Not Your Mother’s Website (cont.)

“We needed to have the ability to see the client’s canvas and refer her to the appropriate designer as well as give an accurate price quote,” says Nunes.

Now they have just that. But how does it work? Very simply. The client uploads two to three images of themselves (different angles) and three inspiration images.

Next, there is a place to type in what you like about the inspiration image—the fringe, the highlights, etc. Then the client receives a personalized confirmation message letting her know her images have been sent to three master stylists who will collaborate and then contact her.

Bryan Nunes, owner of Blo

Or, if someone was referred to a specific stylist (Susan, for example), and she indicated that on her consultation form, the message will say, “Susan will contact you …”

All Blo stylists now have branded e-mail addresses with the Blo URL, keeping them connected to Nunes, each other and their clientele.

Another piece of the site Nunes wanted to improve user experience with was the section with artists’ bios.

“We put search capability like Google on it—you can do a heading search and subhead search. For example, a client can click artists and bring up all our artists. Then she can search by experience level, expertise in blondes or men’s cuts—anything. Stylists specializing in those areas will pop up and the client only has access to their bios. It empowers clients to make the experience more about them.

With his new site, the perceived experience becomes that of a referral rather than a walk-in.

Phone Friendly

This website seems pretty great, right? But how many people are actually on their computers when they think about booking a salon appointment?

Nunes, ever-aware of his clientele’s virtual habits, created an interactive app for his phone-happy guests.

“We have about 5,300 people access justblo.com every month,” says Nunes. “Sixty-seven percent of those people are accessing through a mobile device. I wanted to create an interactive app that’s easy to use and allows us to personalize the relationship with the client before we ever meet them,” he adds.

“We’re investing in the iPhone experience,” says Nunes. “It’s going to be geared specifically to turn access into a conversion. What you don’t want to do is create a busy experience for the mobile user where they get lost and say they are going to wait until they can get to the computer.”

Creating a positive user experience on the iPhone was not without its challenges. Uploading photos is often a time-consuming experience, something Nunes wanted to avoid.

“The large photo files were getting in the way of the user experience,” he says. To solve the problem, Nunes and his website programmers figured out a way to attach links to the images for a faster process than uploading.

“Clients can do an online consultation from their phones in less than two minutes,” he says. “The key is to NOT inhibit user experience. I’m really excited about the potential because the user experience is flawless.”

And don’t worry, the iPad didn’t slip through the cracks—Nunes created a separate app for that, too.

“The thing about the iPad is the navigation and use is vertical. Rarely do you use it to search horizontally,” he says. “It’s very difficult to put navigation on a website when it moves vertically, so you literally have to change everything for the iPad.”

From iPhone and iPad apps to product photos all shot by Nunes himself to maintain visual continuity, there’s not one piece of content on the new site that’s not original.

The icing on the cake? “I feel like this is going to help internal communications, too,” says Nunes of the virtual consultation system. “Hairdressers all work different schedules, so branded e-mails will help everyone stay connected.”