SEEDS TO SUCCESS

As Phorest celebrates its 20th birthday this year, we chat to CEO Ronan Perceval and country manager UKI Luke Doolin about the company’s passion for helping salons to grow

Now a global salon software company servicing over 10,000 hair and beauty businesses, the idea for Phorest began in 2003 when founder and CEO Ronan Perceval was working as a receptionist in a busy Dublin salon. This was a job he had taken on after studying law in college and deciding he didn’t want to be a lawyer.

“I didn’t really know anything about the salon industry and I didn’t expect to fall in love with it the way that I did,” he explains. “In college, I worked in a pizza takeaway and then in a Spar shop, and 10 minutes into a shift I’d be looking at my watch, checking if it was time to go home yet. I never needed to do that in the salon. I was too caught up in the buzz and how the clients were feeling. I loved it from the very beginning. Once you’ve felt the energy in a salon, you realise what this industry is all about. And since then, my passion for it has grown, and continues to grow.”

Perceval soon became aware of the high number of no-shows the salon was experiencing. “There could be two or three a day, which was leading to a lot of money being lost. I had a friend who was a computer programmer, so we put together a tool to send SMS reminders to clients. Within weeks, those reminders started to work and the number of no-shows began to drop. In that first year, they fell by 70% and the owner saved over €10,000, which went straight into her profits.”

‘As other sectors die or get replaced, the salon’s role in the local community is still as important as ever’

While the SMS programme was operating on the salon reception computer, the physical appointment book was still in existence, which meant that Perceval was updating both, doing double the amount of work. “We decided we needed to combine what was in the appointment book and on the computer into one solution – otherwise, nobody would use it. So the combination of these two things became Phorest, the genesis of what the company is today.”

Perceval didn’t need to go far to find the name for his new company. “A few years before that, I had bought some unique names, which were available as dot.coms, and Phorest was one of them. I liked the sound of it, and that it was a bit different. Very early on, I had this idea that Phorest would be like a seed you would plant in your business and it would grow into a tree or a forest. So that became what the name meant to us. It has gone on to become very much about sustainability. We have a Phorest forest now in Roscommon, and for every salon we onboard, we plant a tree.”

Team expansion

As Phorest has expanded considerably since its inception, a big growth area has been around its team, according to country manager UKI Luke Doolin. “We’ve always strived to recruit people who have previously worked in salons – that’s our philosophy,” he explains. “And as the team has got bigger, that philosophy has become stronger. We now have staff members who used to be stylists, therapists, nail techs and salon managers. They often start off in customer roles and move into different areas of the business. We employ more industry people than ever before, and that has influenced the products that we build and how we service our clients.”

Phorest’s products reflect changes in the industry, he says. “For example, we’ve learned that the relationship between the client and their stylist or therapist has really grown – we did a study that found that 73% of clients would leave a salon if their stylist left. That made us really think about salon staff; how to help them make more money and help the salon to keep them. Clients’ expectations have changed as well. They want a seamless experience now, where they can do nearly everything online.”

“With each year, our understanding of the industry gets deeper, which is one of the things I enjoy most about this business,” says Perceval. “We get so many insights along the way, and are always spotting opportunities to do more. For instance, when GDPR came into force, we introduced a feature to ensure clients were compliant. We’ve launched a tipping solution to tie in with the new tipping legislation. We try to stay ahead of issues like that for salons. And if we introduce a feature that’s not of value to salons, they will tell you and they won’t buy it.”

Both are aware of the crucial role salons play in Irish society. “They are the cornerstone of the community, driving traffic into the town, and we don’t want to see any of them closing down,” says Doolin. “We see ourselves as more than just a software company – we are part of the industry and we want to build on that to make sure it’s growing and thriving.”

“Salons are facing challenges because running a small business today is a lot harder,” says Perceval. “It has also been a struggle to attract people into the industry. A benefit of having a strong economy is that there are clients who want to spend money in salons, but the downside of a strong economy is that there are lots of jobs available and people are going to work in other areas. So client demand has never been higher, but we need more staff. That is an issue at the moment and we want to do what we can to help with that.

“As other sectors die or get replaced, the salon’s role in the local community is still as important as ever. We are passionate about helping the industry to continue to thrive and will do anything we can to support that.”