The Essential 5 features your Salon Software should have!

Hi everyone, how are we all? Hope you are all keeping well during this time and are finding some useful things to do to stay productive!

We've recently teamed up with The Salon Magazine, to discuss what we think are the essential 5 features that salon software can bring you, that will really benefit your salon and also your clients too!

So whether you are a user of our software at the moment and perhaps don't utilise all these features, or maybe you're just enquiring 

to try some out? Whichever it is, here we bring 

to you our chosen Top 5!


-SMS Appointment Reminders

Make no shows a thing of the past! Especially once you are able to re-open the salon, if you have placed clients on a reserve waiting list or pre-booked them in for an appointment further in to the future, you don’t want this to slip their minds. So, built-in automatic appointment reminders are an essential tool for your business and also a nice way to provide confirmation of appointments to your clients. The automation 

also saves you from having to contact every 

client beforehand!


-Marketing Suite

A way to keep in touch with clients with offers and promotions! Many software marketing tools have built in filters, in order for salon owners to micro-market and target certain audiences. So, for example, you might want to send a text to your ‘best spending customers’ and reward them with a loyalty? Or if you sell packages upfront, which we know are prevalent in the tanning and beauty industries, you could filter those clients that have ‘services due to expire soon’ and send them a text to remind them!


-Online Booking

Give your clients control over their appointments and keep your booking facilities open 24/7, even if the salon doors are closed. Allow clients to book as far in advance as possible, from the comfort of their own home, or even whilst on the move, using your salon-branded app. Everyone has a smart-phone nowadays, so an online booking app is the perfect tool to get your salon in front of people and allow instant booking. Also, this saves you and your employees time and keeps phone lines open for further business.


-View Salon from Home

For salon owners, being present at your business location all the time can be difficult, especially if you’re the owner of multiple sites. By having an app viewable when on the move or a headquarters system, to be able to access from a main head office or home, saves you so much time! By having these features, this ensures that you always have control over your business, no matter where you are and also provides piece of mind that your salon is still running smoothly in your absence. 

-Reporting/KPI tracking 

Keeping track of sales and KPI’s is key to analysing how your salon is performing and also useful for future planning. Where you currently may track your sales manually, or work out staff commission using a calculator, built-in business reports can do all of this for you and can be run at the click of a button! From keeping track of stock, to monitoring staff sales; every figure you should need to view is all accessible under one system. Minimising use of paper, and also human error! 


Keep an eye out for this in June issue of Salon Magazine, where we'll also be discussing how you can use this time to prepare for when you are able to re-open!


Stay safe!

Salon Tracker x

Salon Tracker Webinar: Making A Reserve List For Future Client Appointments and Marketing For When You Can Re-open! Fri 24th April 11.00am

It’s nearly Friday guys! Hope everyone is still keeping well and staying safe at home, at least the recent sunshine is giving us all a bit of a much needed uplift! For those of you that joined our last webinar, we talked you through how to extend expiry dates of pre-bought courses and how to credit existing services. So, we thought for our next session, we’d look at all customers who may have already had an appointment booked with you during this time, that they have unfortunately been unable to attend. How can you ensure that they re-book in with you and also, how you can market 
to all of your clients to ensure they get booked in too.

As previously mentioned, all webinars are FREE! For those of you that are customers of ours, your payments are still frozen however we are still here for you! Our support and training sessions are available to you whenever you require them throughout the week and we’ll be bringing you these webinars and continuing blog posts throughout the lock-down period, to help you for when you can reopen. 

We understand that the current 3 week extension is difficult for you, especially when you’re used to being busy and usually starting your bookings for wedding season and Summer by now. However, one thing is for sure that once we can return to business as usual, you will be busier than ever before! Everyone (including our team) are really missing our lovely therapists and are in desperate need of our salon treatments, so fear not about the future because your custom is 100% still there! Tomorrow’s session is more about some little pointers to help you to ensure that you’ve secured that business as soon as possible for when you reopen, to make up for this lost time. And also, this just means 
you are keeping in contact with your clients too, 
which they’ll also really appreciate during this time. 

