Achieving Seamless Appointment Management: A Guide to Setting Up and Utilizing a Salon Booking App
It's no secret that seamless appointment management is the key to salon success, leading to profitability and customer satisfaction. If you're struggling to manage appointments and scheduling in your salon, it's time to take a look at how to improve your salon booking system.
If you haven't already invested in salon software, the time has come. Salon professionals who have taken the leap into the digital age of salon management have found that using salon software with an online booking system is the number one factor for achieving the improved booking process and streamlined business operations that they've been after.
And the results are undeniable. If you're ready to increase your salon's productivity, efficiency, and revenue with an appointment booking system, we've got some great tips on how to maximize the tools in salon software to achieve your goals.
How To Simplify Scheduling With A Salon Booking System
Optimizing your online salon booking system will simplify the scheduling process for both you and your customers.
Booking appointments and services will be a breeze for salon clients who appreciate being able to book from anywhere at any time.
Your staff will be freed from the endless phone calls required to schedule, reschedule, and confirm appointments. This gives them more time to perform services and focus on customer relationships.
Let's take a look at some inside tips for setting up and utilizing your salon booking system.
Select The Services That Will Be Available For Online Booking
Before you set up your online booking, you need to decide which salon appointments can be booked without extensive consultation. This will help avoid the inevitable frustration of those times when a client shows up with much grander plans (or a disastrous DIY hair experiment that needs serious help) than the time pre-allotted for a booking will allow.
The time for standard haircuts, bang trims, blow-outs, single-process color, and even double-process treatments can usually be factored in for online bookings.
More complex services such as corrective treatments, creative color, or wedding and event hair styling will likely need a consultation with the stylist in advance. After the consultation, the stylist can book these custom appointments with the client.
Review Your Services And Salon Details Carefully
Go over the details of your online booking options and your salon business information carefully. Then, do it again.
The last thing you want to do is launch your online salon booking system with embarrassing errors such as incorrect salon hours, contact information, or pricing.
Have your staff review the details of their salon services and schedule. Make sure that their work hours are correct and their pricing is accurate. Since stylists in the same hair salons frequently charge different rates for the same services, this is a really crucial step that you don't want to overlook.
Set Up Automated Confirmations And Reminders
Automated confirmations and reminders are one of the most helpful tools in salon software for managing online bookings. You don't want to skip this step! Client notifications will save time for your salon staff and free them up for more important tasks.
When setting up your automated reminders, there are a few things you need to include:
Date and time of the appointment, and location if applicable
The name of the stylist
The type of service or treatment
You will want the confirmation to go out immediately after the appointment has been booked, or a reschedule has taken place.
Then, send a reminder and include the beauty salon's cancellation policy. You can send a reminder one week before the upcoming appointments and another the day before. This will help deter last-minute cancellations and help customers remember recurring bookings that they have set up.
Encourage clients to choose which way they want to receive their reminders: via email or SMS messages.
Train Your Staff To Use The Salon Booking System
Before you launch a new salon software to the public, you need to ensure that your staff is well-trained on how to use it. This will prevent embarrassing mistakes, such as double bookings, and reduce glitches in your scheduling as you get the online bookings up and running.
Even though your online booking system is primarily to allow clients to book their own appointments, salon staff will need to use it as well. They might need to change a booking after a client has made it, make any changes to their employee schedule, process payments for clients, or assist new customers with updating their customer details.
Decide Who Can Change An Online Booking
Do you want to allow your clients to change their appointments online, or do you prefer to have the staff or stylists at your hair salons make those changes?
Today's salon customers typically prefer to have total autonomy over their own appointment management. They want to schedule, reschedule, or cancel appointments from their convenient mobile apps.
But if you prefer to have the staff at your beauty salons make those changes, you can set your salon booking parameters up so that appointments can only be canceled or rescheduled by your staff.
Managing Client Data
Salon software has tremendously improved client information management. For starters, with your salon booking system, new clients can enter their own information.
Contact details, preferred payment, and any important information their stylist may need to know (allergies or sensitivities to certain hair products, for example) can all be entered and accessible by their stylist before the customer's first appointment.
Once they are onboarded to the new appointment software, customers can easily update their information at any time.
This will save time for your staff that can get eaten away by these seemingly small tasks that tend to build up quickly, and it reduces errors when clients put in their own information.
Request A Preferred Payment Method Or Credit Card On File
Have your clients keep a preferred payment method or credit card on file when they are using your appointment booking system.
