The beauty and wellness industry has distinctive needs that can only be met with industry-specific tools, for both service providers and salon owners. Without the right tools, the job simply can’t be done well enough to satisfy your clientele. Just as you wouldn’t expect your stylists to do their job without the tools of their trade, you need the right set of tools to manage your growing salon business.
Using non-integrated software alongside other digital resources can interfere with your ability to run your business as efficiently and effectively as possible. They can even prevent you from making well-informed decisions about the future of your salon or spa. Using an all-in-one salon management software is the solution you need to overcome these challenges, improve all aspects of salon or spa management, and help your business thrive.
What Is All-In-One Salon Software?
One of the biggest frustrations that salon business owners run into is that the digital tools they’re using don’t integrate or “talk” to each other. This creates extra work, to manually enter data multiple times, and often leads to human error. Having incorrect data or subpar tools can cause embarrassing mistakes that make you look unprofessional to your clients, lead to payroll errors that frustrate your employees, and make it impossible to accurately assess the health of your business.
An all-in-one salon and spa management software is a suite of digital tools that work together seamlessly to support all aspects of running your beauty and wellness business. It will streamline time-consuming operations tasks, improve efficiency and data security, reduce errors, and come with the online booking features that your clients love. Let’s take a closer look at some of the top features of all-in-one salon software and how they can help you take your salon employee, client, and business management to the next level.
Enhanced POS For Your Small Business
The best salon software has a comprehensive point of sale (POS) system with integrated payment processing for credit cards and other forms of payment. These sophisticated POS systems can support everything from sales of salon services, retail, and gift cards to storing and managing customer payment information, supporting inventory management, and providing data for your business reporting. Salon owners tell us that some of their favorite features of a salon software POS system are:
- Digital records of every transaction that can be accessed and reviewed at any time
- Up-to-the-minute accuracy of revenue and inventory
- Reliable revenue stream data to help make informed business decisions
- Support for online salon sales of retail products, gift cards, memberships, and packages
The financial management of your business will see significant improvement when you have access to an integrated software platform. Accurate, reliable revenue data (from each stream of income through your business) will be accessible in one place, making it easy to assess where your salon is succeeding and where you might need to implement change.
Improved Inventory Management
Real-time inventory management can benefit your salon business in several ways. Your inventory management will be much more efficient with software automation, which will also help reduce human error. By monitoring and optimizing the flow of products and supplies through your business, you can rest easy that you’ll never run out of the items you need to have on hand at all times. You can reduce your costs by avoiding overstocking or paying higher costs for rush-shipped supplies, and purchase orders and billing are simplified.
Integrated Payment Processing
Your all-in-one salon software with POS integrations has benefits for both you and your customers. Request that your customers add a credit card to their account. When customers have a card on file, check-out and sales are quick, contactless, and can be done from your welcome desk – or even from a mobile app if you have a cloud-based salon and spa software such as STX. You can use their card to take appointment deposits or to cover no-shows (helping you to discourage this practice while protecting your income). Customers can also purchase memberships, packages, and more from your online store with the card on their account. And salon software isn’t limited to credit card processing. Cash, checks, and digital wallets are also processed when you use one of the top salon management platforms.
The Best Salon Management Software Provides Data Security And Safety
Storing your customers’ personal information helps automate many salon operations, providing convenience for the client and efficiency for you. Keeping your customers’ sensitive information protected is imperative. You want your customers to feel confident that you will protect their personal and payment information and take steps to prevent theft or misuse. An all-in-one salon management software enables you to do this in several ways.
- User Permissions – User permissions allow you to control which employees can access certain types of client information. This ensures that only authorized users can view sensitive information and limits what other users can see.
- Data Encryption – Data encryption protects your customers’ information from an outside breach. You want to ensure that the software you choose employs high-level encryption of data storage to prevent this.
- Password Controls – Software that requires strong passwords will help you prevent unauthorized access to client information.
- Secure Data Storage – Your customers will feel safe giving you their information when you use software that has secure data storage. Instead of keeping client information in notebooks, on spreadsheets, or other easily accessible formats, safe online storage will keep their information protected – while also allowing for the convenience of online scheduling, contactless payments, and efficient appointment check-in at your welcome desk.
Make sure to keep your software up-to-date to ensure that all of the security features are functioning at their highest level, and install any updates or patches to these features as soon as you are aware of them. It’s also important to train your staff on data privacy and security so that they can help prevent unauthorized access or use of customer information.
Automate Your Appointment Booking With Salon Scheduling Software
Easy, convenient appointment scheduling is one of the biggest benefits of an all-in-one booking software. Salon customers prefer online appointment booking that they can do at their convenience using the booking widget on your website or mobile scheduling app. Salon professionals appreciate how this feature helps them easily track their appointments, manage client information, and even optimize their schedule based on client booking patterns to increase their revenue. And small business owners will love how a salon booking system will streamline day-to-day operations for better productivity.
Making a salon appointment used to be a task that had to be completed by phone call during business hours. Your front desk staff would spend most of their day on the phone making, canceling, leaving a reminder for, or rescheduling appointments. Customers were likely to spend some amount of time on hold, the person who took the call might have to consult with the stylist about available dates, and the entire process could sometimes take more than one phone call before the final appointment time could be confirmed.
The all-in-one salon management solution has truly revolutionized this aspect of the industry. Making appointments online is not just convenient in 2023: it’s expected. The best salon scheduling software will allow your customers to manage their appointments, send them automatic appointment reminders, and use the payment information that they keep on file to perform quick, contactless check-out after their salon visit.
Make Staff Management Easy With Software For Salons
Managing your staff effectively will have a direct and positive impact on your hair salons. Not only does it boost staff morale and increase productivity, it also improves the customer experience at your business when your staff is genuinely motivated and happy. Salon appointment software helps you manage your staff with a range of helpful, built-in tools for communication; scheduling, time tracking and payroll; and performance tracking and goal setting.
Communication
The communication tools enable you to send messages to your entire staff or to individual employees using a mobile app. This is a great way to send last minute alerts or updates, or to simply make sure everybody gets the same information without having to rely on word of mouth or a posted note in the break room (that can easily be overlooked). Plus, you’ll have an infallible record of which information has been communicated and to who.
Employee Time And Pay
Scheduling, time tracking, and payroll features that are all integrated with your appointment scheduling software will take the stress out of payday – even with the complex tiers of pay and commissions that often accompany the beauty business. When you use a salon management system, these factors are all accounted for as the software is designed to accommodate these pay structures.
Performance Goal Setting
Performance tracking and goal setting helps you support your stylists. With these tools, you and your stylists can set sales goals and track them over time. This will generate helpful feedback for new salon employees, and if a stylist is thinking about adjusting their service offerings the data from these efforts can provide you both with valuable decision-making information.
Choose The Best Salon Management Software For Owners, Stylists, and Customers
Operating your salon business with the support of an all-in-one management system that is specifically-designed for your industry has never been easier or more enjoyable. With the help of software automation and integration, you’ll get back hours in your week to devote to your staff and your clients – without the worry of getting behind on critical tasks. Further, the seamless customer experience with an all-in-one software will increase client satisfaction, boosting loyalty and your salon’s reputation.
Manage your salon with an award-winning salon, spa and fitness software that understands the needs of today’s modern salon owners. 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!