Setting up Yesoma for a barber shop

This guide walks you through what happens when you select "Barber shop" during Yesoma onboarding, what gets seeded into your workspace, and how to tune it to match how your shop actually runs. Read it once before you start onboarding, or come back after if you want to understand what was built for you.

1. Apply the barber-shop playbook during onboarding

When you reach the industry picker in the onboarding wizard, select Barber shop. Yesoma will seed your workspace with a full set of services, policies, FAQs, reply templates, and follow-up rules built specifically for a shop doing cuts, fades, and beard work.

You don't need to build anything from scratch. The playbook gives you a working starting point — your job is to trim it to what you actually offer and fill in the shop-specific details (address, hours, pricing tweaks).

If you've already completed onboarding with a different industry or skipped it, go to Settings → Business Brain and look for the option to re-apply a playbook. This overwrites the seeded content but does not touch anything you've written manually.

2. What services and prices get seeded

The barber-shop playbook seeds eight services into your Business Brain:

• Classic haircut — $25, 30 minutes. Scissor or clipper cut with line-up and finish.
• Fade (low / mid / high) — $35, 40 minutes. One price covers all three placements; the barber dials it in at the chair.
• Beard line-up + trim — $20, 20 minutes. Full shape, edge detailing, and straight-razor finish. Can be booked standalone or added to a cut.
• Shape-up / clean-up — $15, 15 minutes. Hairline, temples, and sideburns only. For clients maintaining a recent cut.
• Kid's cut (under 12) — $20, 25 minutes. Shorter chair time, patience-first approach.
• Senior cut (60+) — $20, 30 minutes. Same full cut at a reduced rate.
• Hair design (line designs + parts) — starts at $10, stacks on top of any cut or fade.
• Custom grooming service — custom quote. Covers hot-towel shaves, bridal party grooming, group bookings, and anything else off the standard menu.

All prices are US-baseline anchors in USD. If you're outside the US, Yesoma's market overlay converts them to a locally credible starting point — but you should still review and adjust each price before you go live.

3. Customize pricing for your market

The seeded prices are reasonable starting points, not final numbers. After onboarding, go to Business Brain → Services and edit each service to match what your shop charges.

A few things to keep in mind:

• The fade price often needs to go up or down based on your city and clientele. A shop in a high-rent area or with a strong reputation commands more; a neighbourhood shop keeping it affordable may price lower.
• The beard line-up is often offered at a discount when booked with a cut. You can note this in the service description or add a combined price — the description field is free text.
• The hair design is seeded as an add-on at $10 starting. If your barbers do complex multi-element work, adjust the anchor up and note the complexity scale in the description.
• The custom grooming service has no price anchor — every quote comes from a conversation. The deposit requirement (50% on acceptance) is already set; you can lower or remove it in the service settings if you prefer to trust and confirm.

4. The walk-in vs appointment toggle

A barber shop's business model is one of the most important settings to get right in Yesoma, because it affects how your templates read and when follow-up messages fire.

During onboarding you'll be asked how you primarily operate:

• Walk-in first — you take whoever shows up. Appointment slots exist but aren't required. Most small and neighbourhood shops pick this.
• Appointment first — clients book ahead, walk-ins are taken only if space exists. Growing shops with a strong client base often run this way.

This toggle affects:

• Whether Yesoma prompts you to confirm a time slot in first-reply templates
• Whether a booking confirmation is sent automatically or only on request
• How the walk-in availability template is positioned in your inbox

You can change the setting anytime in Settings → Business model. It won't delete your templates — it just changes how Yesoma surfaces them.

5. Policies that matter most in a barber shop

The playbook seeds seven policies. Two deserve the most attention before you go live:

Late arrival (10-minute grace). Barber appointments run tighter than most service businesses because chair time is short. A 15-minute grace period (which is standard in salons) means a 15-minute cut disappears entirely. The playbook sets a 10-minute window. If your shop runs back-to-back and can't absorb late clients, consider dropping it to 5 minutes and adding a note to the confirmation template — that way clients know before they show up, not when they arrive.

No-show. The playbook's default doesn't charge a fee on first no-show — it just flags that future bookings may need a deposit. This is gentler than the hair-salon default (which charges the card in full). If no-shows are already a problem at your shop, switch the no-show policy to require a card on file for all appointments, or turn on deposit-required for the fade and classic cut services.

The other policies — cancellation notice, refund (redo within 7 days), kids presence requirement, and payment methods — are ready to use as seeded. Edit the content to match your exact payment setup (especially if you don't take all the digital payment methods listed).

6. What your reply templates look like in action

The playbook seeds eight templates, which live in Templates on the left nav. Here's what each one is for and when to send it:

First reply fires when a new inquiry lands in your inbox. It asks what service the client wants and what day works. It reads fast — most barber inquiries are short messages, so the response should match.

Pricing reply is for when someone just wants to know what you charge. It includes a slot for the service name and price so you fill in one line before sending.

Booking confirmation goes out once a time is set. It includes the address, the time, and the 10-minute grace reminder. Because most barber services don't require a deposit, the balance-due line is already written for pay-at-chair.

Walk-in availability check is a short message for someone asking how busy you are right now. Fill in the current wait time and the next open window.

Same-day thank you + review request fires the same day the appointment is marked complete in your inbox. This is intentional — barber clients are at peak satisfaction right after they see themselves in the mirror. Waiting until the next morning, the way salons do, loses most of that moment.

Quote follow-up (3 days) goes to anyone who asked about a custom grooming service and hasn't replied since the quote was sent. Three days is the default cadence; you can shorten it in Settings → Follow-ups if your clients tend to go quiet.

No-availability reply and Reschedule reply are short utility messages — fill in the alternate dates and send.

All templates use {{customer_first_name}} for the greeting, which Yesoma fills in automatically from the contact record. Anything in [brackets] is a placeholder you fill in before sending.

Common questions

I already have services set up manually — will applying the playbook delete them? Re-applying a playbook from Settings overwrites the seeded content only. Any service, FAQ, or policy you have created manually will remain. If you want to start completely fresh, delete the manual entries first, then re-apply.

Can I turn off the same-day review request? Yes. Go to Settings → Follow-ups, find the "completed" trigger rule, and either disable it or change the delay to 1 day. The template text stays in your library either way.

The kid's cut age cutoff says "under 12" — I want it to be under 10. Edit the service description directly in Business Brain → Services. Update the age in both the description and the FAQ answer ("What age counts as a kid's cut?") so clients get a consistent answer everywhere.

I only do beard work, no cuts. Can I remove the cut services? Yes — delete any service from Business Brain. The remaining services, policies, and templates still work fine. You may also want to update the business description seed in Settings to reflect what you actually offer.