Projects · Case study

The Cottage Training Centre: back to teaching, not wrestling a website

Lisa Bevis runs The Cottage Training Centre in Warsash: over 40 VTCT and ABT-accredited courses in beauty, nails, massage, aesthetics and laser. The website was meant to fill them. For years it got in the way.

See traininginbeauty.co.uk About Coursekeeper

The Cottage Training Centre's home page: small-group training in Warsash, her course categories, courses open to beginners and the most popular ones — Her home page.

"The bane of her life"

Lisa's words for her old website.

A plugin for every job

Shop, dates, learning and payments: four WordPress plugins that never agreed on who'd booked what.

Deposits held together with tape

Courses dressed up as products to take a deposit, and bank transfers stuck "on hold", so nobody knew who'd paid.

Who's in tomorrow?

Pieced together from bookings, emails and notes, the night before.

Every change a battle

Editing a course or adding a date meant a fight with the plugins, every time.

Slow, and swamped by bots

19 seconds to load on a phone, and more than 18,000 fake sign-ups.

What she has now

One Coursekeeper site, built round how she works. Finally, the website helps her run the business.

All in one place

Courses, dates, bookings, payments and certificates in one system.

One simple bill

One monthly fee for the website, bookings, hosting and support. No plugin renewals.

Done for you

We built it, moved everything across and look after it. Over 350 old links still land on the right page.

Booking that sells

Every course on its own page, the places left on every date, and several courses in one basket.

Her Lash Lift course page: the fee, the deposit, the kit, the certificate it leads to and the next date with three places left — Everything a learner asks before booking.

Her upcoming dates on a phone, each with its places left — Places left on every date.

Her basket on a phone with two courses in it, Lash Lift and Dermaplaning, and the deposit to pay now — Two courses, one basket.

Easy to change

A new date or a course edit takes a couple of minutes, and she does it herself.

Editing a course in her admin: its photo, name, categories, fee, deposit and VAT, with what a learner pays worked out underneath — Change the fee, save, and it's live.

Bonus!

Better certificates, numbered and checkable online, and a daily register that makes it a doddle to see who's coming, for what, and who still owes her money.

The day's register for a Lash & Brow Tinting date: five learners, four marked here, each with what they've paid or still owe — Who's here, and who owes what. (Learners made up for the picture.)

A Cottage certificate in Lash & Brow Tinting, ABT accredited, with its number and where an employer can check it — Numbered, and checkable online.

What changed for her

Her evenings back

No more nights at the laptop sorting out bookings.

Mornings sorted

The register says who's coming and who owes what.

Always up to date

A new course is live the day she writes it, and a full date says so before anyone rings.

Back to teaching

Which is what she's good at.

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