Owning and operating your own spa business is an exciting prospect. If you’re considering opening a new spa, or looking to grow your spa business, you’ll want to make sure you do everything possible to make appointment booking easy and convenient for your customers. The booking experience plays an important role in not only attracting new customers but turning them into loyal, long-term clients. Online booking and automated appointment reminders are key features of spa booking software that will help you improve your salon operations, increase profit, and satisfy your customers.
Why Use Spa Booking Software?
Spa software will help you organize and manage your beauty and wellness business. After putting it to the test, spa business owners found that using a software solution that was designed to support their specific industry was critical to their success. They found that scheduling employees and creating spa appointments in the scheduling software was intuitive and easy to optimize for increasing revenue; that the all-in-one software dramatically simplified their payroll, payment, and credit card processing; and that the marketing tools and POS systems were sophisticated yet easy to use.
Even with all of these impressive spa management features, one of the standouts for both spa owners and their clients was the online booking with automated reminders. An online booking system might be considered by some to be a convenience rather than a need, but in today’s digital world it’s simply expected. Busy customers want the ability to book appointments on their own time and not just when the salon is open to take phone calls; being able to book and manage their own appointments can be the difference between choosing one spa over another.
Automated Appointment Reminders With Spa Software
Automating tasks and streamlining the workflow at your spa’s front desk will have incredible benefits for your business. If you don’t have appointment booking software, scheduling and managing appointments for your clients can become one of the most cumbersome and time-consuming tasks of your day. Taking phone calls to book, cancel, reschedule, or add on extra services can keep you and your welcome staff from important customer relationship building and creating a welcoming environment.
When your spa scheduling software puts these tasks into the hands of your clients, everybody benefits. You and your staff have more time to tend to clients at the spa while your customers manage their own scheduling. Automated appointment reminders are the critical next-step tool to help your clients keep track of the appointments that they have made.
When your client has booked an online appointment with your spa, the automated reminder feature in the spa software will be triggered to send the client a message via email or SMS. You can determine when the reminders are sent and what information they will contain. Let’s take a closer look at how automated reminders work and the ways that they benefit you, your spa, and your customers.
Choosing Email And SMS Reminders
The best spa software will allow your customers to choose their preference of email or SMS (text) reminders for their appointments during their initial account setup. It’s a good idea to let your clients choose their preferred method, as unwanted communications can become an interruptive experience and lead to a negative association with your business. Giving your customers the power to choose their reminder method will make for a better, more welcome experience.
Some people prefer email reminders as they feel it is less intrusive. They like to tend to their reminders and other communications only when they set out to tackle that task, preferring to keep their text communications limited so as not to interrupt their day. A confirmation can be sent with the click of a button within the email message.
Others may prefer SMS reminders because their email inboxes might be too unwieldy, and they easily lose track of important communications amongst streams of newsletters, spam, and sales emails. The more direct reminder that comes to their phone messaging makes sure that the reminder isn’t as easily lost or ignored. Confirming their reminders can be done with a quick text reply.
Personalizing Your Reminders For Client Engagement
Switching to automated reminders doesn’t mean you have to lose the personal touch that helps keep your clients engaged and feeling connected with your business. It’s easy to personalize your reminders to include the client’s name (or other relevant information) along with a customized message about their upcoming visit. This doesn’t mean that you have to create a new message for every reminder!
Your spa software will allow you to create the reminder messages and will automatically include the personal information that you tell it to by pulling it from their client account. When you create the messages at set-up, use a friendly tone in the text to convey the information, rather than simply sending a date, time, and list of booked services. Keep it brief, so that you don’t lose their attention, but to the point.
For example, a simple but friendly reminder might look like:
- Hi Jane! Your appointment with Sara for XYZ services is coming up on June 5 at 10:00am. We’re looking forward to seeing you!
- Hi Jane! We’re excited to see you on June 5 at 10:00am for your XYZ services!
- Hello Jane, Don’t forget that you are scheduled for your XYZ services on June 5, at 10:00am, with Sara. See you then!
