Frequently Asked Questions
Here are a few of the questions we get the most. If you don't see what's on your mind, reach out to us anytime by email.
Online Booking?
- You don't have to use online booking to use Savvy. Online booking comes in our Extra plan or above and you don't have to use it, you can still book clients in manually.
- Savvy’s online booking is amazing though! You can have it set as a “request” to book to maintain full control of your diary.
- If you decide to try it, you can have it totally bespoke to how you like to work. So only offering slots you can do at times you want appointments scheduled.
- Yes, there are a number of options available. Pop a button on your website linking to your online booking page, embed your online booking form into your existing website, or build a new Savvy website, totally bespoke to your business and free as part of the Extra package too!
- You can also use the link to invite all your existing clients to book online using Savvy’s Send to All feature (this is often great for bringing in a high number of bookings fast).
- You could pop the link on your facebook business page button so when clients click to “Learn More” they can be taken to your booking page
- Potential new clients will also be able to access your online booking page via your free listing in “SavvyBookings” the app and web directory dedicated to helping pet owners find their groomers.
- Existing clients can also rebook via the customer portal and the SavvyCustomers customer mobile app as both of these will link to your online booking page too.
- Everything in Savvy is easy to configure, you can allow clients to choose a groomer or a location.
- You can also set Savvy up to only allow certain services to be booked online
- You can select which groomers do which services.
- You can set the staff rota to say where your team are based on any given day.
- You can also set what time your team work and what time each team member would like dogs booked in.
- Savvy knows your existing bookings, holidays, opening hours, staff rota and duration of services so it will only offer slots to clients that you can fulfill.
- Not unless you want to. Some people like this added level of control, others prefer not having to be involved with the booking process at all and letting their diaries fill themselves! You are free to configure your Savvy however you prefer.
Going Paper-free with Savvy
- Yes, Savvy allows you to have as many contracts as you need.
- You can send them out to be signed and automatically saved against the pets profile in the system, or you can easily open the contract up so the client signs there and then in the salon.
- You have a number of options you can use the customer portal, the customer mobile app, contact forms or check in forms.
- The customer portal and mobile apps are great for your pet owners, they allow them to log in and easily fill in all their personal info and pet info and this links directly with your Savvy so no need to transfer the data, everything is autosaved on the system.
- Contact forms and check in forms are both easy to create, with all your own questions and can be sent out to the clients by email or completed in the salon.
- The contact forms are perfect if you like to gather a lot of extra info at once for example with a new client. You can send them to all your new clients and they are totally configurable so you can choose the questions.
- Contact forms can be embedded into email templates or on the message buttons too, making gathering info super efficient.
- Check in forms are associated with a particular appointment and are perfect for gathering last minute emergency contact info or doing a health check with the pet on arrival for example.
- Check in forms are brilliant at helping you to easily upsell spa packages too, as they can be designed to lead a client through all the great options for their furry friend. With simple tick boxes.
Customizing Savvy
- Yes! This is a really valuable benefit of Savvy. You can upload your own logos to emails in settings - messaging - email look and feel.
- To add your own colour scheme and logos to other online communications like forms and invoices
- go to settings - brands.
- You can add logos and your brand colours to online booking too in: online booking - booking set up and this can then be used on your Savvy website, embedded or as a button on your existing website, or added as a link to your facebook page.
- If you go to settings - portal, you can set your brand colours for that too...
- Savvy branding gives a really professional look and feel to all aspects of your business and your clients will be super impressed!
- Yes you can add your own services, assign them a colour on the calendar, give them a duration so Savvy auto populates the end time for the appointment and assign a price so that you know what to charge.
- Set your services by clicking the magic wand top right to open the set up wizard and click next till you reach the services tab. You can also set any products in here too.
- Absolutely! Go to settings - calendar settings. In there you can choose what days of the week you would like to see, choose what day of the week to start on, decide how many lines per hour in the calendar and much more. Remember to always click save on this screen to keep your changes.
- You can personalize the colour of your appointments too. You can edit the event colour strategy to choose colour code appointments by the type service, by the groomer doing that appointment or by the status of that appointment (workflow colours).
- Make sure you set your colours, if using service colours, in settings - dropdowns - services.
- If using groomer colours go to: settings - users and groomers to set the groomer colours.
- Workflow colours are chosen in settings - messaging - appointment messages, give each section a colour and then when you click those message buttons on the appointment, a message will go out and the colours will change too!
