From Pen And Paper To The Digital Age: The Evolution Of Salon Management Software
Gone are the days of juggling appointment books and making endless phone calls; today's thriving salons have evolved to become more efficient and tech-savvy businesses. The arrival of salon management software has changed the landscape for modern salons, and salon owners who have jumped in with both feet have reaped the rewards.
Salon management software solutions have improved every aspect of running a salon business. Salon booking software has virtually eliminated embarrassing double bookings and frustrating no-shows. Client management is easier than ever, and daily salon operations are a breeze. Let's take a look at how the best salon software has benefitted salon owners, staff, and their customers.
From Appointment Books To Booking Software for Salons
We all felt relief when we tossed away our pencils, erasers, and paper appointment books.
Salon appointment software has become one of the most critical tools of the salon and spa owner's trade. It saves an enormous amount of time and allows you to better allocate staff resources.
Your staff has more time to welcome clients and improve customer relations. Your customers aren't waiting on hold to book appointments by phone, and they have more control over their appointment bookings when things come up.
Salon Scheduling
Salon scheduling software is probably the greatest gift that the digital age has given to hair salons and other wellness industry businesses. Easy, efficient scheduling is one of the key components of a well-run salon.
Salon management software helps spa and salon owners (and their staff) improve daily workflow, manage their calendars, and keep money coming in. If you're still looking for the best salon management software for your spa or salon business, you'll want to make sure it has the key features that brought us out of the dreaded pencil and paper age of salon scheduling: online booking capabilities and automated reminders.
Let Customers Book From Anywhere
Online booking is a boon to both salons and their customers. Salon owners and stylists have the flexibility to create their own customized booking calendar with ease. Salon clients have the freedom to schedule appointments on their own time, not just during the salon's open hours.
And today's salon customers simply expect the ease and convenience of online appointment bookings. A salon that doesn't have online booking software is at a real disadvantage.
Simplify Appointment Booking With A Mobile App
Online booking is a definite must-have, but the best salon software will also have a client mobile app that allows customers to manage their appointments on-the-go. Booking, rescheduling, adding services and even retail products to their appointments are all possible with a great salon booking system.
Keep Your Salon Appointment Book Full With Automated Reminders
Using paper appointment books, or even electronic calendars, to keep track of your schedule requires an immense amount of time. You, or the salon staff, have to review the schedule every day and make individual appointment reminders by phone or email.
It's an incredibly time-consuming process! But now, you can recover that lost time because automated reminders are built into salon management software. Automated reminders have reduced no-shows down to less than 1% for most salons. SMS reminders help your customers keep track of appointments – and keep your chairs full.
Maximize Your Booking Time
As salon software evolved, factoring in processing time (when creating your schedule for online bookings) improved with it. Now you can easily create another booking spot for a shorter appointment, such as a men's haircut or a bang trim, while your processing client is under the dryer.
This could be done with your paper and pencil calendars, but the process wasn't great. Today's salon technology has advanced to the point where intentional double booking for maximizing your time and your money is efficient and seamless.
From Word-Of-Mouth To Sophisticated Marketing Tools
It used to be that your salon grew and gained new clients based on reputation and client referrals.
Today, digital marketing is a primary driver of new business. From social media to email marketing campaigns to having a well-designed salon website, your digital path to small business success relies heavily on how you make the most of digital marketing tools.
Salon marketing tools are built into the best salon management software as part of the business operations features, and they're easier than ever to use. Leveraging these tools to market and grow your salon is one of the easiest ways to drive revenue growth and bring in new customers.
Launch Your Own Website
With salon management software you can create your own website to showcase the talent and creativity of your stylists. You can highlight services that your salon offers that are distinctive, such as creative color, wedding party hair appointments, or children's hair services. Offer specials and discounts for new clients to boost your website with pop-up coupons.
Create Compelling Email Marketing Campaigns
Email marketing campaigns might not sound sexy, but they're an incredibly effective tool.
Creating compelling email campaigns is easy to do, and you can even automate them to deploy at designated times that you set – even if you are on vacation. Here are a few ideas:
Create a campaign around your salon's anniversary and send out discount codes for appointments or select services booked on the week of your anniversary.
Is there a typical slow time at your salon, such as after the holidays? Create a campaign that encourages customers to book services or purchase retail products during that time. Include coupons or discounts for bundled services.
Bringing in a new line of products? Let your customers know all about it and offer deals for their first purchases.
Send birthday messages to your clients! Maybe they'll be spurred to come in and treat themselves to services for their birthday.
An important thing to remember when creating email campaigns is to make sure that what you're sending has value. Don't bombard your customers with too many campaigns and flood their inbox, or they'll be less likely to read your messages – and will likely unsubscribe to your email list.
