A receptionist for the salon where every hand is holding scissors

A realistic call, the way Giday runs it:

Giday: Giday, you've reached Fringe & Co — Verity speaking, on a recorded line. How can I help you?

Caller: Hi, I'd like a cut and colour with Jess if she's free this week?

Giday: Lovely. A cut and colour with Jess is about two and a half hours. She has Thursday at 9:30 or Saturday at 1 — which suits?

Caller: Saturday at one.

Giday: Done, Saturday at 1 with Jess. Can I grab your name and the best mobile for a confirmation text?

What happened: Two and a half hours in Jess's column, not two in the next available chair. A text to the client, a text to the salon, and the stylist's own calendar feed updated before the foils come out.

Giday's slot engine separates how long a job takes from how often a start is offered, and counts capacity per chair. Give each service its own duration — cut 30 min, colour 2 hr, colour and cut 2h30 — and the receptionist books that much time, in that stylist's column, and offers the next start that genuinely fits. A cancellation leaves a real gap; the next caller gets offered it.

Name your stylists on the settings page, give each their own hours and calendar feed, and "with Jess" means with Jess. A client who says "anyone" gets the earliest chair.

• Overflow. You keep answering; Giday picks up what rings out while you're with a client.
• Before open and after close. Divert at close, divert back at open. The 7:50am rebook is in the calendar before you've unlocked.
• All the time. The one-person business with no front desk.

Bookings land in your calendar through a subscription feed any calendar app reads, and by text. On the Busy plan and up they can go into ServiceM8 too. There's no link into other salon, grooming or job software yet; if you run one, bookings reach you by calendar and by text, not inside it.

Every plan answers 24/7, books into your calendar and takes messages. The difference is minutes and machinery: Starter $49 for a solo hairdresser with a handful of calls a day, Steady $99 to read your live calendar and keep transcripts, Busy $199 to quote from your price list and link ServiceM8, Flat Out $399 for custom call flows and the on-call roster. All AUD with GST, month to month, no setup fee. The full table is on the pricing page.

Sixty minutes of call time on us, for a week. Card up front, nothing charged, and the clock doesn't start until your receptionist answers its first call. Setup takes minutes: your business name, what you do, your hours, your services with how long each takes, and your receptionist is live on its own Australian number. Divert is one dial code.