Owners and managers of salon businesses, both large and small, always have more tasks on their plates than their time can accommodate. They juggle between creating plans and strategies for business growth, managing their employees who aren’t always the easiest to hold down, and managing their business cash flow and financial obligations. That alone makes the job quite overwhelming. Add client management into that mix and the job becomes almost humanly impossible. As an ambitious salon owner or manager who wants nothing less than optimal employee productivity, a satisfied clientele, an endless list of return clients, and a consistently growing revenue, you need to have salon management software as your companion.
Salon software makes your job and every staff member’s job significantly easy. It will help you keep everything organized, from appointment booking, time management, data management, and resource allocation. Advanced software will help you run your salon with accuracy and business wisdom, through insightful reports. The benefits of using management software in salon business management are boundless.
All these benefits are products of salon software’s wonderful features and useful tools that, when put to good use, can set your salon apart from the rest of the industry. Here are 5 of these wondering features and what they can do for you:
1. Online booking feature
Hair salon online booking is inarguably the most important feature in any salon management software. For starters, adding an online booking system to your marketing arsenal gives your salon a competitive edge that no other marketing strategy can. Without online booking, you can never be too sure if the clients you impress online will convert. It is highly likely that a good chunk of your potential clients, and even existing clients, will ditch you for your competitors if they can’t book appointments at their convenience, any time they wish to, and on any internet-enabled device. Good services and impressive campaigns aren’t enough to hold down a client in this digitalized world.
Advanced software also injects efficiency into your team. The software will minimize walk-in appointments and empower clients to fill up your schedule for you. The best nail salons in Manchester can also give an account that a software minimizes phone calls and data entry at your front desk, which then brings lots of other benefits. First, it will free up your receptionists and provide the time they need to take on other important tasks, e.g. upsell your services or products to clients who are already in the building. Secondly, when clients enter their own data as they book appointments online, there are significantly fewer errors in your databases as compared to when your receptionists do it. Fewer errors mean faster check-in and check-out processes. Thirdly, as they book appointments, clients will tell you everything they need your staff members to prepare for prior to the appointment. You can, for example, customize your online booking platform to ask clients specific questions regarding the hair color they need, the beauty products they prefer, the hairstyle they want, and even their preferred stylists. No time is wasted when the clients eventually come to the salon.
Online booking provides you with more opportunities to sell more. First, clients can make online orders and make product reservations via the platform. That helps you ensure that each client’s preferred product is in stock prior to their appointments. Secondly, you can advertise your new beauty products on the booking platform. When you shine a light on a product like that, it becomes easier for you to talk to clients about the product once you meet in person. Thirdly, the online booking feature allows you to build customer loyalty by helping you provide digital memberships and loyalty packages. Clients can cash in their gift cards, track their loyalty points, and redeem points online without any physical interaction with your staff.
2. Real-time reporting feature
Reputable software provides you with solid, accurate, and up-to-the-minute reports. That helps you monitor the progress of business goals and strategies in real-time. The software will provide you with insights into whether appointments take the right amount of time, stylists use the right amount of product per appointment, or your employees report to work at the right time. It does all these by tracking daily time registrations, feeding the data it collects into the reporting mechanism, analyzing the data, and then generating digestible pieces of insights. These reports help you make the right business decisions every single time.
3. HR feature
Your software’s HR feature helps improve your team’s morale in many ways. First, it ensures that each team member is assigned tasks that match their skillsets, ability, and experience. Secondly, it ensures that no one is overworked as others idle around- there is no overbooking. Thirdly, the software provides employees with convenient communication channels for discussing pending tasks, day’s timelines, dependencies, and outstanding work. This improves collaboration and accountability among team members. These three benefits combine to encourage healthier standards of work and greatly improve team morale.
4. Customer management feature
Your software’s customer relationship management (CRM) feature helps you collect and store customer data in a central place. That gives you a 360º view of all data relevant to a client’s appointment, including personal details (name, email, phone number), interaction history, communication preferences, as well as purchase & payment history. That makes it easy for your staff to reach out to customers and prepare for appointments. What’s more, you can access your CRM data while on the move and on any device. And because any software worth its salt provides robust data security and allows you to control data accessibility, the safety & integrity of your CRM data is never in question.
5. Inventory management feature
Your software comes with many big inventory management benefits. Some of them include:
· Gives you better product visibility, especially in cases of a product recall. Your software gives you full product traceability, so you always have eyes on the movements of the orders you make.
· Provides invaluable sales data, so you always make data-driven orders and marketing strategies. It helps you understand supply and demand a little better, which gives you a more competitive edge.
· Helps you understand your inventory turnover rate, helping you optimize the amount of inventory you hold in your retail section. That also helps you lower your inventory carrying costs.
Conclusion
Have you added salon management software to your technology stack? If you haven’t, you are missing out on a great tool that can help you ramp up efficiency and productivity in your team. Get competent software today!