If you managed to catch our blog last week, we talked through a few little ideas that you can be thinking about during this time, from Welcome back offers to refreshing your salon decor – if you didn’t manage to have a read here’s the link below:

https://www.salontracker.co.uk/News.aspx?id=Getting-your-Salon-prepared-for-when-you-can-re-open

So, when can you catch this next webinar?

We will be going LIVE on zoom tomorrow (Fri 24th April) at 11.00am! It will similarly to the previous session, last around 30 minutes, consisting of a 15 min webinar and then some time for Q&A at the end!

All details are below:


Salon Tracker is inviting you to a scheduled Zoom meeting.

Join Zoom Meeting
https://us04web.zoom.us/j/74025515483?pwd=VmZZdEFTL2Q2TlIwT0hER2NOWFY0Zz09

Meeting ID: 740 2551 5483
Password: 007583 


Simply click that link tomorrow morning 5 or 10 mins before 11, and you should be prompted to download zoom and then you’ll be good to go! We have left the meeting ID and password there, should you need it, however by clicking the link this should be enough to enable you to join.

Hope to see you there!

Salon Tracker x

Getting your Salon prepared for when you can re-open

Afternoon guys, Happy Friday you’ve made it through another week of lock-down. Hope you and all your families & friends are keeping well during this time. As we all prepare for another 3 weeks of staying at home, we wanted to give you something to think about during this time while you have some spare hours. And so, we’ve put together a few little helpful tips on what you can be doing during the next few weeks, to get your salon prepared and organised ready for when we can return to some level of normality. 

Pull a list of clients who were due to have appointments with you throughout the lock-down.

Obviously once the lock-down was enforced, anyone that had an appointment booked with your salon over the last 4 weeks and the coming 3 weeks, is going to be unable to have that service with you. So now is a great time to pull a list of all of those customers and contact them, to let them know that you haven’t forgotten about them and you will be looking to rearrange their appointment for them as soon as you are able to re-open. You can make a list from the earliest date to most recent, to ensure clients are seen in their original booking order too once you reopen, and it is also a chance to stay in contact with your clients, to make sure that they attend their new appointment.


Marketing and Social Media Campaign to Push Waiting Reserve List

Aside from clients that were already booked in, you can also use this time to utilise your social media channels and if you’re a user of our software, use the marketing suite, in order to contact your whole database of clients to get them to reserve an appointment with you. Again, you could run this on a first come, first serve basis, so that any clients that get in touch you can add them to a reserve waiting list, so that you can offer them an appointment slot in that same order once you are able to reopen. This not only means you are remaining in communication with your entire client base, but it also improves your engagement on social media too by showing that you are thinking of your customers.

Welcome Back Offers

Following the lock-down, people will have come out of all sorts of different situations, due to the unprecedented situation of the last few and also near future upcoming weeks, financials could be uncertain and therefore this may be something to take in to account for when you re open. We appreciate that this has also been a struggle for all salons too not being able to take any custom during these times; however, if you have a little bit of leeway to be able to make a few small offer gestures, this may go a long way with clients who perhaps are also in a difficult situation too. These could be really small % off discounts, or even just free samples with treatments, if you are in a position to be able to offer these. It’s a good time to brainstorm and have a think about what you are potentially able to offer as an exclusive welcome back to your customers.


Treat to Loyal Customers

You will all have your clients that you see and speak to on a regular basis, so it is almost certain that these types of customers will be so ready to get back to your salon for their usual treatments. However, this is a time to remember their loyalty with you and your business, and also a great time to show your appreciation in how much they value your salon. If you are a user of our software, you can use our marketing filters to actually pull your top 10, 20, 50 or how every many you wish, of your best spending customers. You can then send them a direct SMS message straight from the system, which could be just a little text to thank them for their support over the years and then maybe a little loyalty gift/offer for when you can reopen? If you’re not a user of Salon Tracker, you will probably already have a very good idea of who your regular customers are, so you could do something similar by dropping them a message even over social media, with a similar idea of thanking them and offering them an exclusive little treat. You guys as salon owners will know what little loyalties have worked before, so this is a good time to have a think about this and get messaging those regulars!


Brainstorm re-organisation in Salon Ready for a Spring (early Summer) clean.

