How To Customize Your Online Client Intake Form

Need help with customizing the default intake form in your Bodywork Buddy account? This video walks you through the basics of changing your form.

Let me know if you have any questions!

Cindy Iwlew is a licensed massage therapist who has had a private practice since 1999 and cofounder of Bodywork Buddy massage software.

One Simple Trick to Get More Massage Clients Online

Testimonials and reviews help build trust with potential clients, resulting in them being more likely to schedule a massage appointment with you.

Research from Nielson reports that 88% of people will trust online reviews. In fact, many prospective clients will automatically search for reviews and testimonials about your services. Make it easy for them by displaying raving reviews right on your massage website and online scheduler!

Bodywork Buddy makes it painless to collect reviews. Once a session record is created (within 24 hours of the appointment time), our massage software automatically emails a request to the client to leave a testimonial. You can then choose to publish it to your online scheduling microsite.

Ready to give it a try? Signup for our free 15 day trial.

Cindy Iwlew is a licensed massage therapist who has had a private practice since 1999 and cofounder of Bodywork Buddy massage software.

When It Pays to Track Referrals

Do you have a referral program? I used to offer a "refer 3 friends, get a free massage" in my bodywork business and it was a huge success. I got most of my clients from that, and I ended up so busy that I had to discontinue it. (And the surprising thing was, I didn't have to give away very many massages because while it created a ton of new clients, very seldom did 3 people come from the same referring client.)

When I ran my referral program, I used paper to track it because technology hadn't gotten caught up with us yet. This was before smartphones, Bodywork Buddy, etc. i.e. all of the tools that make running our practice so much easier these days!

BWB has always had the ability to track referrals from within each client file so you could see who they referred and who originally referred them. But now we've added a referral tree which is a great visual to quickly see all of your clients and who they've referred at a glance.

So far, it's been a big hit with our members!

What kind of referral program do you offer clients? How many new clients have you gotten from it?

I'd love to hear about your own experience with referral programs in your massage business - comment here and let me know. 🐶 Iggy wants to know, too.

Cindy Iwlew is a licensed massage therapist who has had a private practice since 1999 and cofounder of Bodywork Buddy massage software.
www.bodyworkbuddy.com

Iggy is the branch manager and helps keep Cindy on track with balancing out computer time with playing outdoors.

How to Harness the Power of Your Hours Report

I’ve been a fan of Bodywork Buddy (BWB) for a long time. Because I knew of many of the features they offered, I hopped on board on December 31, 2012. This gave me the opportunity to start fresh in 2013, enabling me to view current up-to-date reports right from the beginning of the year.

While there are a ton of features to list, one of the things I’m most impressed about is owner Cindy and Berin Iwlew’s willingness to not only listen to what their users suggest, but to thoughtfully respond with positive action.

Cindy and I have both been massage industry for a long time, about 20 years for each of us. In fact, she’s the one who originally turned me on to online scheduling, long before Bodywork Buddy began.

There were many limitations of that option and virtually no reports you could run. Many companies at that time also had programs you could purchase and download onto your computer, but you’d have to have that computer with you to schedule or add in any comments or SOAP notes.

Finding the same limitations that I did but with Berin’s prowess in programming, the Iwlews set out to give massage therapists an online solution. Not only would it have the same features as other programs, but they added in everything Cindy had on her wish list.

I loved the idea from the get-go. The only reason I didn’t hop on board sooner was that BWB required internet, which I didn’t have at my office at the time.

Today I’ll just talk about my favorite new cool feature, the Hours Report.

One feature they’ve added recently is super cool-reporting of how many hours you’ve completed in each style and session length of massage you offer. I think I was the first one who promptly ran a report and posted it on Facebook!

You can run in for the current year, any year you’ve been using BWB or a total of all years. Your most popular sessions will begin at the top and work your way down. In my case, I had a price / name change, which is why it shows 2 different items that appear to be almost identical.

When you go into your BWB back it, it looks something like this:

I had never kept track of my massage sessions before. Because I specialize in Ashiatsu and heavily promote that, I knew that my 90 minute session would be at the top of the list. Interestingly, I had no idea that my 2 hour sessions outweighed my 60 minute massages.

Knowing how many hours you’ve performed a massage can show proof of expertise to anyone else that you have plenty of experience in your field. When people ask what kind of experience I have with barefoot massage, I can say, “In the last 4.5 years, I’ve actually spent 2074 hours getting paid to do ashiatsu on my clients!”

