The Secret Garden

Destination Salon & Award Winner: The Secret Garden

“If we hadn’t taken on Slick, we wouldn't be where we are today”
‍— George Waterfield, Co-owner of The Secret Garden, Leicester

In four years, The Secret Garden has gone from new salon on the block to L’Oréal Colour Trophy Winner!

George and Darren deliver the best in colour and cutting experience so it was important for them that they deliver a seamless client experience too to match their stunning decor and salon vibe.

As a new business, the finances were critical. They needed to grow to pay the bills and ensure the salon was profitable as quickly as possible. They ditched the paper diary and joined Slick and have never looked back!

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Why did you ditch the paper diary?

"We knew we had to change and when L’Oréal recommended Slick, we thought this was perfect."

"It was chaos! I don’t know how we did it. We were always ringing clients, re-arranging things, double booking clients. I reckon I spent more time as a receptionist than I did cutting or colouring.

Now I do what I do best which is work with clients and cut hair. Slick does the admin and the bookings for me.

Me and the team are happier. The clients love it especially the reminders.

It’s win-win and all for the price of a coffee a day."

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What was your biggest fear?

"Everyone said it that change would be hard but it was SO easy!"

"Slick does all the hard work for you. All you’ve got to do is learn how to use the software and we got free training so it was SO easy. All I did was send over our price list and they did the rest. It took a day or 2 maximum - they did all the work for us."

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Best thing about Slick?

"Now bookings come in without me lifting a finger so I get my evenings back."

"3 things….cos I’m greedy!"

1. We’re a L’Oréal salon so knowing it’s been designed in partnership with them is huge. I’m a hairdresser so i need things simple and with Slick you can just tell its been built by people like me!

2. The online booking is AMAZING! We now have a Book Now button on our Instagram. Before Darren and I used to spend all night replying to DMs.

3. The support. I get regular coaching sessions as part of my package and its for FREE! They help me when I’m stuck and give me ideas on how to improve the business. It’s like getting a coach but without the extra cost."

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How has the change helped your business?

"More bookings and less cancellations has put an extra £2.5k a month in our till."

"Appointment reminders and client messaging are huge. The biggest impact we saw instantly was a drop in cancellations with the help of text reminders – when we used a paper diary before we had so many cancellations, and we just don’t get that anymore.

Our reputation has soared in the last few years and Slick has massively helped, through Slick we send out an SMS after each appointment asking for a Google review, which has increased our rating when people search. Over time they build up, it’s been such a big help for our reputation."