CARLINCUTS Affirming Hairstyles With Acuity’s Client-Friendly Scheduling

Everyone deserves hair they feel good in. Carlin Unkle (she/they), a Brooklyn-based hair stylist, has made it their mission to bridge the divide between salons and barbershops so that all genders can look and feel their best. Specializing in effortless, easy-to-style, and affirming haircuts from express maintenance to total makeovers, Carlin cultivates a judgment-free and encouraging environment where she can share essential haircare knowledge with each client.

This passion for community care is built into their business model. At CARLINCUTS, Carlin offers Pay What You Can haircuts for transgender and gender nonconforming individuals, styles hair at popup events, and supports nonprofit organizations with fundraising. To make this all possible, she relies on a scheduling sidekick—Acuity Scheduling—to automate time-consuming tasks while she focuses on empowering clients.

Making good hair accessible with scheduling software

After apprenticing with another salon, Carlin went out on their own to start CARLINCUTS, hoping to gain more flexibility and raise their profit margins to extend that same flexibility to their clientele, especially the trans community. But she faced a big hurdle in doing so: a lack of support for engaging clients. “I had a receptionist helping me at my old job! Going solo meant I had to make time for all the customer interactions that a receptionist took care of for me,” she says. “Bam! Enter Acuity.”

Acuity Scheduling looked like a flexible solution—one that replaced the need for a receptionist by being user-friendly for clients and working seamlessly with the website she was building. “I was drawn to Acuity primarily because the customer-facing scheduler is so clean and easy to use,” Carlin says. “The salon I left had a clunky, dated, and frankly frustrating scheduling service. I was hoping to make my clients, who chose to follow me in my move, know that this is an upgrade—and the scheduler (and my Squarespace website) were the first part of that upgraded experience.”

The scheduling software offered everything a stylist would need to streamline the booking process, from calendar customization to automated communication. Plus, payment processor integrations would make it possible to collect deposits, full payments, and even tips, so they could get paid on time for their services. “Acuity had every feature I knew I needed. I needed to take deposits, easily reschedule, send automatic follow-up emails and reminders, automate as much as possible…I want my clients to find it’s easier to reschedule using a link in their email than it is to text me.” Now they do.

Flexible features for even more flexible hair care

Running a service-oriented business, Carlin doesn’t have a lot of time to play phone (or email) tag with clients. “During business hours my hands are usually full of other people’s hair, so I can’t get to the phone easily,” she says. “I do approximately 40 haircuts a week, so making these things streamlined definitely helps make everything more efficient.”

With Acuity, clients can now visit the CARLINCUTS website to instantly view their availability, book their preferred appointment type, and share important information upfront (like their preferred pronouns) via the intake form—and Carlin doesn’t have to lift a finger. “There’s a feature called ‘minimize gaps,’ which is awesome,” she says. With this setting enabled, interested clients only see open slots that are directly before or after existing appointments, helping to minimize downtime scattered throughout the day.

“My clients say it’s much, much easier to schedule appointments with Acuity than it was with my old software.”

Thanks to easy self-scheduling, automated communication, and a convenient mobile app, she no longer has to worry about the back and forth of booking and can keep the workday on track. “Acuity helps me make the most of my time. Clients can reschedule without my input, while I can automatically send reminder and follow-up emails and quickly access client contact info.”

By adding a review request to those automated email follow-ups, she’s even been able to capture close to 100 new Google reviews to keep the business growing.

Like a personal assistant for your appointments, but better

Carlin and their clientele continue to benefit from Acuity’s convenient online booking and appointment management solutions. “I’m not changing from Acuity ever,” she says. “I was just able to export all my clients’ emails into Squarespace marketing. I’m taking a three-week vacation (in my first year of business!) and had to give the 500+ clients I’ve had since October the heads up.”

To other stylists, barbers, and salons in the market for scheduling software, Carlin says you don’t have to look far: “Acuity is worth it. It’s cheaper than a full-time employee and it’ll make your clients see more value in your business because it’s so easy to use.”

How easy is it? Try Acuity for free today to find out. No credit card required.