And to finish, have you had time to have a think about any décor changes in the salon recently? Now might be the time to brainstorm how you could reorganise certain parts of your business, and maybe plan that fresh new colour that you’ve been wanting for your salon. Obviously, you can’t be going and prepping buying paint and things just yet, and definitely can’t re-decorate right now. But, once you are able to re-open, we still have little information on what the logistics of this could be – it may be a phased return where only a number of clients are allowed through the door per day? Who knows, but if you can occupy your mind with your creative side in between appointments, this could be a great time to refresh your salon and have a good Spring clean! As they say, tidy desk, tidy mind! Happy atmosphere in the salon = happy customers! If you can create a clean, refreshed environment, this will then reflect to your customers and we definitely all need a bit of uplift at the minute. So, it’s time to get in touch with your creative side and get brainstorming some salon interior ideas. Get your team involved too over a skype or zoom call, to make sure you keep touching base with your employees too.

Hope this has helped to give you guys something to think about. We are going to be hosting another webinar next week on helping you to market to your clients and prepare for once you can re-open, so keep posted on information about that!

Until then, stay safe, stay at home and take care!

Salon Tracker x

Salon Tracker Webinar: Extending Course Expiry Dates and Crediting Client Services! Weds 9th April 11.00am

Welcome to Salon Tracker Webinars!

Morning guys, Happy Wednesday! (Just to remind you what day of the week it is! Seems like they’ve all merged in to one at the minute!) But we hope you are all keeping well and staying safe at home during these unprecedented times.

So, during this time we appreciate it’s been really difficult for all salon owners and your employees too with the forced closure of your businesses, everyone’s usual day to day routine changes and many of you find yourself with a lot of spare time on your hands. It’s been a very different day to day for us too, as we’re used to speaking to you all most days to help with management, training and marketing advice for your salons. With that said, that’s why our team have got our heads together to see how we can help you guys out during this time, to also prepare you for once we return to some normality!

And so, introducing ‘Salon Tracker Webinars’! As you are already aware if you are a customer of ours, we have frozen ALL your subscription payments for the foreseeable, as we wanted to ensure that we are looking after you in this time and appreciate the use of the software is limited. However, just because we have paused payments, it doesn’t mean we have paused our support to you, and so all webinars are FREE!

Not only did we want to look after you, we wanted you to be able to look after your clients too, which is how we identified what our first webinar was going to be about.

We understand that a lot of your clients will have purchased services prior to the lock down, with some of them potentially buying these literally days before you were forced to close. And if any of these courses or packages have expiry dates, the time that we are in the lock down will have eaten in to those clients already bought services.

And so, for our first session we’re going to show you how to extend expiry dates, re-activate expired services, credit services to a client’s course and even give you a head start on some ‘Welcome Back’ offers to be having a think about!

For those of you who are in the tanning industry (where most of your courses will have expiry dates) we will also be writing scripts to be able to do blanket course extensions too once you can reopen! But this webinar was aimed at showing you how you can manually extend courses using the software, and credit services when your clients do eventually come back in to the salon, to also make their welcome back appointment more personable too if you are extending/crediting their services in front of them.

So, when can you catch this webinar?

We will be going LIVE on zoom tomorrow (Thurs 9th April) at 11.00am! It will last around 30 minutes, consisting of a 15 min webinar and then some time for Q&A at the end!

All details are below:


Salon Tracker is inviting you to a scheduled Zoom meeting.

Join Zoom Meeting
https://us04web.zoom.us/j/205954026?pwd=d2M5VlNTbW1ON0lONWtWL0crUGxPUT09

Meeting ID: 205 954 026
Password: 020263


Simply click that link tomorrow morning 5 or 10 mins before 11, and you should be prompted to download zoom and then you’ll be good to go! I have left the meeting ID and password there, should you need it, however by clicking the link this should be enough to enable you to join.

Hope to see you there, in the meantime take care and stay safe!

Salon Tracker x

How to Keep Busy With Your Salon Whilst at Home

Before we get into the blog, just for any our customers that aren’t already aware, we have frozen all payments for your software subscription. We are wishing you all the best during this time and look forward to speaking with you in the near future.

