Photo messaging
The cut they want
is a picture,
not a sentence.
It is already saved on their phone. Right now the only way to show you is to hold the screen over the counter, or send it to somebody’s personal mobile.
Neither of those reaches the shop.
The channel everybody has
A text message. Nothing to install, no account, nobody to add
A photograph, not a link
It opens where it lands, and it works both directions
On the number they already ring
And every picture stays on the pet's record
01 / Why it has to be a photo
Without the photo,
you are guessing.
Nobody has ever described a haircut. Shorter on the body, teddy bear face, leave the tail. Four groomers hear that and four different dogs walk out the door.
A groom that came back wrong nearly always started as a sentence that should have been a picture.
Megan Hale
Today 8:51 am
Bella after her last groom. Can we keep the face round like this?
They send
This was on their phone before they rang you.
All it ever needed was somewhere to go.
02 / The channel
Everybody already
has Messages.
A photo can travel other ways. WhatsApp, Messenger, an Instagram message. Each one asks the client to be somewhere before they can show you anything, and in most shops each one ends up running through somebody’s personal account.
A text message asks nothing at all. It is on every phone in the country, it is already open, and it arrives at the shop rather than on whoever happened to be holding their own phone that day.
So the picture reaches you the same afternoon they thought of it, while there is still time to price the job, set the right hour and put the right groomer on it.
They have to use it, and have your number saved in it.
Messenger
They have to be on Facebook, and find the right page.
They have to think of you as an account, not a shop.
Messages
Nothing. It is already on the phone, and it is the number they ring.
03 / What a link costs you
You sent a photo.
They got a link.
Half of them read a shortened link from a number as spam and never open it. The other half ring the shop to ask what the text was.
So the message you sent to save a phone call has just caused one, and the dryer goes off while somebody explains a text message.
A photograph does not need explaining. It lands, they smile, they show someone. That is the end of it, and nobody picked up a phone.
Nobody chose the link. It is what the Australian networks left business software with: Twilio, the platform much of that software is built on, said when it launched picture messaging here that before it, people “would receive a URL link rather than the media within the message itself.” Seglo sends the picture, and receives one back, on your own Australian business number. Source.
Ashfield Grooming
Today 4:12 pm
Bella’s all done and looking gorgeous!
https://ex.mpl/m/9f3k2q
Everyone else
A link. Half of them read it as spam,
the other half ring you to ask what it was.
Ashfield Grooming
Today 4:12 pm
Bella’s all done and looking gorgeous!
Seglo
A photograph. Nothing to tap,
nothing to explain, and no phone call.
04 / Both directions
The useful half is the one coming back.
Give a client a number that takes pictures and they use it without being asked. Four that turn up in an ordinary week.
They send
The matting behind the ears, before they drive over.
You quote the right service and set the right time, instead of finding it at nine in the morning.
They send
The new puppy, weeks before the first groom.
You see the coat before you price it, and book an hour that fits it.
You send
The finished groom, on the table, bow still on.
Ten seconds of your day. They show three people at work.
You send
The rash on the paw you found mid-bath.
Permission to stop, in the thread, timestamped.
05 / Where it ends up
Not in a camera roll.
Every photo, sent or received, stays on the thread against the client and the pet. The groomer who takes Bella next month opens her record and sees what she looked like last time, and the picture her owner sent of what they wanted.
When the person who took that photo leaves, the photo does not leave with them.
06 / What the photo is worth
You meant to ask
for the review.
Asking lands on whoever is at the counter at the worst minute of the day, so it happens when somebody remembers, and by Wednesday it has quietly stopped. The rating it would have moved is the first thing your next customer sees.
The evening after the visit, Seglo texts the client from your own number, asks for the Google review, and sends the photo of their dog out with it.
They are looking at the groom you did at the moment they are asked, and if they write back it lands in the same thread as every other text with them. There is a list every morning of what is going out tonight. The only job left is stopping one.
Megan Hale
Today 7:04 pm
Bella was a superstar today. If you have a minute, a Google review really helps us.
Leave a review
Just left one. She has never looked better, thank you!
Sent for you
Nobody at the shop typed a word of it.
They read the morning list and let it go.
What it costs. $149 once to set up, then $79 a month including two devices. Each device after that is $29 a month, up to five. Prices include GST. Month to month, exit cost nothing, so the least you can spend is $228: the $149 setup plus one month at $79.
Emergency calls (000, 112, 106). 000 and 112 work from Seglo Phone, and they need power and a working internet connection. In an outage, use a mobile or a fixed line. Emergency services see the service address you have registered, not where the person calling is standing. Always keep another way to reach emergency services.
Conversation, not campaigns. Your number is for talking to your own clients. Bulk marketing goes out on the platform messaging channel instead, and a number that starts behaving like a broadcast is throttled. That is what keeps it deliverable.
Ask them to show you.
Take 14 days to settle in. Decide later.