How Oak & Steel Found a New Kind of Support With Beau

At Oak & Steel, a Boulevard customer since 2024, there is no traditional front desk. And that's intentional.

Barbers manage their clients from their phones and iPads, while the rest of the team works together to keep the shop running and clients taken care of. This model lets the team spend more time with the people in front of them and less time behind a desk.

But one part of the client experience still demands someone's attention: the phone. A ringing phone could pull a barber away from a service, interrupt the bartender while serving a client, or leave owner Shea Moroni jumping in to support his team.

"The phone for us is kind of a stress point," Shea says. "We don't know who's going to be there, are we missing calls, are we keeping up with the messages?"

For a business without a dedicated receptionist, every incoming call created a choice. Someone could stop what they were doing to answer, or they could stay focused on the client in front of them and risk missing the call.

For Oak & Steel's barbers, that could mean stepping away in the middle of a service and potentially falling behind schedule. For the bartender, a five-minute phone conversation could mean keeping a client at the bar waiting. And for Shea, it created the ongoing mental load of wondering whether calls were being answered or if he and his team were missing out on revenue.

"You're thinking, am I going to stay on time if I have to answer this phone call? I don't want to miss it if it's a client who needs something urgently."

The challenge wasn't simply answering more calls. Oak & Steel needed a way to support clients on the phone without compromising the experience happening inside the shop.

When Oak & Steel began piloting Beau, Boulevard's AI receptionist, Shea expected AI to help with relatively simple interactions, like answering common questions or helping a client book an appointment. The experience quickly surprised him.

"Where she took it was far beyond what I expected," Shea says. "This really is like talking to a staff member at our building."

Because Beau is built into Boulevard, it extends the client experience Oak & Steel is already managing through the platform to another important touchpoint: the phone. Beau can handle routine client needs while the team continues serving clients in the shop. And when a situation requires human judgment, the team can still step in.

For Oak & Steel, that balance is key. The goal wasn't to replace human interaction. It was to use the team's time where being human matters most.

With Beau working alongside Boulevard, Oak & Steel can deliver a more connected client experience while giving its team more space to focus on the work happening in front of them.

Fewer Interruptions for the Team

The impact inside the shop was immediately noticeable.

"It was abnormally quiet in the shop, to say the very least," Shea says. "Not hearing the phone ring was kind of strange, but that's a testament to Beau."

One of Oak & Steel's bartenders estimated that Beau had taken the phone "99% out of the equation." Instead of monitoring the phone throughout the day, barbers can stay with their clients, the bartender can focus on the people at the bar, and Shea doesn't have to wonder whether every routine call is being handled.

A Better Experience on Both Sides of the Phone

Removing the interruption didn't mean removing service. Clients calling Oak & Steel could still get help without waiting for someone inside the shop to become available. And according to Shea, the experience felt remarkably natural.

"She has inflection," he says. "It's just an experience that's like nothing changed. It's like talking to a staff member."

One client told the team their entire booking interaction took about a minute and a half. For Oak & Steel, that means the person calling can feel taken care of while the person in the barber's chair still gets the team's full attention.

More Ways for Clients to Book

Beau also helped some longtime clients discover an easier way to manage their own appointments. Shea noticed that a handful of clients who used to call the shop began using Boulevard's online booking after Beau directed them there.

"They saw how easy it was to book online with Boulevard and were just like, 'Oh, I can do this. I'm going to use this from now on instead of trying to call.'"

That gives clients more choice in how they interact with the business. They can call when they want assistance or self-book when convenience matters most.

One Connected View for the Owner

For Shea, automation is more valuable when it doesn't mean losing visibility. With Beau connected to Boulevard's broader outbound and inbound messages, he can see when a conversation needs attention and step in when necessary.

"Now that everything is housed in one area — all of our outbound and inbound [text] messages, the AI receptionist, if we do miss a call and someone wants a callback, it shows up in the messages."

Instead of introducing another disconnected tool for Shea to manage, Beau becomes part of the system Oak & Steel already uses to run the business.

Human When It Matters

Not every client interaction should be automated. Oak & Steel maintains a 24-hour cancellation policy, for example. But Shea knows there's a difference between someone forgetting an appointment and a longtime client calling because their child is sick. Those situations require context, empathy, and sometimes an exception. Beau gives the team more capacity for exactly those moments.

Routine conversations can be handled without pulling someone away from a client. When judgment or a personal touch is needed, Beau knows to hand off so Shea and his team can step in. That makes AI less about removing people from the experience and more about giving them the time to show up where they add the most value.

On the other end of the spectrum, 20% of the calls Shea and his team used to answer were telemarketers or spam. "All those spam calls, Beau would completely filter out — or the spammer would get upset and quit. Getting rid of that frustration was a nice added bonus."

Oak & Steel didn't implement Beau to transform the way the shop operates. It implemented Beau so the team could spend more time operating the way it already wanted to.

During the pilot, Shea saw booking volume remain relatively steady, with a small uptick. The bigger change was what it took from the team to support that demand. The calls were still coming in. Clients were still booking. Questions were still being answered. But the team no longer had to interrupt the experience happening inside the shop to make it happen.

• 56% Membership Increase — Barbers freed from ringing phones spend dedicated time explaining membership perks to clients during checkout.
• 9% Service Value per Appointment — Beau routes routine callers to self-booking links where service upgrades and add-ons are visually displayed.
• 12% No-Show Reduction — Bookings captured by Beau trigger automated SMS confirmations, reminders, and payment deposit workflows.
• 15% New Client Retention — First-time callers get instant answers in under 90 seconds instead of dropping off to voicemail.

That's where Boulevard's broader value comes into focus. Booking, client communication, and now the phone can work together as part of one connected experience, giving clients more ways to engage while giving the business fewer things to manage.

For Oak & Steel, the result is simple: clients get the attention they need, the team stays present, and Shea has greater peace of mind that the business is taking care of both.