A one-chair salon has one person doing everything: cutting, answering the phone, posting, asking for reviews. Something always gives, and it is usually the marketing. This build was about taking almost all of that off her plate without making the salon feel automated to its clients.
The phone
Calls go to an AI receptionist built on ElevenLabs. It answers questions about services and hours, captures the caller's name and number on every real call, and takes a callback request when someone needs the stylist herself. Every lead is emailed to the salon straight away, so nothing depends on the stylist checking voicemail between clients.
Reviews
When a booking comes through the salon's booking system, an automation logs it. An hour after the appointment ends, the client gets one short thank-you email with the Google review link. Three days later, anyone who has not reviewed gets one gentle reminder, and that is the last ask. New Google reviews get a personal reply written from the review's own words, twice a day.
A 90-day post plan feeds a daily Google Business Profile post: services, tips, seasonal offers, each with its own photo card and tracking tags so we can see which ones bring clicks.
Instagram and Facebook
Four branded feed cards a week post themselves from the same plan, and two reels a week come from a weekly production run. Everything shares to Facebook automatically. The stylist's job is to film a finished cut now and then and drop it in a shared folder from her phone.
The website
A fast static site with a page for each service and each nearby area, structured data so search engines understand the business, and click tracking on what matters: booking, calling, directions and gift cards.
When something breaks
Every workflow has an error handler that emails a plain-English alert: which automation failed, at which step, and why. A daily check tests every page and every outbound link on the site.
The weekly report
Every Monday a scheduled run pulls the Google profile numbers, site clicks and Instagram stats, counts reviews and bookings, compares them with last week and sends one short email: what moved, what broke and was fixed, and the three things worth doing this week, each with an owner.
What we would tell another salon
Start with the review requests and the missed-call capture. They are the cheapest to build and they protect revenue you already have. Content comes after, and it works best when the owner can supply a little real footage. The automation is only there so that the person behind the chair can stay behind the chair.