New Kitomba business features for COVID-19

Coming soon: Three brand new features to help you

4 May 2020 by Kitomba

UPDATE 12 May 2020: These features are now live! Check out the release blogs for Waitlist, cancelled and now-show client filter, and Online Booking appointment buffer to learn more.

We had a very clear direction for the development of our software in 2020, and we were days away from sharing our vision with you when the COVID-19 pandemic hit. 

Since then, we’ve seen our world change dramatically, which has had a huge impact on the hair and beauty industry. So we decided to stop what we were doing, think about what our customers needed most right now and make a plan to help meet those needs. 

Our development team is currently working hard to make our plans a reality – releasing three brand new features that have been specifically designed to help you through this time. 

Here’s a sneak peak at what you can expect!

Waitlist

This highly demanded feature has been prioritised and development is almost finished. It will allow you to add a client’s details and requirements to the waitlist, then seamlessly move them to your appointment book to fill gaps and cancellations. Waitlist will be available in Kitomba 1 so you have access to it from anywhere, on any device. 

Cancelled and no-show client filter 

Soon we’ll be releasing a new Kitomba 1 client filter that allows you to create a list of clients with cancelled or no show appointments within a selected time period. This will make it easy to call or market to those clients and fill your appointment book, particularly if you’re currently closed and preparing to reopen.

Online Booking appointment buffer

Governments are putting a range of restrictions in place to ensure our industry can operate safely, including asking businesses to properly clean and disinfect client spaces after every service and reducing waiting room contact between clients.

We wanted to ensure you have the time you need to comply with regulations, so we’re making it easy for you to automatically add a buffer to the end of every appointment booked online.  

Keep an eye out on your emails and follow us on Instagram and Facebook so you’re the first to know when we release these new features. We hope to have them to you as soon as possible!

For more advice, assistance and tools that can help you at this time, visit our COVID-19 Resource Centre.

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14 comments

  1. Thats great. I wish you would add more colours to the appointment status and not have several the same. To make them customisable would be even more amazing! There is a big difference between a cancelled client and a no show, we need to be able to clearly see that. Pencilled, Booked and no answer are also very different statuses and should be different colours. With so many moved, rebooked clients etc this is actually what we need.

    • Thanks for taking the time to comment!
      We also thought it was important to see the difference between cancelled and no show appointments, so we recently changed the colours to make it clearer. You can find out more about this change here. If you have any questions about how to view your cancelled and no show appointments, visit the support guides or give our helpful support team a call. Regarding changing other status colours, did you know you can request features by clicking on the Support tab in Kitomba 1 then choosing “Request a feature”?
      Hope this helps!

    • Yes! Completely agree with Claudine. It would be really helpful to have cancelled/no shows split out as they are completely different. Ideally:
      1. No Show
      2. Cancelled within cancellation policy (i.e, phoned 24 hours before appointment to cancel but did not reschedule)
      3. Cancelled outside of cancellation policy (i.e., phoned within 24 hours of their appointment to cancel/reschedule).

  2. Thank you for the updates and new features and ensuring they are accessible via K1.
    What would help us enormously is to be able to do more things via K1 as our reception teams are working remotely:
    Accept deposits and allocate to client card/account via K1
    Finalise Point of Sale via K1
    Run more reports via K1

    • Thanks for your comment, we’re also really excited about the extra features in Kitomba 1!
      We agree that getting Point of Sale into Kitomba 1 would be really helpful for our customers. That’s why we’ve already added Prep Sale to Kitomba 1, and you can rest assured we’re not stopping there!
      Regarding deposits in Kitomba 1, I’m sorry I’m not sure exactly what you’re hoping to do. It is currently possible to accept deposits through Online Booking in Kitomba 1, but it sounds like maybe you want to do something slightly different. Please feel free to contact our support team to check if what you’re wanting to do is possible, or add your request to the feature request forum by clicking on the Support tab in Kitomba 1 then choosing “Request a feature”. That would also be a great place to share which reports you’re most excited about seeing in Kitomba 1 in future.
      Thanks so much for getting in touch!

    • We’re really excited to share these new features with you! I can’t give you an exact release date yet, but the team is working as hard as they can to get them out to you as soon as possible! We’ll send everyone an email and announce it on Facebook and Instagram when they go live.

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