Dial up a cheaper haircut

Fancy a stylish haircut? Check your mobile

By BBC News Online technology correspondent Mark Ward

Soon you could be using your mobile phone to get a cheaper haircut.

The Toni & Guy chain of upmarket hair salons in the UK is turning to mobile phones and the web to help it boost customer numbers during the usually quiet New Year period.

The salon chain will is planning to distribute vouchers for cut-price haircuts to phones.

The company is only one of many starting to use mobile phones as a way to remind old and new customers that it exists.

Style statement

Mobile phones are becoming less utilitarian and more like fashion accessories all the time.

Reaching the fashion conscious

Now, their importance to the image conscious has been confirmed as posh hairdressers Toni & Guy start using phones to communicate with regular customers.

Like many other companies, Toni & Guy is making its company logo available as an icon from its company website.

In the opening months of 2002, the salon chain will be giving customers a chance to download a money off voucher that will trim the price of their visit to the hair dressers.

Reaching consumers

Toni & Guy is also looking to use the short message service (SMS) to remind regulars when they are due for a trim, or when their highlights will need touching up.

Organisations as diverse as the Department of Health, Cadbury's, Carling and fast-food restaurants are all turning to mobile phones to help them reach consumers.

The problem many face is that few people take kindly to being bombarded, or spammed, with adverts or messages they have not chosen to receive.

As a result many companies are limiting mobile phone promotions to regular customers who they want to encourage to return.