Automating Beauty Salon Software Management : 7 Must-have Features

For some time, extensive technological change has been noticed.

There is a huge shift from manual to automated processes, like, in next-gen apps and software. Its effect has been noticed in the beauty industry as well!!

Now, salon owners have started using salon management software for improving their business growth. These solutions are assisting the beauty industry in automating their daily operations with the overall control on them.

Also, they can modify their processes to fulfill the customer Retention rate, satisfaction level, and support business growth.

It does not matter if you have your own beauty business, or you are self-employed, the beauty salon management software is here or makes your job easier. From marketing, booking appointments, customer record tracking, inventory management to online booking- it covers all.  

These can be accessed from either the PC or from mobile devices.  Also, the POS processing and credit card details can be added to the software solution.

When you own a salon or spa, adequate attention must be given to the features the salon management software contains. For making it easier for you, we are mentioning the must-have features every salon management software should have.

Beauty salon management software system

The profitability and high profitability of a beauty salon depend largely on the position of the business owner. To achieve these goals, you cannot do without an interesting idea and a detailed plan for implementing the strategy.

If there is no salon management software, then the owner of a beauty salon risks facing a series of problems, such as:

• Lack of employee interest in the development of the salon.

• Failure to comply with discipline and company charter.

• Incorrect actions on the part of the management that hinder business development, or their absence.

With the help of online booking software, you can arrange an appointment with a hairdresser, make-up artist, manicurist online. Most people today spend their time on the Internet. Buying and ordering services via a smartphone is a common thing. 

The ability to make an online appointment with your specialists is a great opportunity to demonstrate to your customers that you are keeping up with the times and trying for their convenience.

Your salon staff will always have access to their daily or weekly schedule. It will be much easier and faster to make changes, and your employees will not miss important information. Online booking software allows you to maintain a customer base.

With its help, you can identify those who often come to your beauty salon, and who have stopped doing it. With this information, you can take the right action – provide a discount or remind you of yourself.

Using the software, you can notify your customers by SMS or email about special offers, promotions, bonuses, discounts, share news, and other useful and interesting information.

Here are some features to look into when creating a salon management software system:

1. Appointment Scheduling

This is the most essential aspect of wellness and the beauty industry.  Several complexities are there, such as Single appointments, Group appointments, Cancelling and rescheduling appointments, Single appointments with several therapists or stylists, etc.

The salon management software offers an appointment management feature that assists you to control every complexity easily. With touch screens, intuitive salon and spa appointment books, your desk can keep moving and you will worry about double bookings. Quickly, you can schedule, reschedule, or cancel the appointments that can save valuable time.

With this powerful platform, you can have ordered online, via messages, emails, and directly via the phone.  For the automatic processing of orders or recordings, it provides integration with the centralized system.  The bills will get built and printed on the customers’ arrival automatically.

2. Inventory Management

The salon’s inventory management system is an essential element to your salon. For those in the retail sector, definitely need this.  The software keeps track of the inventory by modifying the quantities every time there is a return, sale, or new product shipment.

Assuredly, you will like to stay fulfilled so that the customers have the products they need to purchase in the salon. The system also assists you to avoid over-purchased. This is effective for slower-moving Salon products.

The outstanding features to include in the inventory management system has the capacity to update and upload more. When you need to buy more salon products, you will need a regular notification system.

By setting the low alerts, you can understand when to order many products without ordering bottles on the salon shelf.

3. Marketing Capabilities

The salon management software features assist in selling salon services or products. These are also helpful in building the brand and making the customers engaged. 

There are many ways to maintain the flow of communication with customers by means of text messages and email marketing, check out below:

• Some great features allow you to automate the greetings. Like, you can set up the birthday or anniversary emails to send to the existing customer every year.  Approach and thank those customers who have not been in the salon for some time. Automated emails are a nice way to make your customers feel special and valued.

• Mass email marketing enables you to create, send, and track emails to every customer.  This is also applicable to some selected groups in your list. In any way, it is better to communicate recent happenings, provide salon promotions, and share the trends and tips.

• By marketing with the customers via SMS, the messages are getting delivered to their phone. The integrated texting features in the Salon management software can do it easily for you.

• The other way to use this is via individual text reminders. Like, reminding the customers of upcoming appointments or pending payments, etc.

• Similar to email marketing,  you can either send the messages at right time or schedule them for another time. This communication type enables you to build ongoing campaigns or to send one time messages. 

4. Point of Sale 

Point of Sale is here to access the customer information quickly in some clicks only from any device. Here, the idea is to process customer payment or ring up the sales without any large or complex hardware. Salon POS can do it all. 

In addition, to manage the customer database, the outstanding POS system keeps track of referrals, commissions, reward point of sales. 

Now, you can access the customer information quickly in some clicks only from any device. In addition to managing the customer database, the outstanding POS system keeps a track of referrals, commissions, reward points, or sales.  

So, we can say that POS is the place where the customer can complete their payments of services or products at your Salon. There is no denying the fact that when the customers are making a purchase, they are completing the POS transaction.

It is the central component of your salon business or a hub where from inventory, sales to customer management, everything combines.

5. Package Management and Customer Advance

The package is an integration of several services provided in a single service or packages, like:

• Bridal package,

• Summer skincare package,

• Weight loss package, 

• Hair shining package, etc.

The categorization of the packages is according to the value and the service count of every combined service. Generally, the service count based services are provided to individuals, and the value-based provided to the big personalities. 

Customers will pay in advance when providing services, which will decrease as customers use the service. These software packages are time-bound, so it is important to track the due time of the customer’s advance payment.

6. Automated Confirmations

With the automated confirmation feature, the Salon owners can manage their customers to the best without any further difficulty.

While looking for the salon management software, choose the one that provides automation of when the bookings are confirmed, the solution sends the confirmation SMS or email reminders and confirmations.

That is up to you how and when you want to send the confirmations. Most preferably, you like to do this with an easy one-time setup. What you can do is that you can send the SMS reminders a few hours before their visits and the SMS or email confirmation a few days before each appointment.

The automated confirmation holds the capacity to remove the burden of confirmation calls. What more- automated confirmations also eliminate no-shows and improves the overall customer retention rate. 

7. Excellent Customer Service

The critical feature of online booking software is not a single feature; it is more of the convenience. That implies it provides a satisfying customer care service. Look for a company that knows the salon industry and guide your Salon staff on how to leverage the software. 

You also want to be assured knowing that their customer service always serves you. Subsequently, get the Salon software that offers the best training and technical support that comes with this service for free.

As Salons have their own way of handling the business, hence, it is important to have the software that fits perfectly to every need. It must include every single element that your salon requires and streamlines your business operations. Above all, provides the best customer satisfaction.

Concluding Remarks

While completing this, we came to the conclusion that the salon management software is worth the time and effort. If you are investing in this, then, you have chosen the right path.  But be smart to secure the best salon management software.