If you have a modality that you love doing but isn’t near the top of what you actually have been doing, it’s a fantastic way to come up with a promotion so you get that service up at the top of the “hours you’ve massaged list”.

Another thing you can discover is your number of hours you average per week. Simply take the total number listed at the top of that year’s report and divide by the number of weeks so far in the current year. *Update: this is now a feature that automatically shows the average at the bottom of the dashboard. Yah, no math required!

If you’ve been with them for a calendar year, just run the report and divide by 52.  You can see trends from year to year as to how your business is growing. Or perhaps it stays steady because you have a lot of regular clients.

Whether you view this report as just a fun “thing” or you use it to detect patterns and trends in your business, this feature is a hit in my book.

 

About the author:

Mary-Claire Fredette has been practicing the art of ashiatsu for 15 years and is a Co-Creative Force at the Center for Barefoot Massage, where they offer continuing education to LMTs who want to learn the skill of barefoot massage.

She lives in Cincinnati and co-owns Affinity Massage Studio with her husband, Paul. They have 8 children, 1 turtle, 1 outdoor cat, and 2 rescue German Shepherds.

New Features Released Today!

We've been working hard to bring you some cool new features within Bodywork Buddy. This weekend, we added:


*Custom Business Hours: Open/Close specific days. 
You can now adjust hours by specific days without affecting your default business hours in your settings.

*Hours Report: Shows how much time you spent on services by year.

See the total number of hours you've worked since the beginning of using Bodywork Buddy, or for the year. Break it down into reports of how many hours per specific services.

*Referral Tree: See, at a glance, who all the referrers and referred are.

You may need to clear your browser cache after these updates. If you notice anything wonky in your calendar, clear your cache and check it again! :)

How Do You Know If Your Client Got Their Email Reminder?

Bodywork Buddy has always had an email log so you can see when your clients received/opened their reminder emails. (Accessible from dashboard > account > email services > scroll down to email log.) Last I knew, no other online scheduling service offered this.

While it's a handy feature, we've had some members request a quicker, more "at-a-glance" way to see if clients haven't received or opened their email reminders. So we've implemented a new envelope icon in the calendar next to the client's name. An envelope outlined in white shows that the reminder has been sent, and the envelope will turn to solid white once it's been opened by your client. Pretty cool, right? Our members have been enjoying this feature for a few weeks now and the feedback has been pretty great.

Other ways to cut down on no-shows in your massage practice:

• Send text reminders.
  Easy to do within BWB. Enable SMS services, have clients opt-in by texting the word "START" to 269-509-4288, make sure client's mobile number is on file.
  
  
• Have a cancellation / no-show policy and make sure clients know about it.
  You can have your policies show within your email reminders, and you can also choose to have clients agree to your policies when they schedule online from your microsite.
  
  
• Train clients from the beginning that you might not be able to get them back on the schedule immediately if they miss or cancel their appointment. You might be surprised how clients will be able to make it work once they realize they won't be able to get back in for several weeks. I discovered this by accident when I was so busy that I really was booked out for a month in advance. Clients started saying that they didn't dare cancel, because they knew they wouldn't be able to get in until next month.
  
  Even if you're not booked out for weeks in advance, you can show less openings in your schedule using Bodywork Buddy's "optimized time slots" feature. It only shows openings immediately before or after existing appointments, not only cutting down on large gaps in your day - but also creating a scarcity of available appointment times.

Do you have some useful tips to help cut down on cancellations and no-shows? Share here in the comments, I'd love to hear what has worked for you! 

3 Ways to Share Client Testimonials on Social Media

Testimonials and reviews are a great marketing tool for your massage business. They are social proof of the work you do and build trust with prospective clients. As we MT's know, building that trust is especially important in a field like massage and bodywork.

85% of consumers said they read up to 10 reviews before feeling they can trust a business. (Search Engine Land)

While it's great to share glowing reviews on social media, plain text might get lost in the noise. Make it fun with images* and designs that get noticed.
*Make sure you're using images you have permission to use.

47% of Americans say Facebook is their #1 influencer of 

purchases. (Jeff Bullas) 

Here's a few tools to help you do that:

Canva

Canva.com is super easy and they have the dimensions for social media images all laid out for you. Simply click the first choice of "social media" to get started on your design. 

