Scott and Pepper Poe didn’t think it was possible to reclaim 20 hours of their time. Their businesses, Picayune Microblading and WoW Day Spa in Picayune, MS, save others time and help them relax, but the Poes always found themselves busy with paperwork and client needs. In 2021, they switched to Clover. By facilitating payroll and appointment scheduling, Clover has saved the Poes 20 hours per week, allowing them to enjoy higher-quality family time and even take a month off to visit Pepper’s family in Vietnam.
The Poes opened Picayune Microblading in 2019. Pepper had about 15 years of cosmetic experience, and Scott had a background in sales and marketing. Together, they run their microblading business and a sibling business, WoW Day Spa, in a 3,400-square-foot building just 50 miles from New Orleans, LA.
Picayune Microblading offers semi-permanent cosmetic tattooing, which is usually used to fill in eyebrows or replace eyeliner, and WoW Day Spa offers massage and skin treatments. The day spa’s newest service is the “headicure,” a combination of massage and hair washing that Scott says is common in Southeast Vietnam. He adds, “It’s a pressure point scalp massage, shampoo, conditioning, pressure point face massage, a mini-facial, and then they dry the hair and massage the neck and the shoulders. My wife is from Vietnam, and so she taught people that work here how to do it.”
Thirteen other estheticians work under the Picayune Microblading and WoW Day Spa umbrellas. As independent contractors, each of them technically run their own small businesses, but the Poes provide the necessary infrastructure for their work, including payment processing through Clover’s salon and spa POS system.
After founding Picayune Microblading, the Poes tried other merchant services, but Clover’s low processing fees convinced them to switch. According to Scott, they’ll never look back. Scott says, “Other POS reporting software we’ve used doesn’t have all the features Clover has, for sure. They’re more like scheduling apps or other apps, and then they happen to have other features.”
Helps manage clients and employees
Clover has the benefit of being integrated with Salon Scheduler, a third-party app that handles significant recordkeeping for the Poes. “It stores data and history on your client,” Scott says. “So you know what services they’ve had, how long they’ve been there, if they don’t show up—all sorts of key data that can help you make decisions at a glance without having to spend time or keep paper records.”
The biggest time-saver has been Clover’s easy payroll function. At the end of every shift, the Poes used to reconcile receipts with their contractors and calculate everyone’s earnings. Then, they’d write weekly paper checks. “Versus with Clover,” Scott says, “I can do payroll and [study] the data so quick, easy—and through my bank, they set me up with direct deposit for my employees. Payroll went from a six-hour ordeal once a week right down to about 10 minutes. That’s just huge right here.”
Gets important paperwork right every time
Pepper wasn’t sure that a machine could handle such important paperwork. “Even after we switched over, she was testing the new system,” Scott says. “She didn’t believe in it, but she manually added, and she tried to match it to the report, and she said, ‘I see it’s right every time!’ So you know that someone that doesn’t do good with computers could learn, even with a lack of English proficiency and with lack of computer knowledge, and use the software. That’s the software you want, because you have so much diversity working in the industry.”
Lastly, Clover has enabled the Poes to offer gift cards. “Before, that was outside of our reach or too expensive to be worth it,” Scott says. But now, they can sell digital and physical gift cards, bringing in an extra $1,000-1,500 every December.
Now, the Poes spend their free time with their kids. Scott says, “We go to church together, we go to the park. I was able to go tubing on the river. We were actually able to take a month off in Vietnam to go see [Pepper’s] family. I have my life back.”
Read more stories about how Clover is helping merchants streamline their operations, serve their communities, and get more time back in their day.