Overview
BOY Barbershop, a local shop opened by seasoned barbers Greg and Brook, was a labour of love, bringing decades of traditional barbering experience to the sunny Gold Coast suburb of Mermaid Beach.
The pair brought scores of loyal clients with them, and a traditional barbershop experience worth raving about: gentleman’s haircuts, cut-throat shaves, hot towels, good banter and complimentary drinks.
The team needed a way to grow their online reviews quickly, so those reviews matched the experience in the shop and reached the customers searching for a local barbershop. Asking a customer for a review at the counter is awkward, which is why Brook and Greg looked for an approach that was easy for them and for their customers.
Impact of barbershop reviews
In barbering, reviews are everything. Nobody wants a bad haircut. Customers are often loyal to their barbershop and repeat business is the reward for a good experience, so first impressions count. When new customers search for a barbershop online, they will often only consider the top 3 most-reviewed businesses.
BOY needed to grow their Google reviews quickly, so new customers would be more likely to see them and choose them first. Organic growth was steady but slow. They had collected around 60 reviews in their first year of business, and while those reviews were all positive, the team knew there were hundreds of other happy customers walking in and out each day who had not left one.
So the ask had to be simple, automatic and personal.
Review automation made easy
BOY had previously used their booking software’s standard feedback form to ask for reviews, but those reviews were collected internally and never reached Google, so they did nothing for the shop’s presence in search. Many marketplace, booking and appointment tools favour their own reviews ecosystem this way, to the detriment of the business.
BOY switched to Cloutly to drive reviews on the sites that mattered most to them, namely Google.
With Cloutly they set up a personalised review page and had it sent to clients by text after their appointment. It worked with the booking system they already had, so every client was given a simple way to review the shop on Google.
Knowing that 30 to 50% of customers would not have a Google account, Cloutly still captured those reviews through its no-login path, so the team never missed the feedback.
In 6 short months BOY held its 5 star Google rating while collecting 431 reviews across the review sites that mattered most. That made it one of the highest-rated and most-reviewed barbershops in town, considerably faster than its local competitors.
Now, when a customer searches for a local barbershop, they often call BOY first.
