Joshua had it sorted and Derek’s team got the green light to be really creative with formulas without any complicated math. They can now tweak amounts to get a slightly different look, leaving Vish to work out the percentages that ensure minimal waste.
‘The idea behind Vish – that there is less color waste in the landfills or going down the drain – is amazing. Monitoring usage is extremely important, but it can be onerous to do. Salons lose a lot of money with over-mixing and stylists losing track of how much product they should use. But not at Lucas Salon. Not any more,’ adds Derek.
That’s what we like to hear. And we are determined to help Derek and all our partners take Vish as far as they can. In the case of Lucas salon, all it took was a little bit of communication with Booker and all parties were happy. Derek’s next step could be to introduce extra product charges for any excess product used, and we estimate this could bring in nearly $4k in additional monthly revenue. But that’s for the future. For now, Derek’s team is enjoying exploring the freedom Vish gives them to be creative, while Derek is enjoying keeping tabs on every ounce of color dispensed and sold.
