How to Get back Time with Salon Software for Small Business in 2023

If you haven’t considered using salon software for small business management yet, you definitely should. It takes the guesswork out of optimizing your business and makes handling staff, inventory and client information easier.

15 Essential Salon Software Features to Help Your Small Business Grow

• 1. Staff Scheduling

  Flexible Scheduling:

  • Salon owners can save time by creating flexible rotas for staff who work non-standard hours.
  • Optimize Calendar Time-Slots letting staff members perform concurrent appointments.
  • Appointments can be integrated with other calendars for your stylist and clients.
  • Share the calendar with your staff and grant individual permissions per staff member, with full flexibility in granting individual admin rights to your employees, allowing them staff access to modify or delete calendar data.

  Changing Salon Opening and Staff Working Hours:

• Add holidays and breaks, blocking off time to make online bookings simple.
• Schedule Resources (treatment rooms, equipment, etc.). Salon spa software can auto reserve them when adding an appointment or online booking.
• Add “buffer time”: processing time for your color or blocked time for cleaning and station preparations, so the actual duration of booking is always accounted for in your calendar. Remember, you’ll have the ability to double book during processing times to optimize your business performance and reduce downtime.

• 2. Online Booking

  Fast and Easy to Use Online Booking Page (for salon management and clients) :

  • The booking widget is customizable and seamlessly integrated with every channel: your website, social media: Facebook page, Instagram; GMB- it features a book now button/booking link.
  • Quick rebook functions.
  • Schedule recurring bookings for existing clients.
  • Ability to choose which services can be booked online, offline or both.
  • Auto-reserve your resources for a smooth client experience.
  • Take group bookings (events, weddings) in-person or online.

• 3. Automated Waiting List

  Invite Clients to Book Appointments Automatically:

  • Makes customer management easier.
  • Notify clients as soon as cancellations or no shows occur.
  • No more front desk phone calls to fill these appointments.

• 4. Salon Mobile App

  Versatile App for Growing Salons:

  • Install on your device as a mobile app (Android and iOS), tablet app and desktop app (Windows and MAC).
  • A mobile salon app to manage appointments for salons and clients on the go.
  • Hairstylists have access to their calendars from their app.
  • No installations, no maintenance, etc. in an all in one cloud-based salon solution with data synced across all devices automatically.
  • Manage data access permissions for staff.

• 5. Salon Point of Sale (POS)

  • Multiple payment options.
  • Integrated payment processing.
  • Online Payments - take customers’ payment during the online booking (deposits, prepayments, late cancellation or no-show fees).
  • Suggestive selling at checkout (make online store sales based on services, previous purchases or sell products via calculated days of usage).
  • Chair-upgrades via the mobile app (eg. when getting your haircut, get a deep conditioning service approved in the app).
  • In-app payments for self-checkout.one bundle/

• 6. Automated Appointment Confirmation and Reminders

  Multichannel Notifications:

  • Via email, SMS, salon mobile app push notifications, automated confirmations and follow ups, and notifications about an appointment being booked, canceled or rescheduled.

To learn more please check out our post on What Is the Best Salon Software.

• 7. Business Reporting Suite

  Advanced Reporting Features:

  • This salon software feature shows your busiest and slowest times of the day/ week/ year, best-performing stylists, most popular services, top products sold, slow movers and profit margins.
  • Create end of the day reports.
  • Show staff payments for easy salon management and payroll.

  Statistics Dashboard:

  • Visualize data for insights into your bookings & sign-ups, cancellations, revenue, resources, and customers.

  Staff Management:

  • Monitor the booking availability and working capacity of your resources. Optimize their shifts or scale your teams up and down as needed.

• 8. Inventory Management

  Purchase Order Automations:

  • Set minimum stock levels, generate pre PO’s, track approval and send email to the supplier.
  • Simple acceptance of salon inventory stock received.

  Automated Stock Takes:

  • Track and manage inventory automatically.
  • Back Bar Management

• 9. Marketing Salon Software

  Create Client Groups:

  • Use customer information to set up your marketing plan on auto-pilot.

  Automated Email Marketing:

  • Send out salon newsletters and mass emailing campaigns.
  • Automated SMS marketing.
  • Create a loyalty points rewarding and discounting system.
  • Send booking reminders.

• 10. Integrated Salon eCommerce

  Sell Retail Products Online:

  • Ship from your online store without carrying inventory.

• 11. Easy and Simple Set Up

  Easy Upload of Data:

  • Move your client list (names, phones, email addresses) from your old salon software.
  • Clear and simple onboarding process, pre-added services.
  • Demo video or tutorial for easy setup.

• 12. Salon Client Management System

  Manage Client Records:

  • Track clients’ data (names, birthdays, etc).
  • Add client notes.
  • Appointment and purchase history.
  • Collect a style library (including photos, Color formulas).
  • Save digital client forms (pre-treatment forms)

• 13. Outstanding Customer Support

  Onboarding Support:

  • Via chat, emails and video tutorials.
  • Free support.

  Communication:

  • Software advice and help available 7 days a week.
  • Quick response time (within 4 hours).

• 14. Salon Website Builder

  Versatile:

  • Wide range of features, usable on a mobile device or computer.
  • Fast page speeds.
  • Fully integrated with your salon management software.

  User-Friendly:

  • Predesigned templates.
  • Straightforward setup process.

• 15. Online Reputation Management

  Makes Your Salon’s Great Reputation a Top Priority:

  • Send out surveys.
  • Check your NPS.
  • Automatically send feedback requests after appointments.
  • Use these insights to improve or even personalize your services and boost client loyalty.

To learn more please check out our post on Salon Management Software.

Conclusion

Salon owners and managers are always looking for ways to make their business more competitive.

This might mean finding new ways to reach out to your current client base, improving your product sales, tracking customer data more efficiently, and optimizing your online scheduling and booking process.

If you’re looking to make your mark in the salon industry, then adding salon software for small business solutions will help you save both time and money. This software will free up more time to let you focus on giving each client a great experience.

Citations

Studying the Evolution and Enhancement of Software Features.
https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/abstract/document/883033/

Software as a service: Implications for investment in software development
https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/abstract/document/4076800/

Power-efficient software
https://dl.acm.org/doi/fullHtml/10.1145/1646353.1646370