They have tons of images for you to choose from that are free and you're allowed to use. (Also an option to upgrade for more options, or choose from images with a price-per-image.) I searched "massage" and "spa" and got tons of images at $1/piece. But you could also just use one of their free graphic images.

Here's one that I created using one of their free designs:

Canva Testimonial
www.canva.com

You can download it to your computer after you've created it, and they even give you an option to post to social media right from there.

Screenshot

If a client posts a nice testimonial publicly on FB or Twitter, you could simply take a screenshot. Here's a handy site that guides you through how to do that from specific devices.

Below is a screenshot of some kind words about BWB from one of our members that was posted on our FB page. (Thanks, Mary!)

I just took a partial screenshot, highlighting only the comment that I wanted to take a pic of. (On my mac, it's command + shift + 4.) The image saves to your computer, which you can then upload to share to social media. Or if they've posted it right on your page, you can share right from within the comment itself, too.

Screenshot Testimonial

Bodywork Buddy

BWB has a new feature that allows you to easily share published testimonials from within your BWB account right to your FB page. (It also makes it super easy to collect testimonials by automatically emailing clients after their massage asking them for a review. You'll be amazed how the testimonials just roll right in!)

From within your account, from dashboard > account > client testimonials > click the "share" button next to the published testimonial you want to post > select which page you want to post it to > don't forget to add a personal note to encourage clients to schedule with you online and include your microsite link to make it as easy as possible for them!

Bodywork Buddy
Free trial www.bodyworkbuddy.com

It includes the image that you have on your microsite as your main image, and you have permission to use this image posted from BWB to your FB page. Clients can also click right into the image to be taken to your microsite to schedule or read all of your testimonials.

Cindy Iwlew is co-founder of Bodywork Buddy Massage Software, a complete online management solution for independent massage therapists that includes online scheduling. 

She continues to operate her own private massage practice since 1999.  www.BodyworkBuddy.com

*New Feature* Client Message

Last week we added a new feature that allows clients to leave a quick note for you when they schedule online. This is great if a client has a gift certificate they are redeeming, they need to tell you something that pertains to their appointment, etc.

It's completely optional, so clients don't need to leave a message in order to schedule.

When a client does leave a message, a speech bubble icon will show up next to their name for today's schedule on the dashboard as well as in the calendar. You can click on the bubble or hover over it to read the message.

Cindy Iwlew is co-founder of Bodywork Buddy Massage Software, a complete online management solution for independent massage therapists that includes online scheduling. 

She continues to operate her own private massage practice since 1999.  www.BodyworkBuddy.com

How To Use Bodywork Buddy As Your Website (With or Without Online Scheduling)

Do you want to use Bodywork Buddy to keep track of your income, expenses, client files, gift certificates, etc. but don't want to offer your clients online scheduling? You can choose to not enable your microsite, so it will never be live online... but another option is to still have your microsite and use it as your business website but without the scheduling aspect.

To do this, you can set all of your services to private instead of public from Dashboard > services > main > click on each service under service code > select private from visibility dropdown box > save.

When all of your services are set to private, your microsite will look similar to this:

Want to use the microsite for your regular website and have your own domain name direct to it? You can purchase your own domain name and then contact us to help you point it to your Bodywork Buddy microsite. 

Of course you can also always offer online scheduling by having your services set to public, and still using your microsite as your main website that includes online scheduling.

Try Bodywork Buddy free for 15 days and see for yourself how it can make your life easier at tax time and year round!

How Can Optimized Scheduling Help You?

I recently wrote a blog post titled "It's Time To Kill These 4 Online Scheduling Myths" in which I talked about therapists who are afraid they will lose control over their schedule if they make the switch from paper.

A fellow MT commented that she likes to cluster her appointments together so that she doesn't have large gaps in her day and she didn't think there was any online scheduler that could offer her that option.

This is actually exactly what Bodywork Buddy's "optimized scheduling" does!

Optimized scheduling is an optional feature you can turn on or off at any time within Bodywork Buddy. When it's selected, it will cluster your appointments together so that only openings before or after an existing appointment will be shown to clients booking online.