Attract New Clients In Your Local Area With Referrals
Use your digital marketing tools to bring in new customers! A great way to attract new clients in your area is to send new client referral codes to your current customers. They can pass along the code to somebody they know.
Include a discount for the current customer on their next booked services as a thank you for the referral. And the new client referral code should include a discount on first-time services for your new customers.
Boost Sales With Suggestive Selling
Use your salon software to perform suggestive selling. When a client is booking an online service, your salon software can suggest specific retail products to accompany the service.
For example, if the customer is booking an appointment for fresh color, your salon software can automatically recommend the product you designated to be suggested with color service appointments.
This is a great tactic to create passive income for your salon and takes some of the retail sales pressure off of your staff.
Top Features Of Salon Management Software Solutions
Going beyond the massive leaps forward that salon software has provided for salon scheduling and marketing solutions, there are numerous advancements that salon professionals have gained for customer management, business operations, and even POS Software for payment processing and retail sales.
Going beyond the massive leaps forward that salon software has provided for salon scheduling and marketing solutions, there are numerous advancements that salon professionals have gained for customer management, business operations, and even POS Software for payment processing and retail sales.
Customer Relationship Management (CRM) System
A great CRM system supports increased customer satisfaction and customer loyalty, along with making salon operations smoother.
With a CRM system, you can track a client's preferences to offer a personalized experience every time they visit your salon. Easily recall customer data, such as preferred products and services, before appointments. Note personal information like birthdays, anniversaries, their spouse or children's names, or big upcoming events (especially helpful with clients who go longer between appointments).
Improve Inventory Management
Great salon software has inventory management to help you track your retail products and sales. And every sale is synced to the minute so that you always have an accurate count of each product. Instead of counting bottles and updating spreadsheets, you can easily pull up an inventory report in your salon software to see if anything needs reordering.
Salon supplies can also be accounted for in the same way. Everything from shampoos and developers to back-end office supplies can be easily monitored so that you never find yourself without a critical item. Purchase orders are also a breeze and your purchase history can be accessed easily for review, allowing you to note which items are selling well and which items might need to be dropped from your shelves.
Point-Of-Sale (POS) Systems
Having access to a great POS system has transformed sales and payment processing for salons. Here are some of the highlights:
Customer payment info can be securely stored in their customer data file, so payment can be made with a simple touch of a button after services are complete.
You can take deposits for appointments when your customers book online or while at the salon, discouraging no-shows or cancellations. You can also charge for missed appointments, when necessary.
Quickly and easily combine add-on retail products to service charges after an appointment.
Calculate gift card use (and remaining funds), track reward program points, and manage staff commissions for retail sales.
Make Employee Management Easy
Salon payroll can be complicated. Stylists in the same salon often have different rates for the same services as their coworkers. When you adopt a salon scheduling software, your front desk staff doesn't need the stylist to walk them through each client's services and charges for the day – it's all in the salon software system.
Additionally, keeping track of everybody's schedules is simple and the entire salon staff can be up-to-date with salon changes, policies, and even last-minute updates with messaging and push notification features. It's easier than ever to keep everybody in your salon business on the same page!
Benefits of Hair Salon Management Software
With the technological advances that salon software has brought to the industry, running a salon business is easier than ever.
The days of pen and paper are well behind you. You can focus on doing what you love, building a rock-star salon team, and providing fantastic services to your clients.
And the benefits of adopting salon software apply to owners, staff, stylists, and customers with the features and accessibility that great salon software offers.
Is Customer Support Typically Included With Salon Software?
Yes! The best salon management software will have customer support to help you set up your new software and have access to any tech support that you might need down the road.
This is definitely a key feature of salon technology, and you want to make sure that when you invest in salon software you choose a platform, such as STX Software, that offers top-notch customer service and tech support.
Become A Salon Success Story With STX
If you're ready to make your salon a success story, start looking into the best salon management software platforms to help you achieve your goal.
STX has powerful all-in-one small business management software to streamline (and in many cases, automate) the everyday business operations of your salon.
STX also has POS software to support single or multiple-location businesses. STX Payments supports every payment option, has multiple payment plans available, is Level 1 PCI compliant, and uses 256-bit SSL encryption to ensure card data is safe.
And STX has an easy-to-use client app, available for both iPhone and Android users, that gives your clients the freedom and flexibility to manage their appointments anywhere, at any time. They can also see their appointment and service history, use the mobile check-in feature, and contact the salon with the built-in communication tools.
Book A Demo Of STX Salon Management Software Today!
If you're looking for a great salon management software, reach out to us today to learn more about how STX Software can help you run the salon of your dreams.
STX is an award-winning salon, spa, and fitness management software that helps salon owners get out from behind the desk and back to doing what they love.
You can give us a call at (800) 766-4778 or visit our website to book a live demo with our team. Contact us today to learn more about STX!