Building consultation and feedback forms

Forms are the questions you want your clients to answer. Consultation forms come before a client sits in your chair: their hair history, allergies, what they'd like, and their consent and signature for colour or chemical work. Feedback forms come after the visit: how it went. Clients fill them in on their phone, or on the salon iPad, and the answers wait on their appointment. You build each form once in Settings → Forms, and its rule decides who gets it: see choosing who gets a form, and how often, and for feedback, asking for feedback after a visit.

#Starting a new consultation form

1. Open Settings → Forms. Consultation forms are listed under Before the visit, and feedback forms under After the visit.
2. Press New form, then choose Blank consultation form, or a ready-made form under Before the visit. (Before you have any consultation forms, the ready-made ones show as cards under Start with a ready-made form, with Or start from scratch underneath.)
3. Type a Form name. Clients see it, so make it friendly: "Colour consultation" rather than "Form 2".
4. Add an Introduction if you like: a line or two shown at the top of the form.
5. Check When it’s asked says Before the visit, and set Who fills it in and How often (form rules).
6. Add your questions with Add question.
7. Press Create form.

A new form is switched on straight away, so it goes out with any appointment booked or changed from then on that matches its rule. If appointments already booked match it too, you're asked whether to add it to them (forms for appointments already booked). For a feedback form, choose Blank feedback form or How was your visit? under After the visit instead (making a feedback form).

#Ready-made consultation form templates

Three ready-made consultation forms, written for Australian salons, give you a head start. Change every word to suit how you work.

For the colour and extensions templates, FullColumn ticks the services that look like a match (colour, foils, balayage, toners, lightening and services that need a patch test; or extension services) and tells you it has. Check the ticks before you save.

There's a ready-made feedback form too, How was your visit?: see the ready-made feedback form.

#Question types for consultation and feedback forms

Every type works on both kinds of form. A form can have one Signature. New Agreement and Signature questions start out required. A Rating question's Scale is One to five stars or 0 to 10 (rating questions).

#Adding and arranging questions on a form

• Add question lists the types. The new question opens, ready to type. If the form ends with its signature, new questions go above it, so the signature stays last.
• Tap a question to open it. Type the Question (an agreement's Statement, a heading's Section title), and press Add help text for a line shown under it.
• Turn on Required when the form can't be sent without an answer. Headings can't be required.
• The type menu at the bottom of an open question changes its type.
• The arrows move a question up or down, the copy button duplicates it, and the bin deletes it. Changed your mind? Press Undo on the message that appears.

Single choice and Checkboxes questions need at least two options, and take up to 30. In an option, Enter adds the next one and Backspace in an empty one removes it. Paste a list, one per line, to add them all at once.

Web addresses you type in a form's Introduction, a question's help text or a heading's explanation become links for your clients, opening in a new tab, so a form half filled in is never lost.

#Flagging answers your team should see

A flag makes sure nobody misses an allergy, a past reaction or an unhappy client. Flagged answers are highlighted on the filled-in form, and a flagged consultation form shows on the appointment in the calendar (reviewing answers). Open a question to set its flag:

• Yes / No: under Flag for staff, choose If “Yes” or If “No” (or Don’t flag).
• Single choice and Checkboxes: under Flag for staff if they pick, tap the options that matter.
• Rating: under Flag for staff if they give, tap the ratings that matter, like 1 star and 2 stars.
• Short answer, Long answer and Date: turn on Flag for staff if answered. It's made for "If yes, tell us more" questions.

Headings, photos, agreements and signatures can't be flagged.

#Alerting the team when a form comes in

A form sent in with flagged answers alerts the team members who've chosen those alerts (team alerts). To hear about every one, flagged or not, turn on Alert the team whenever it’s filled in in a consultation form, or Alert the team about every response in a feedback form. Feedback alerts only go to people who can see clients' feedback.

#Follow-up questions that only show for certain answers

A question can wait until an earlier answer calls for it: "Have you ever had a reaction to hair colour?" → Yes → "Tell us what happened".

1. Open the follow-up question and press Only show if….
2. Choose the question it depends on. Only Yes / No, Single choice, Checkboxes, Rating and Agreement questions above it can be chosen.
3. Choose the answer that shows it: Yes or No; one or more options of a choice (for checkboxes, it shows when any of them is ticked); one or more ratings; or, for an agreement, when it's ticked.

