I have a busy barbershop with 7 barbers and there are a lot of difficulties I am facing with Square appointments, I will list them below to help developers to work on improvements most business like mine need:
- Online Appointment Feature:
It is not possible to customize its appearance to match my website (colors, font, etc)
When booking online, today's date should be bold, or in a different color, bigger font, etc. so customers will know which day is today (I had several problems with customers booking an appt for the following week thinking it was on that week. They look at the day of the week, for example, Tuesday but they do not realize it's the next week and show up for their appointment on a wrong day. If today's date was more visible they would understand more easily).
The login feature using the client's phone number to send a text message with a code make them confused. Most of my clients complain about it, sometimes it does not work properly.
It would be much easier for them to create a username and password (that's what they tell me).
Customers can't book different services with different staff online: if the client wants to choose haircut with barber X and hot towel shave with barber Y they can't. They choose the service, and the next screen, they have to choose one staff only.
Its not possible to customize which service each barber will perform.
Customers have to make two separate appointments to be able to do that.
Offer the option to pay for the service in advance:
Square has only two options: either you charge everybody in advance or you don't. It should be optional and clients can choose if they prefer to pay when scheduling the appointment or not.
But there is another problem: Square charges more if you don't swipe the card which is a huge inconvenience.
Block appointments from specific clients:
We should have the option do deny appointment from specific customers using their e-mail or phone number information (history of too many no shows for example) or obligate these specific customers to pay in advance when scheduling an appointment.
Square does not allow customization per service per staff:
Some barbers can cut hair in 30 minutes, others need 45 minutes. Square does not allow customization per staff.
Payment:
Services booked with two different staff I have to charge in two separate transactions to be able to split the tip and have the service and tips correct on my reports.
Another inconvenient is that if I use the wrong passcode the tip will appear wrong on the report. And there's no way to fix it.
For example Barber John did the haircut and I typed the passcode for barber Travis, the haircut and tip will be on Travis report, and there is no way I can fix this. So when I pay the barbers, if I do not have other forms of tracking, I would be paying them incorrectly.
I hope Square will listen to my opinion and improve their software.
Thank you!
Invictus Barber Shop
