Customers found the shop, but couldn't get as far as booking
La HEAD, a dry head spa a 3-minute walk from Shinjuku-nishiguchi Station, welcomes many customers from overseas: people who want to try a Japanese head spa in between the stops on their trip.
Until recently, though, La HEAD had no booking page in English. Many overseas customers who had gone to the trouble of finding the shop gave up partway through the Japanese booking screen. Handling phone calls in English was also difficult, and with the website only in Japanese, even checking the menu, prices and the shop's location wasn't easy.
The problems before
- There was no booking page in English, so many overseas customers dropped off partway through the booking screen.
- The shop couldn't keep up with phone calls and inquiries in English.
- The website was only in Japanese, so it was hard to get the menu, prices and location across.
- The shop wanted to keep using its existing booking system and website without changing them.
Keep the existing setup, add an entrance in English
What La HEAD brought in was a booking system made specifically for inbound visitors (travelers from overseas) at relaxation salons, developed by Fuji Tokyo Service. It's built on the idea of carrying on with the existing Japanese website and booking system as they are, and adding only an English website and an English booking system.
What it added
- An English site that looks just like the current one: Keeping the same design as the Japanese website, the menu and prices, shop information, FAQ and more were put into English. Visitors can switch between Japanese and English at the top right of the screen, and the FAQ now also answers the points that often confuse travelers.
- Blog posts turned into English automatically every day: When the shop writes a blog post in Japanese, an English version is automatically created and published at a set time every day.
- A booking form that's easy to fill in in English: When you choose a course, the treatment time and price are shown together, and you enter your phone number after selecting your country or region.
- Only the slots the shop sets can be booked: From an admin screen, the shop decides its booking hours for each day of the week and for public holidays, and which slots to close on any given day. Availability is calculated to include the preparation time needed before and after each treatment.
- Confirmation that prevents overlapping bookings: A booking isn't confirmed when the request is made. The shop checks availability first, then sends an email for confirming it. While a booking is waiting to be confirmed, no other bookings can be made for that time.
- English emails just by choosing options in Japanese: When the requested date and time aren't available, staff only need to choose an option in Japanese, such as "another time on the same day," to produce a message in English that includes an apology.
- Self-service cancellation and protection against pranks: Customers can cancel on their own from the confirmation email, and automated submissions and repeated submissions in a short space of time are automatically rejected.
How booking works
| Step | Who | What happens |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Customer | Chooses a course, date and time on the English site and submits a booking request |
| 2 | System | Sends the customer an automatic reply in English and notifies the shop in Japanese |
| 3 | Shop | Checks availability, holds the slot and sends a confirmation email from the admin screen |
| 4 | Customer | Clicks the button in the email to confirm the booking |
| 5 | Customer | Visits the shop. If plans change, they can also cancel on their own from the email |
Shop staff only have to work with the admin screen in Japanese. Customers receive emails in English, so there's no need to write emails while translating.
Drop-offs fell from 75% to 10%
After the system was introduced, the share of overseas customers dropping off partway through the booking screen fell from 75% to 10%. Customers who would previously have given up can now get all the way through to a booking, and the shop says bookings from overseas have increased significantly.
- Phone calls and emails in English have almost disappeared, so staff can focus on treatments and hospitality.
- Booking mix-ups and double bookings have stopped.
- Just by writing blog posts in Japanese, the shop now gains new English posts every day as well.
- The system doesn't use paid translation or booking services and runs on the server of the existing website, so monthly costs haven't gone up.
In the shop's words
We had lots of customers from overseas, but our booking screen was only in Japanese, and most of them gave up partway through. When I asked about getting a booking page in English, I was shown a screen that actually worked the very next day, and I was genuinely amazed at how fast that was.
Hardly any overseas customers give up partway through the booking screen anymore, and booking in English has become an important way in for our shop.
(Azusa Katsumata, manager of La HEAD, from Fuji Tokyo Service's case study page, translated from Japanese)
So you don't miss out on overseas visitors
Visitors to Japan look for shops and book them on their smartphones, before their trip or during their stay. If they stumble over the language barrier at that point, they quietly go off to look for another shop. The voices of people who gave up partway through booking never reach the shop.
La HEAD's case shows that, without major changes to an existing setup, simply adding one "entrance where people can book in English without getting lost" lets a shop reach the customers it had been missing. Being able to take these bookings even without staff who are good at English is what makes it sustainable for a small shop.
Sources
This article was put together by our editors from the following publicly available information (as of October 30, 2026). The booking system featured in this article was developed by Fuji Tokyo Service, the company that runs this publication.
