The beauty industry has witnessed rapid technological evolution over the last decade. One key technology that has been life-changing for salon and spa business owners is salon management software. This technology has helped beauty businesses shift management and operational gears from manual processes to automation. Advanced salon and spa software injects efficiency and accelerates business growth in so many ways. Just to give you a glimpse of what this technology can do for your business growth, this article explores 7 of the most amazing benefits of salon booking software:
1. Convenient appointment booking and scheduling
Hair salon online booking is by a mile the most important aspect of salon business marketing. Advanced software allows clients to make all kinds of appointment booking, including single, double, and group appointments. You can even allow clients to book multiple stylists or therapists in a single appointment. The software empowers clients so much that they are able to manage their appointments from canceling, rescheduling, re-sizing, to re-booking. And because the software allows clients to make digital payments, you can charge a fee for late rescheduling or cancellation if you want. All these are possibilities that you miss out on if clients only book appointments over the phone or in person.
Online booking brings many more extra benefits to a salon. Some of these benefits include:
· Around-the-clock appointment booking. Clients can book appointments whenever they get the time, from wherever they could be.
· Online booking significantly reduces the risk of double-booking or appointments overlapping.
· The convenience of online booking excites online clients, which in turn boosts your online reputation, increases conversions, and boosts revenue.
· It encourages your clients to help you create and maintain your database. Clients will let on more personal information when they key it in themselves compared to when they are interrogated by a receptionist. For example, they will readily update their contact information whenever they relocate or acquire a new email address or phone number.
· When booking appointments online, clients can specify their preferred communication channels. If a client doesn’t read emails regularly, for example, you will know not to send him/her email communications.
· You can use your online booking platform to sell memberships, distribute referral points, recommend retail products, and promote gift cards, among other possibilities.
2. Better customer management
After a client books an appointment or makes payments online, your software saves that data, analyzes it, generates reports, and organizes the data as per your command. That data is what you need when:
· Assigning monetary value to individual clients in order to know how much revenue each client brings to your business within a specified timeframe. For instance, client A visits your salon once every three weeks and spends $100 per visit. Client B visits your salon once in two months and spends $200 per visit. Client A is obviously more valuable to your business than client B even if client B spends more per visit than client A. It is hard to get these types of insights from manual records.
· Designing your loyalty reward approaches. Your software will tell you which loyal clients would appreciate discounts and which ones would be willing to pay more just to be added to an “exclusive” membership club. That way, you don’t treat all loyal clients as a monolith.
· Personalizing marketing. You can send special birthday promotions, notify clients of upcoming beauty events that they have attended previously, and offer personalized deals on products that the involved customer has previously purchased. All these possibilities are presented to you by the data and insights that your salon management software gathers.
3. Enhanced salon Point of Sale (POS)
The POS possibilities that salon management software offer are endless. Some of them include:
i. Ordering
Clients are able to place orders online and make digital payments. The software also allows you to take orders through emails or text messages, and then it generates and prints bills automatically. Advanced software can also enable Interactive Voice Response (IVR), allowing automatic recording and processing of all orders made over the phone.
ii. Effortless check-in and check-out processes
The process of checking clients in and out can be quite hectic when dealing with manual records. With the database your software creates, your receptionists get quick access to clients’ payment records and other relevant information. You are, therefore, able to finish with a client in a few clicks or taps. The POS system will also track and create reports for referrals, gift cards, discounts, and reward points. That minimizes time wastage at the front desk.
iii. Financial management
Your software’s POS feature will track your sales, employee commissions & bonuses, accrued taxes, revenue, and your average daily expenditure. That makes your payroll management, budgeting, and tax compliance responsibilities a whole lot easier.
iv. Suggestive selling
Your salon POS system analyzes each client’s buying history and then makes relevant product recommendations. It can either recommend those products directly to clients on your online store or alert your staff to suggest those products to clients during appointments. That results in more sales for your business.
4. Automated tracking and reporting
Your software allows you to manage all of your business and client information from a centralized, automated system. The software keeps records and analyses for every data set you feed it with. As a result, you don’t require hours to sort through revenues and expenses, employee performance data or schedules, or counting bottles in your retail section. Your software’s automated tracking and reporting feature will provide you with extensive and thorough reports so that you can spend more of your time servicing clients instead of doing clerical work.
5. Increased flexibility
If your software is cloud-based, you can access your data anywhere and on any device. You can check your schedule at any time, run inventory or financial reports, and assign or manage tasks from anywhere in the world. Other advantages of working in the cloud include:
· No maintenance or updates needed. The software company does that for you.
· You don’t have to worry about system compatibility challenges.
· Your data is always 100% secure from data spies and thieves.
· Even when your IT hardware crash, your data remains intact.
· You can manage how much information 3rd party users such as employees and clients can access.
6. Social media integration
To make it easy for social media users to book appointments and make payments, you can integrate your booking platform with your social media accounts. You can also share your booking platform through a link on your social media, or send the link directly to clients’ emails. That leaves clients with little to no chance of changing their minds after they decide to try your services.
7. Stress-free multi-location management
You can use your software to assign tasks, track activities, and manage finances in as many branches as you could have. The software collects data from all locations and presents it to you in a single, well-organized report.
Conclusion
When shopping for your salon management software, ensure that the software you choose has endless automation possibilities. At the very least, pick software that has an appealing and user-friendly client scheduling system, POS, and reporting features. That is how you will reap the optimal benefits of owning the software.