This gives you the security of knowing that missed appointments will still be charged (if that is your salon policy) and reduces no-shows and lost income.
Having a customer card on file to process payments also makes it easy for you to charge recurring payments, take pre-payments for select services, and makes the check-out process much quicker and smoother for your staff and customers.
Benefits Of An Online Booking System
Following the helpful tips above will dramatically improve your salon operations and appointment bookings. Your front desk will be much more efficient and salon clients love the flexibility that managing their own appointments will offer them.
But that's not all! You'll want to explore all the features that your booking software has to offer. Here are a few highlighted features that are beauty industry approved:
SMS marketing is an excellent low-cost marketing tool to help you grow your business and drive revenue growth.
Inventory management helps keep your salon well-stocked with everything you need from retail products to salon supplies and back office needs.
Payroll support helps salon owners easily manage payday – even with complicated, multi-tier stylist pricing and commission-based sales.
Mobile front desk apps let customers check themselves in for their appointments and will send a push notification to their stylist, letting them know that the client has arrived.
Choose the Right Online Salon Booking Software
An online salon booking system can support nearly every aspect of your salon business. There are several salon software platforms available, so you want to make sure you do your research and select the one that's best for you and your salon business.
It's a good idea to avoid trying to mix and match components of different salon management software programs because they will lack the interconnectivity that you are seeking to achieve truly seamless salon operations.
Choose An All-In-One Salon Management Software
A comprehensive salon management platform will offer you the best value for your money. It will also give you access to the critical tools you need for everything from great appointment management to payment processing, client management, powerful business data and analytics reporting, and more.
And it will do so seamlessly, thanks to the sophisticated integration of each component – from the online appointment booking to the client app to the payment processing and business management features.
Everything will work together to support your salon small business (even if you have multiple locations), eliminating frustrations and saving you precious time.
Customer Reviews And Testimonials
Make sure to read customer reviews and testimonials for the salon software you are considering to see what other salon owners have experienced. Are they happy overall and pleased with their investment? Did it have the tools they were looking for to run their salon smoothly and efficiently?
Pay attention to any red flags along the way, and never hesitate to reach out to the company to ask specific questions! You want to make sure that your investment will accomplish the tasks you need it to.
Tech Support For Your Salon Software
You will also want to investigate the availability of customer support and tech support available for the salon software you are purchasing.
A great salon management software will come with ample customer and tech support for every step along the way: from setting up your software and any hardware you choose to go with it (such as payment processing devices) to assist with any issues that you may bump into down the road.
Point-Of-Sale (POS) System
We live in a cashless world and digital payment capabilities are a must for today's modern beauty salons or spa business.
A POS system that has digital payment capabilities goes hand-in-hand with online appointment booking to support seamless appointment management. Every step of the customer journey is made smoother when you have a point-of-sale system that integrates with your online bookings.
Salon software with POS integrations enables online pre-payments or deposits, quick and effortless check-out, and can easily add retail products to service charges at the end of a visit.
A great POS system can process all types of payments, including gift cards, debit and credit cards, online payments, appointment deposits, and even cash and checks. Best of all is that it keeps a digital record of every transaction that you can access and review at any time, is always up-to-the-minute accurate, and can provide great data to help you make informed decisions for your small businesses.
Find A Better Salon Workflow – And More Profit – With An Online Booking System
With the help of this guide, you can optimize your salon software to give your salon the edge it needs to achieve seamless appointment management. When your team is freed from the time-consuming tasks of appointment management, the improved workflow in your salon will help everybody on staff gain efficiency and productivity.
And better scheduling leads to full appointment books – which means more profit for your stylists and for you.
Great Appointment Scheduling Improves Customer Satisfaction
On a final note, when everything is running smoothly in your salon the customers will notice. Going to the salon is a break in your customers' routine and a chance to treat themselves. Nobody wants to visit a salon that has stressed-out, frantic vibes.
Well-managed appointment scheduling with salon software fosters a salon environment that is relaxed where staff are happy because everything is running like clockwork, so your customers will want to come back. And, they're likely to send more clients your way.
Try STX Salon Management Software. Book A Free Demo Today!
If you're ready to invest in the best salon booking software, reach out to us at STX Software today.
STX Software is an award-winning salon, spa, and fitness management software that offers all of the booking software solutions you need (and more) to make appointment management a breeze for you and your customers.
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 and learn more about how we can help you manage your salon appointment scheduling with ease!