These are just a few of the ways that you can craft a simple, but friendly, reminder that will help you grow your relationships with your clients. These little touches will go a long way to demonstrate that your spa is attentive, professional, and well-organized. When you combine these business characteristics along with great spa services, you can achieve the kind of customer loyalty that builds long-standing relationships. And your customers will be likely to rave about your spa to friends, family, and neighbors, helping you build a great reputation and bring in more customers.
How Automated Appointment Reminders Increase Profit
Our findings show that when you use a spa appointment booking software that has automated confirmations and reminders, cancellations and no-shows are drastically reduced. By decreasing cancellations and no-shows, you immediately protect incoming revenue for yourself and your service providers, thereby increasing sales and profits.
When a customer books an appointment and receives the initial confirmation message via email or SMS, they can add the appointment to their personal calendar using the convenient sync feature. The top spa management software programs, like STX, can sync appointments with your customers’ personal devices, Outlook, and Google calendars. This makes it easy to keep track of appointments even within a very busy schedule – bringing your no-show numbers down to virtually nonexistent.
When those reminders come through closer to appointment day, if the customer realizes that they have a conflict, they can easily visit the booking page to reschedule their appointment.
When you make appointment scheduling this easy and efficient, your customers are more likely to rebook than cancel altogether. They can quickly look for the next free appointment time and make the change from their mobile device; they don’t have to wait until they can call the salon and have somebody walk them through available times.
Online Appointment Scheduling Will Improve Your Spa’s Operations
By giving your clients control of their own scheduling, you’re recovering a significant amount of time for you and your staff to devote to other aspects of running the spa. This is another one of the top benefits of using appointment scheduling software.
When your front desk staff no longer has to spend most of their day on the phone managing appointments and sending those reminders, they are able to be more attentive to customers as they enter the spa. The check-in process is quicker and smoother, since your in-store customers won’t be juggled in between phone calls that need to be placed on hold. The front desk can be more peaceful and welcoming, rather than a hectic space, which is exactly the vibe that you want your customers to experience and associate with your spa!
Using scheduling software for spa bookings will also help you stay more organized. With a cloud-based spa software, all of your appointment scheduling and booking information is easily accessible and searchable, so you don’t have to spend time digging through spreadsheets, or even those dreaded notebooks or day calendars, to find vital information when you need it. And those unfortunate (and embarrassing) double bookings will be a thing of the past, as your scheduling software will make sure that you don’t overbook a provider’s time.
STX Spa Management And Scheduling Software
If you’re ready to invest in an award-winning spa management software, STX has all of the features you need to run a well-organized spa and help you grow your business to new heights. In addition to our intuitive online scheduling, you can send your new clients digital forms for convenient account setup, leverage email marketing tools and advanced business reporting, have a powerful payment processor, and much more.
FAQs about Spa Booking Software
1. What are the benefits of using spa booking software?
Spa booking software offers numerous benefits. It helps to organize and manage your beauty and wellness business, simplifies payroll, payment, and credit card processing, and provides sophisticated marketing tools and POS systems. It also allows for online booking with automated reminders, which is a standout feature for both spa owners and clients.
2. How does an online booking system with automated reminders work?
When a client books an online appointment with your spa, the automated reminder feature in the spa software is triggered to send the client a message via email or SMS. You can determine when the reminders are sent and what information they will contain.
3. What are the advantages of allowing customers to choose their preferred method of reminder?
Allowing customers to choose their preferred method of reminder, either email or SMS, creates a better, more personalized experience. It respects their communication preferences and helps ensure that the reminders are not seen as intrusive or unwanted.
4. How can automated appointment reminders increase profit?
Automated appointment reminders can significantly reduce cancellations and no-shows. When customers receive reminders and have the ability to easily reschedule if necessary, it protects incoming revenue for the spa and its service providers, thereby increasing sales and profits.
5. How does online appointment scheduling improve spa operations?
Online appointment scheduling frees up time for spa staff to devote to other aspects of running the spa. It makes the check-in process quicker and smoother, creates a more peaceful and welcoming front desk environment, and helps avoid issues like double bookings. It also keeps all appointment scheduling and booking information easily accessible and searchable.
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!