As I’m sure is the case for many of you right now, times are very tough and there’s a lot of unknown and panic surrounding what’s going to happen in the coming weeks. Sadly, no one really knows the full extent of what will happen, so today I’m going to try a highlight a few positive areas and ways in which you can stay on top of your salon jobs and marketing during this time.

Keep in touch with your customers
Now more than ever will your customers be using their phones and browsing the internet, presenting you with the perfect opportunity to ensure that you remain stuck in their minds until you reopen. Now obviously, when everything is back to normal you will expect to have a huge rush from your regular customers, having gone weeks or months without a treatment, and this is going to be great for your business to reintroduce itself. However, you also need to be trying to target new customers during this time, in order to keep a strong and steady cash flow when you do reopen. If you don’t maintain regular contact with your customers, and this can just be done via social media on Facebook and Instagram, it could result in a number of your customers going and trying a different salon, which could result in you losing out on hundreds and thousands of revenue. All it requires is just to post maybe 2/3 times a week just checking in on your clients and it will allow you to stay present in their minds.

Use social media marketing 
Now that you do have more time, it means you can spend time on organising a schedule for your marketing posts, this can range from images that have been taken of clients’ treatments in the salon, a relatable quotes, videos…anything. I’ve actually seen a few salons I follow myself on Instagram doing quizzes to keep their clients engaged! I’ve seen some salons offer prizes and some just doing it for fun, obviously whenever there’s some sort of reward up for grabs its going to catch the attention of someone more. So it might be a good idea to start off with one including a few prizes and then you can keep switching between the two, this doesn’t need to be done too often but I’d say at least once a week and try do them on the same day and time every week so people begin to catch on and remember to join in more often. By including prizes for a treatment at your salon, it will help to bring in new customers which will hopefully continue returning once they’ve had a treatment!

Send out a survey to your customers
Another great way to keep your customers engaged with your salon, whilst being able to find out from them what improvements they would like to see, is by sending out a short survey somewhere between 5-10 questions. This is a great way not only to find out things like which treatment customers like the most, but also allows you to see if there’s any treatments that clients would like you to introduce in the future. The best way to go about it I would say is to use SurveyMonkey.com to initially create your survey, and then you can just post the link on your social media pages asking if customers wouldn’t mind spending a few minutes of their time to fill it out for you. I mean, time is all that a lot of people have at the minute, so you should be able to get quite a few responses from this. Although it’s important to get it sent out to the customers, it’s then what you actually do with the information and data you’ve received. So, you might want to spend some time analysing the information and then putting a plan into place about how you go about meeting any requests or changes customers have asked for. Once you have a plan in place, you may then want to use social media again to tell your clients about the plans you have made. For example, if the survey results showed that a lot of customers wanted you to introduce a new treatment, you can post to tell them that it’s something you’ll be introducing when you’re back open. This will help to again build engagement and also get clients excited for when you do reopen, meaning that they are more likely to book. It could also encourage others to that haven’t visited your salon before to make an appointment, as they may be interested in trying out your new treatment.

Keep your employees in the loop
It’s also super important to keep your employees in the loop and to stay in contact with them. If you haven’t already it would be great to make a group chat so you can all stay in contact and check up on each other, and it also makes it easier to update everyone on any news regarding the salon as everyone is in one place. It’s also great if you can encourage staff, and even regular customers or family and friends to share are key marketing posts or updates regarding your salon to give a better chance of reaching your client base.

Use this time to train on Salon Tracker 

There might some features you’re not sure how to use on the software, or even some that you didn’t know existed, so this is a great time to brush up on software and make sure that you’re using it to the full potential. We are still open and working, so if you do have any questions or want training on aspects of the software the team are more than happy to help you with that. We are actually planning some webinars to hold over the coming weeks, so even if you don’t have access to the software currently, you can still connect and join in! We will be posting information and sending out emails with exact information regarding these in the coming days, so make sure you keep an eye out for this.



As I mentioned we are still open for business, all working from home but we’re still able to help you out if you do have any questions. If you are interested in trialling our salon management software during this time, you do get a free 2-week trial and free training which can all be done online and over the phone. If you would like to get booked in for this then you can email us at on info@salontracker.co.uk or alternatively you can call on 0113 350 8230 and we will be happy to arrange that with you.

We are wishing all salon owners the best during this time.

Salon Tracker x