Well we finally did it, we are now open at our retail location on 9702 Huebner Road. We had so many hiccups along the way but the day is finally here. This last week passing final inspections and getting everything set up has been the biggest challenge of our lives. Be warned if you get a city permit inspector who is looking at your mechanical, electrical or plumbing and he feels like holding every detail to the letter of the law (as was in our case in pluming) then you might be in for some delays and some extra money you didn’t plan on spending. Funny thing was our blue print plans were already approved by several city officials and inspectors along the way but I guess it doesn’t matter if the final inspector says everyone before him was incorrect. My advice would be to kill them with kindness so they can be on their way as soon as possible.
One good thing about the inspection delay is that it allowed us to test out our software, admin, reception and customer service/flow for a longer time than usual before actually opening. I think the lessons learned here during training were critical and well worth the delay in opening. You really can’t imagine all the things that can go wrong until you play them out in real time. The software we are using, Salon Iris, is one of the best choices we’ve made for ticketing, scheduling and even payroll, can’t say enough great things about Day Smart Software and the product they’ve made in Salon Iris, great customer support too.
I also want to thank our contractor Ali and Jim with Makani General Contractors. These guys treated right from beginning to end. I chose to use them after much internal debate vs using a bigger name contractor and boy am I glad I did. They cleared huge road blocks early on that our Architect, Open Studio was causing on everything from the city to their own mistakes. Makani Contractors take pride in their work and will see you through any issues and most importantly remove road blocks. I would gladly use them again on any future projects and would highly recommend to anyone else as well.
We had several new clients wanting service this past week but unfortunately we hadn’t passed that final pluming inspection so we did our best to encourage them to return once we were open. We actually had a soft open on Saturday once we got our Certificate of Occupancy late Friday. Saturday was fantastic, no advertising and we had 15 new client walk-ins, we were only expecting a maybe a couple people. The feedback was overwhelming positive and repeat appointments were booked.
If you haven’t heard by now, we are giving 10% off every service until our Grand Opening Day on Thursday; after that it’s business as usual, but don’t give up hope if you miss out as we still offer discounts to certain members of the community and great discounts for pre-charged services on Gift Certificates plus you’ll always have ViduraRewards and even special occasion promotions. Hope to see you soon and we look forward in making your visions a reality!