Carl Fox of Fox Hair Design in Barwell, Leicester, shares why nearly all their clients (an impressive 99%) have embraced Colourstart this year. In a candid conversation with Emma Summersby, Carl reveals how the salon tackled the toughest challenges that come with introducing Colourstart. His thoughtful insights and honest feedback make this a must-read.
“We charge £15 up front for a colour consultation which we take at the point of booking. We invite them into the salon, have an in-depth consultation and then sign them up to Colourstart. We apply the patch and take the photo on the guests’ phone, then upload it to their passport. We then go through next steps. We feel the face-to-face consultation really adds value and justifies the charge to the guest.”
“It is good value. Having Colourstart clearly demonstrates that we are serious about colour and client safety. It increases our credibility as a premium salon in the area. It also eases the burden of Allergy Alert Testing in the salon by passing part of the responsibility to the guest.”
“Colourstart is quicker and it’s easier. It means that we don’t have to constantly contact and chase guests for periodic skin tests. All we have to do is ensure that guests have retaken their questionnaire before their colour appointment.”
“We communicated with our entire client base in August & September 2024 and said that all colour clients would need a Colourstart passport by 1 January 2025 in order for future colour appointments to take place. We repeated the same communication through the last quarter of 2024. Our website team (Clientwave) were instrumental in updating content on the Fox Hair Design website and putting together a resource that we could refer clients to. The team were tasked with engaging with the guests to satisfy concerns and walk them through the sign-up process.”
“We’ve only had a couple of negative responses from clients. When this happened we listened to the feedback and overcame it by educating them on the benefits of Colourstart.”
“It has been so much easier than we thought it would be. We planned the implementation over a couple of months, educated the team, and communicated with our guests multiple times. We gave ourselves a three-month window to get all of our colour clients on board and tested. We have not had a single guest that is not satisfied with Colourstart.”
“99% of our colour guests have switched to Colourstart. The 1% that haven’t are purely due to medical circumstances, such as breastfeeding or taking particular medications. For those people, we use the traditional skin test method.”
“The overall response has been positive. We have the odd guest that forgets to complete their questionnaire, but with the excellent integration between Colourstart and SaloniQ we can see a guests Colourstart passport status as we check them in, and it takes less than 30 seconds for them to complete the questions during their colour consultation.”
“Plan it thoroughly. Educate your team and your guests. Sell the benefits and make all communication positive. Give yourself time to get guests tested and have a clear end date goal. Avoid running both traditional allergy testing and Colourstart – it would be an administrative minefield keeping track of two systems. The biggest piece of advice I can give for getting over the fee, is that Colourstart is a one-off test. Once the patch test has been done it won’t have to be repeated, unlike traditional allergy testing.”