- Yes, Savvy will allow you to synchronise your google or iCal calendar, which is perfect if you like to manage your work diary and your personal diary in the same place.
Savvy for Customers
- Every business that uses Savvy can have a free listing on our SavvyBookings mobile app and web directory http://bookings.itsallsavvy.com/ this is a fantastic resource for pet owners everywhere to find the pet services that they need.
- SavvyBookings is available to pet owners via the app store or google play.
- It's easy to set up and open to all regardless of your Savvy plan. Go to settings - web - directory and you can add your listing, an image and information about you and it will link to your Savvy website or your online booking too.
- Your clients in our Extra plan will have access to online booking, they can see your website, buy from your webshop and use the customer portal and customer mobile app.
- The customer portal and customer mobile app allows clients to see all their appointments, to pay invoices, to sign contracts and to update theirs and their pets details all without bothering you!
- They can also click to contact the salon, set notifications on their phones about appointments and rebook appointments quickly and easily.
Setting Up Savvy
- The first time you log into Savvy a set up wizard will automatically open, just follow the prompts to get started.
- The second time you log in, if you need to finish set up, click the magic wand (top right in Savvy) to re-open the set up wizard.
- You need a device that connects to the internet, Savvy works on computers (macs or windows), tablets or phones.
- You need to connect to the internet through Wifi or a hotspot on your phone.
- We would recommend that you open Savvy via Google Chrome (even on a mac) as Chrome is great with all the latest tech that we use.
- Yes! With Savvy you can have an unlimited number of devices and as many users as you need, whatever the plan you choose.
- Savvy synchronises in real time too, if you update one, it updates everywhere.
- Yes, in Savvy we have the option of the Salon Plan, which has a multi-location switcher. This allows you to see you switch between the calendar at different branches, or to see all on one calendar.
- The Salon plan also has reports based on location in the reports section in the main menu (3 lines top left), perfect for analysing your whole business in one place.
- It is super easy. Our expert team will be able to advise you and have lots of experience of what you need from other providers.
- Generally if you can get a download of customer and data then that information can be uploaded in seconds.
- Click HELP top right in Savvy to chat to a member of our customer support team.
- If you are moving from another software come through HELP to chat with a member of our team and we can advise you on data upload.
- If you are moving from pen and paper or starting afresh, we can provide a spreadsheet for you to complete for a faster upload.
- Alternatively, if you go for our Enterprise plan, you can invite your clients to complete all their own via our customer portal or customer mobile app. A fast and easy way to get your Savvy all set up.
- Go to the settings menu (3 lines top right) and to subscriptions. In there click on the plan that shows up (that is your trial), then you can choose the plan you would like to subscribe to.
- You will be asked for your credit card information, which is held securely via Stripe and will be sent a receipt when payment goes through. Your plan will be accessible immediately.
- Annual plans last for 1 year and will auto renew, so do tell us if you would like to cancel before your renewal date. You will be emailed in advance a warning of when your year is up.
- Monthly plans have a 3 month minimum term. They renew automatically every month and if you would like to leave Savvy let us know 1 month in advance.
Web features
- Yes! The Savvy websites are very easy to set up, a step by step approach that allows you to easily set your site up and change it whenever you fancy a rebrand.
- You can have unlimited websites in your Savvy, so if you would like a different site for your grooming and your dog walking you can!
- The Savvy customer support team are also on hand if you need some guidance on what looks great on the websites, and to help you polish your site to be an amazing shop window to your business.
- The websites are all inclusive in the Extra package so no high charges for webdesign and hosting.
- Go to settings - web - websites and you can add your websites there. When you click ‘add’ you just need to work through the tabs, setting the brand colour, editing the text and uploading your logos and photographs.
- You can have all your main services highlighted, add team member or salon pictures, include a testimonials section and your contact details and a map to your salon will be there too.
- Come through HELP top right in Savvy if you need a hand
- Once it looks great, remember to add in your keywords and phrases in the SEO section so clients near you find you when they search for “pet groomers in XYZ” our customer support team will be happy to give you suggestions if you are not sure what to include.
- Then you need a domain name which can be purchased (usually at nominal cost) from any of the leading domain name providers. So that your website will be “www. My business name . com” etc
- Finally come through HELP and ask the team to link your gorgeous Savvy site with the new domain name and then you are all up and running!
