As your salon business keeps growing, there will inevitably be a point where managing the barrage of administrative tasks, will become increasingly challenging. The administrative tasks involved in efficiently running a salon business such managing appointments, creating schedules, tracking inventory, preparing work rosters and running payrolls can and does become overwhelming. Fortunately, in today’s times one can rely on technology to run the entire gamut of operations. This piece of technology is known as salon management software. Essentially, a POS software, they run on cloud based infrastructure and assist you in optimizing and streamlining your business processes. So, if you’re still contemplating whether or not a POS software can streamline your operations, listed below are top 5 ways how it can help your business.
Convenience of Booking & Scheduling
Perhaps the most important feature and reason to deploy a POS software for your salon is to streamline and automate the process of accepting and scheduling appointments. While one cannot completely forgo the walk-in clients and with some experience a judicious count of slots have to be kept for the same, most businesses are increasingly adopting the method of advance booking. By deploying a POS software your business can entertain appointment request through calls, webpage, chatbots and app. During the booking process itself, the software, based on the client’s preferred timing shows the available slots in the calendar and confirms the booking. The daily schedule is created simultaneously and shared with responsible stake holders. The beauty of the process is such that it doesn’t stop at creating a schedule but also sends a prior reminder to both the client and the staff about the upcoming appointment. As a result, not only do clients don’t miss appointments but also salons have to deal with very limited no show appointments. With a repetitive task now automated your front desk staff has to deal with less number of calls, less client files and your business is able to respond to the customer 24x7x365.
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Improved Database Management
Businesses that run on clients, know how important it is to keep up to date on the customer’s details. Thus, keeping a tab on customer’s contact information is a routine task. A POS software allows you to simply the process and take guessing game out of the equation. Aside from enabling the customers to book appointments on the go and at their convenience, a POS software also allows you to empower them to update their personal information as and when required. Information such as change of contact details, phone number, credit card information, etc. can all be done by the client at their own convenience. The system captures and saves the new information securely. As a result your salon is able to maintain and up –to-date centralized database, complete with the entire details of the client such as personal information, transaction details including purchase and service history and market survey responses. The information helps you plan your targeted marketing campaigns.
Dynamic Resource Deployment
An important aspect of running a salon means juggling the schedule of your talented resources. Work deployment, weekly offs and financial benefits in compensation & tips, everything falls under the entire gamut of managing the resources. Studies have repeatedly indicated that one of the prime causes of businesses facing high attrition rates is because managers have repeatedly faltered in managing schedules and compensation. With a salon POS software you can compute error free payrolls and commissions, keep a track of their upselling skills and performance ratings. Furthermore, by dynamically allocating appointments, the software ensures that division of work is equitable and the weekly offs are managed without bias.
Referrals and Loyalty Rewards Management
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Since, the software records each and every client’s details and their purchase history, businesses can easily spot and identify their most loyal customers and their spend patterns. As a result businesses are enabled to transfer benefits to select clients accordingly and without bias. The POS software is equipped to collect feedback for each and every service from clients and review this feedback to improve their services. Negative reviews, if any, can be collected here instead of social media and rewards and referral programs can be improved accordingly.
Reporting and Analytics
Another big advantage of using a POS software is its ability to generate on-demand reports, which can be accessed anytime. With the ability to generate reports based on the requirement managers and owners can keep a tab on daily sales, revenue, profit and loss and deployed capital. The software is equipped to give you a picture of the health of your business along with the key financial metrics such as Return on Investment, Internal Rate of Return etc. With such important financial data being readily available, businesses are equipped to take course correction immediately
The salon POS software market is mature and has some good products available. Some of the renowned names are Zenoti, Phorest, Vagaro, MindBody and SalonIris. Personally, I find Zenoti to be the best in class product for its easy learning curve and state of art user interface.
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