A pro's client base: what to keep, where to keep it and how not to lose it

A pro’s client base is the clients’ contacts and the history of their visits, with a note added where needed. Four things are enough to work with: a name, a phone number, which services and when, and a line about what’s worth remembering. Everything else is only needed if you actually use it.

Every pro has a base, even if they don’t call it that. It lives in the phone’s contacts, in chats, in a notebook and in memory. The trouble begins when there are many clients: someone booked half a year ago and you can’t recall what for, and the number is in one place while the note is in another.

What to keep about a client

Required. A name and a phone number. The phone is the main identifier: you find the person by it, send them reminders, and they confirm their booking with it.

Useful. Which services were done and when. How to address them: by name, formal or informal. What they asked for and what didn’t suit them. When it’s convenient for them to book. A birthday — if you congratulate clients (what to write). Such a note takes ten seconds after a visit and saves minutes before the next one.

Excess. Passport data, an address, extra phone numbers of relatives. The more you keep, the more you have to protect. Health information (allergies, contraindications) falls under a special category in personal data law: record it only if you can’t work safely without it, and no more than needed.

Where to keep it: a notebook, a spreadsheet or an app

	Notebook	Spreadsheet	Phone contacts and chats	Booking app
Search by name and phone	by hand, leafing through	yes	yes	yes
Visit history	in your head and on pages	you maintain it by hand	in the chat	built automatically from bookings
If you lose the phone or notebook	lost along with it	depends on backups	depends on the cloud	stored in your account
Notes	yes	yes	in the contact name	in the client card
When it breaks	when there are many clients and you need search	when bookings and contacts are kept separately	when you need visit history	if some clients stay outside it

The choice depends on volume and on how you take bookings. While there are few clients, a notebook works. If there are more and bookings come through different channels, it’s easiest to keep the base where the schedule is: then the visit history builds itself instead of being rewritten by hand. A comparison of a notebook, a spreadsheet and an app for the bookings themselves is in the article “Client booking log”.

How to move an old base over

Don’t move everything at once. This order works:

1. Start with the people who book regularly, not with the whole address book.
2. Import contacts. Talenza on Android can import from the phone’s contacts: mark the ones you need, and the app brings in the name, the number and the photo as an avatar. If a contact has several numbers, it asks you to pick one.
3. Add the rest as they book. A client who booked from your link gets into the base on their own, just like one you booked manually. The app doesn’t create duplicates by number.
4. Write notes after a visit, rather than trying to fill everything in from memory at once.

A step-by-step guide with screenshots is in the knowledge base: how to add a client and import contacts.

Rules so the base doesn’t go stale

One place to book. If some clients are in a notebook, some in a messenger and some in an app, no list is complete. Pick one and bring everything there.

A note after every visit. Not a report, just one phrase: what was done, what they asked for, what to take into account next time.

A copy in case of loss. Phones get lost, notebooks get tea spilled on them. If the base lives only on a device, it has no second copy. How to solve this for the schedule is in the article about backups.

A review twice a year. Look at who hasn’t come in six months: you can write to them, or calmly drop them from the active list. For regular clients a booking can be created for months ahead at once: how to do it is in the article “A regular client — one booking for months ahead”.

What Talenza does with the client base

In the “Clients” section each person has a card: a phone number, upcoming and past bookings, notes of up to 1,000 characters, and the buttons “Book”, “Call” and “Message”. A personal discount and the “Notify via Telegram” and “Notify by email” switches for that specific client are set there too.

A contact is created on its own when a client books from your link or when you create a booking for their number. A free Telegram reminder reaches a client who has connected the bot, and an email reaches those who left an address; everyone else gets an SMS at 10 ₽. More about reminders.

Talenza’s base plan is free forever, with no limit on the number of bookings. If you are only choosing a service, see the yearly cost calculation.

FAQ

How is a client base different from a booking log? A log answers “who is booked and when”; a base answers “who is this person and what should I remember about them”. A log has a row per visit, a base has a client card with a phone number, history and notes.

What should I write in notes about a client? What will help you next time: how to address them, what they asked for, what didn’t suit them, when it’s convenient for them to book. Don’t record health data or documents unless you can’t do without them.

How do I move clients over from my phone’s contacts? In Talenza on Android, open “Clients”, choose “Add client” → “From phone contacts”, mark the contacts you need and tap “Import”. Numbers that are already added are not duplicated.

Can a client see my notes? No. Notes in a client’s card are visible only to you, and the client can’t see them.

What happens to my base if I change phones? In Talenza clients are stored in your account, not on the device. After you log in to the same account on a new phone, the base and booking history are there.