Messaging
- Yes you can send your reminders via SMS or via email or both.
- You can send as many as you need to for example one a week before and another 24hrs before an appointment.
- Reminders are fully customisable so you can make them your own, go to settings (9 squares top right) - reminders.
- Reminders can also be sent as “Miss You” reminders that make sure your clients never forget to rebook.
- Yes, in Savvy when you make an appointment there are one click message buttons available to use for things like confirmed, ready for collection and complete messages. These are quick ways to communicate with your clients delivering great service without taking up a lot of time.
- All the message buttons can be personalized in settings (9 squares top right) - messaging - appointment messages. You can even add your own new button, for example “New Client Email”.
- You are in control of all your messaging in Savvy, so you can set a personalized confirmation message to go when you click on confirm.
- You can also set up the “Create Wizard” which is a super fast way of making appointments, from here you can auto send out your confirmation message whenever you make an appointment.
- If you use online booking you can set up a confirmation message to automatically go out once an appointment is booked and/or approved.
- In Savvy emails are unlimited and free, but all your messaging you can also choose to send via SMS if you want to.
- SMS’s should be kept short as 1 SMS credit is used for a message of 160 characters or fewer and 2 credits for 160+
- Every plan has an SMS allocation, if you need more SMS, that's fine, you can review your usage and purchase more SMS by clicking on the speech bubble top right in your Savvy.
- SMS bundle purchases have no time limit and will stay on your account if you need them, perfect if you want to make use of the large bundle discounts.
- Definitely, this is a really popular feature and you can email or send a text to all of your clients at once, or just those opted in to a marketing list.
- Go to main menu (3 lines top left) customers and click send to all top right.
- You can also send a send to all by flag which allows you to create a special subset of clients for example you might like to message all of your woolly coated breeds to remind them to brush!
- If you need to message everyone booked in over a specific time period, you can do this by going to the calendar and clicking the message button top left in the calendar.
- This is perfect if you have to close for a day or a period of time unexpectedly
- There are a couple of ways to do this, if you are on our Extra plan, your client can log into the customer portal and the customer mobile app and both give the client all of their past and future appointment dates, which pets are booked in and for what services..
- All plans also include the option to email out future appointments by searching for the client, and where their appointments are listed on their profile, top right is 3 little dots. Clicking that will allow you to send out an email with all their future appointments listed.
- Our Core, Advanced and Extra plans have 150 SMS, our Salon plan has 200/salon and our connect plan has 2000 SMS.
- You can find out details of what is in each plan, either on our features/pricing page or in your savvy go to settings - subscriptions. Click on your plan and all the alternative plans with all their features will open up.
- You are not restricted to the plan amount, if you need more you can purchase an SMS bundle, although 85% of our groomers remain within the SMS allowance and utilize the free, unlimited emails for communication instead.
Payments
- Yes you can, there are a number of ways to take advanced payments in Savvy, you can request a payment either full or part payment when you book a customer in using the create wizard.
- You can set the % or amount you would like to charge. You can also request part payments in online booking or via the confirmed message that is sent if you click ‘confirm’.
- Yes, if you sign up to Savvy Pay via settings - payments. You are able to use Savvy Pay to take card details and charge a full or part payment if a client no shows or cancels last minute all in line with your own no show and cancellation policies.
- You will need to sign up and be verified. It is a simple process and once complete you can set your no show / cancellation policy so Savvy knows how much and when to charge, then if you click no show or cancelled then the client will be charged the amount you have set as your policy.
- Savvy uses top of the range Verifone card machines. High quality and reliable.
- You can apply for a card machine from within your Savvy in the settings - payments section.
- All payments will then automatically be shown in your Savvy.
- The card machines are £100 and the rates are 1.5% +10p per transaction, very competitive with no lengthy contract.
- Savvy integrates with Square, PayPal and Stripe.
- You can use these providers for online booking and invoices.
- In the Savvy Shops you are restricted to Savvy Pay or PayPal.
- You are also able to record payments via Sum Up, iZettle and bank transfer or cash.
- We would recommend you use Savvy alongside Quick Books where all your payments in Savvy are auto sent through to your Quick Books account
- Savvy pay is great for a fully integrated POS solution for your business
- In person transactions are 1.5% +10p per transaction and online payments are 2.2% +10p
- With Savvy Pay the rates are highly competitive, with no long contracts, fast payouts and the ability to implement a no show/cancellation auto payment policy.
