How an AI Tool Captures Business from Missed Calls

"How much more business could I do if my salon were open 24/7?" Have you ever tried to figure that out? It might sound like a trick question, but the fact is many prospective clients are searching for their next beauty solution late at night or first thing with their morning coffee. In today’s world, the businesses that earn those lucrative dollars are the ones that communicate 24/7.

Meet Srivatsan Laxman, CEO of TrueLark. In 2017, he had an idea of how technology could help small business owners. It was a time when a business texting directly with a customer texting directly wasn’t even a thing—when the dominant customer experience involved someone calling a business and leaving a message when no one picked up. When someone called back the next day, the caller was busy and the game of phone tag was in play. Sound familiar?

“I got introduced to some business owners in San Francisco through a few mutual friends—one was a salon, one was a spa and another was a dental office,” Laxman shares. “My proposal to them was simple. I’d come in each morning before the staff arrived, check the voicemail for any missed calls, take out my laptop and send a text to each caller from the business asking how I could help.”

What was surprising to Laxman and the business owners was that in a matter of an hour, he could book hundreds of dollar worth of business. "We did this for almost six months as we tried to understand why the customers were calling, and how that could be enabled by text.” 

As a result, TrueLark was born. It’s an Artificial Intelligence (AI) system that works as a Virtual Receptionist that answers missed calls and web chat queries. When a call comes through when the salon is busy or closed, it triggers an AI conversation tool that engages the caller in conversation via text. The Virtual Receptionist can answer common questions about the business or sync with the salon’s existing booking software and guide the caller to take action by booking, cancelling or rescheduling an appointment. Truelark also can collect payment and contact details safely and effectively.

Since individual salons can upload specific information about their services, service providers, cancellation policies, business hours, payment processes and parking instructions, TrueLark’s AI is more powerful than a traditional chatbot and the conversations are more customized. Features like smart upselling and add-on recommendations encourage customers to consider extra services that complement their booking, which ultimately can boost a salon’s bottom line further.

At this point, you might find yourself wondering how many calls you might be missing. By studying their database of customers, TrueLark ascertained that in May 2024, 61% of leads were submitted after hours.

Mermaid Hair Extensions, with two locations near Seattle, Washingron, brought in TrueLark upon the recommendation of their Phorest account representative. owned by Cindy Reynolds in Seattle, Washington, brought in TrueLark upon the recommendation of their Phorest account manager.

“I was surprised to learn how many people were scouting our salon after hours," says Mermaid's Owner Cindy Reynolds.  "I’ve been in the industry a long time, and business used to be based on phone conversations. We are an extensions salon, and people shopping for extensions have lots of questions, but it really boils down to the same five basic questions—clients want to know how long the service takes, what methods of extensions we offer, how long the extensions will last, how much they cost and if they are damaging to their hair.”

Answering all those questions were time consuming verbally, but with all the answers programmed into TrueLark, now the AI can easily answer them to Reynold’s satisfaction, helping the prospective client feel more confident in scheduling a complimentary consultation.

When the salon is open, the front desk staff still tries to physically answer incoming calls, but Reynolds says the phone also doesn’t ring as much as it used to. “If we miss a call because we are busy or aren’t open, TrueLark immediately texts the caller with a message that says, ‘This is Mermaid Hair Extensions, and we are sorry we were unavailable to take your call, but how can we help you?’” The caller can text back engaging the salon’s AI in a dialog.

Reynolds says even when the salon is open, her front desk team sometimes find it easier to quickly communicate with guest who is trying to reschedule or modify appointments rather than playing phone tag. “Let’s face it, many receptionists are so comfortable with texting, they can respond faster via text than they can physically dial a number and answer a client’s questions verbally,” she says. “Plus, with less time spent on the phone, the team can engage more face-to-face with the clients who are in the salon.”

The results speak for themselves. In 2023, Mermaid Hair Extensions welcomed 1,188 new clients who initially got their questions answered and booked their first appointment through TrueLark. On average, TrueLark facilitated 28 online bookings for the salon per week, with 17 of them occurring after hours. As a result, the salon witnessed an additional $26,000 in revenue per month.

When Laxman first developed TrueLark, he thought it primarily was an after-hours service, but he’s discovered almost half of missed calls actually happen when a business is open but no one can get to the phone.

“On average, TrueLark responds to between 300 and 500 missed calls per month per location,” he says. “It’s incredible what a simple text message to a missed call can create, because almost 80% of those texts result in engagement from the caller.”

In cases where the caller is an existing client with an appointment on the books, the system knows that immediately since it is integrated with the salon’s  management software, and it even can customize the message, says Laxman. “It might say, ‘Hey Susan, it looks like you have an appointment today at 5 p.m., is your call related to that? How can we help you?’ The system is scalable, capable of answering hundreds of phone calls per hour, and it won’t call in sick or fail to show up.”

Renaissance Curls is a haven for those with curly hair in Harlem, New York. Owned by Weena Jerome-Alexandre, the salon’s mission extends beyond styling, cutting and color to empower guests with knowledge and tools to care for their natural texture. Coming out of the pandemic, Jerome-Alexandre found herself in the position of answering most the incoming calls for herself and her team while they all were seeing clients.

When she had a guest in the chair, Jerome-Alexandre was tapping into Googe Voice to communicate with callers via text, but she found the volume of calls were disrupting to both the client experience and salon's work environment.

“There were so many messages coming in, and it was always the same recurring questions, I literally started searching Google for some kind of answering system and eventually found TrueLark. I saw that it was focused on the beauty, fitness and dental industries and thought that was pretty cool,” she says. “At the time, I also was noticing if calls came in at night when I was busy or sleeping, by the time I’d message clients back in the morning, they wouldn’t respond anymore—so I thought this was a service that could work for us.”

Jerome-Alexandre says TrueLark was easy to implement and as the system started to learn how the clients asked questions, she could send the company FAQs to help the AI answer them. “Now it’s super easy, and we can still watch how the AI is answering questions and jump in if we need to,” she says.

Since implementing TrueLark, Jerome-Alexandre (a Boulevard user) says the system fields 82% of incoming calls, which significantly frees up her time, allowing her to offer the clients in the salon a better experience. In addition, it brings in an average 30 new clients per month, which equals around $2,400 in additional revenue.

While she says most clients love never having to talk to someone, there are always those who would rather speak to a human. “But the AI can actually sense that, and tell the caller that someone from the front desk will reach out to them,” says Jerome-Alexandre.

TrueLark recently launched AI appointment reminders to its suite of features. “That’s really how appointment reminders need to be, because clients can confirm, reschedule or cancel appointments immediately, helping keep a salon’s calendar filled without the phone tag,” says Laxman. “It also can clear up confusion around late reschedule and cancellation policies by automatically sharing these with the guest, and when that involves cancellation fee or forfeiting of a deposit, that’s can be an uncomfortable conversation for a receptionist to have with a guest.”