The follow-up sits indented under its question, with a line such as "Only if “Any allergies?” is Yes". While it's hidden it isn't required, and anything typed in it isn't kept, so a hidden question can never raise a flag. A follow-up can have its own follow-ups: each shows only while the one above it is showing.

If you delete or move the question a rule depends on, or remove the answer it was waiting for, the question says “Only show if” rule needs fixing, and the form can't be saved until you fix it or press Remove rule. Renaming an option updates the rules that use it.

#Photo questions on a consultation form

A Photo question lets clients show you their hair as it is now, or the look they're after. Under How many photos, choose One photo, Up to 2 or Up to 3. A form can ask for up to 25 photos across its photo questions: saving one that asks for more says so. Clients take a photo with their phone or pick ones they already have. Photos are made smaller on the phone before they upload, and clients can carry on with the form while they do. Only your team can see them, and any you want to keep go to the client's photos with one click (keeping photos from a form).

#A thank-you page after the form is sent

Clients always see a thank-you when they send a form. Under After they send it, any form can add your own text and buttons below it, such as a link to your Google reviews or to book their next visit, for everyone or only for certain answers. Press Add text or a button to start. See thank-you pages.

#Previewing a consultation form

Switch to Preview at the top of the form to see it as your clients will. Answer it, try the follow-up questions and the photo questions, and press Try submitting to check the required ones. With a thank-you page, the preview also shows what your client would see after sending, for the answers you've given. Nothing in the preview is saved; Clear answers starts it again.

#Changing a form after clients have filled it in

Edit a form whenever you like: it never changes what clients have already sent.

• Forms already filled in keep the questions exactly as they were answered, with the signature and when it was signed.
• Forms still waiting to be filled in pick up your changes, thank-you page included. The form tells you how many before you save: "Changes apply to the 3 forms waiting to be filled in."
• A client part-way through on their phone keeps what they'd typed for the questions that are still there.
• When it’s asked can't change once clients have been sent the form, even if it was withdrawn since ("Clients have been sent this form, so this can’t change."). Make a new form instead.

#Switching off, archiving or deleting a consultation form

• Form is switched on: turn it off and save to stop the form being added to appointments. It then shows as Archived in your list. Saving it switched off withdraws any copies still waiting to be filled in, as Archive does, and their links stop working; the form says so before you save. Forms already filled in stay on clients' records.
• Archive (at the bottom of an open form, once anyone has filled it in): the form stops being sent, any requests not filled in yet are withdrawn, and the completed forms stay on client records.
• Delete takes the place of Archive while nobody has filled the form in, and removes it completely.
• To bring a form back, turn on Show archived forms, open it, press Restore it, then Save.

The arrows beside each form in the list set the order your forms are listed in, here and wherever you pick a form to send. Consultation forms and feedback forms each keep their own order.

#Who can build and change forms

Building, changing, archiving and reordering forms, consultation and feedback alike, needs the Edit consultation and feedback forms permission. Managers have it unless you take it away, and owners have every permission (roles and permissions). Sending forms, handing over the iPad and reading consultation answers is open to the whole team; reading feedback needs "See clients’ feedback". On a shared Front desk device, Settings → Forms asks for the person's password first.

#Common questions

#Can a form have more than one signature?

No, one per form. Use an Agreement question for each thing a client agrees to, and one Signature at the end.

#Can a question depend on a question further down?

No. A follow-up can only depend on a question above it, so the form always reads from top to bottom. A thank-you page part can depend on any question.

#How many questions can a form have?

Up to 80, headings and the signature included. From 70, the count shows beside Add question ("72 of 80 questions"); at 80, Add question stops and says "A form can have up to 80 questions: split it into two forms." If a form is getting that long, think about splitting it: a new client form once, and a shorter colour form every year.

#Do my clients need an account to fill in a form?

No. The link in their message opens their form straight away.

#Will a new form go to appointments that are already booked?

Only if you say so. When you save a new consultation form that's sent automatically, FullColumn asks "Add it to the 3 appointments already booked?" when any still to come match its rule: Add it adds it to them, and Not now leaves them as they are (forms for appointments already booked). You can also add the form from an appointment or send it from the client's profile (sending forms).