Some benefits to this are:

• eliminates large gaps in your day
• makes you appear busier than you are / more in demand
• gives you more control over your schedule

Let's take a look at just how this works. On this day, my entire schedule is open except for a noon appointment:

When I have optimized scheduling selected in my settings, this is what my clients will see when scheduling online. Only a 1:15pm appointment available because it is immediately after my 12:00 appointment with my buffer time of 15 minutes built in:

If I don't have optimized scheduling selected, my clients will see all of my open appointment times that day, starting with 1:15 and going all the way until the end of the day with the last appointment opening:

Pretty cool, right? This is just one of the ways Bodywork Buddy can help you maintain control over your schedule and make your life easier.

Want to try it out yourself? Signup for a free 15 day trial (no credit card required).

Cindy Iwlew is co-founder of Bodywork Buddy Massage Software, a complete online management solution for independent massage therapists that includes online scheduling. 

She continues to operate her own private massage practice since 1999. www.BodyworkBuddy.com

*NEW FEATURE* Show All Testimonials On Microsite

We've had many members ask us to add the ability to show all testimonials in addition to the 3 random reviews shown on the microsite... so we've added it!

Now you will see a link "read all reviews" under the 3 random reviews on the microsite. The link will open up to a full page of all testimonials that have been left for you by clients.

*NEW FEATURE* Online Client Intake Forms

Start 2016 out right with a paperless practice!

We've recently launched the new feature of online client intake forms in Bodywork Buddy. You can now email clients their form to fill out securely online and already have it attached within their client file in BWB.

There is a default form you can use, but you can also edit and create your own custom forms from within your account. (dashboard > clients > client intake forms > edit.)

Add, delete, or edit any fields you want and click save. Hover or click over the blue "actions" button to open a preview of what your client will see.

Clients can fill out their form (securely!) from any device with an internet connection: desktop, laptop, tablet, or smartphone. Their info will then be connected with their client file in your BWB account under the medical history tab, and also at dashboard > clients > intake form > main.

When a new client is scheduled with you, you'll have the option to send them an intake form. You can also send an intake form to existing clients anytime from within the client's file > actions > send client intake form.

This feature is still in Beta which means we're doing some fine-tuning and there will be more cool aspects to this feature to come.

We would love to hear what you think!

*NEW FEATURES* Canceled and Missed Appointments Reports

You can now generate a report for canceled and missed appointments within Bodywork Buddy.

For missed appointments: from dashboard > reports > missed appointment > date range > generate report.

For canceled appointments: from dashboard > reports > canceled appointment > date range > generate report.

We're currently working to add in the ability to print these reports as well. This should be available soon!

Are you a solo massage therapist looking to make your life easier with your practice? Check out the FREE 15 day trial of Bodywork Buddy and see how we can help you get organized and have more control over your massage practice!

*NEW FEATURE* New Client Star

Over the weekend, we added a new feature that has been requested by our members. Now when there is a new client / client's first visit in your schedule, a star will appear next to their appointment in the calendar and on the dashboard in Today's Schedule.

How To Block Off Time In Your Calendar

In Bodywork Buddy, your open business hours are highlighted in green in the calendar day and week view.

Click into the day you want to block off time. A popup window will appear with options of General Event, Confirmed Appointment, or Completed Appointment (Session).

Click the General Event button. Fill in info with any details needed, including length of time if you're not choosing an all day event. (You'll also have the option to drag the event longer or to a different timeframe in the day once it's created.)
Be sure to have "busy" selected.
Click the green "save appointment" button.

The event will now show in the calendar in light gray with the title you gave it. (Shown here with title of "closed".)

You can click on the event and drag it to different days or times in the calendar, or you can grab the lines at the bottom of the event to drag it to last shorter or longer in the day.

You can still schedule appointments in this timeframe if you want by clicking into the green area to the sides of the gray general event. (But clients will not see these times available online if you've chosen "busy" for the event.)

*NEW FEATURE* Add Custom Text to Client Emails

We've just added a new feature to Bodywork Buddy this weekend. Based on some feedback from our members in a recent survey, one of the top rated feature requests was the ability to customize the email reminders. While we have more customizations planned in the future, we have now implemented the ability to add your own text to both the confirmation and reminder emails to clients. (It's already possible to add your own text in decline and cancel appointment emails.)

Now you can include any notes or special instructions to your clients in your emails.



To add custom text to your emails, from your Bodywork Buddy dashboard > account > email services > scroll to the bottom of the "email settings" section > enter text and save.









Here's how it will look in your emails to clients (colors and images will vary depending on which email template you have chosen in your settings).