Reviewing Business for the past 6 months, Mabo Client Conference and how we utilise training days to impact the workplace!

We’re almost at the end of the first half of the year. How has the last 6 months been so far for you? We know that it’s a bit different to last Summer, where we had scorching temperatures from early on, this year’s not been so good weather-wise but hey ho hopefully it’ll pick up! Has this affected your business differently though and meant that you’ve seen a bit more footfall than you’re usually used to over Summer?


Anyway, as we’re nearly at the end of June, we always think that this is a good time to reflect on past business and work on how you can continue to improve aspects of the workplace over the second half of the year

So, what are good things to track and keep an eye on?


Well, the first thing obviously is your KPI’s and customer sales. How have you performed from Jan to now against your targets? If you haven’t quite met those or are not where you forecasted to be right now, what improvements can you make to ensure that you are prepared and set for improvement for Q3 & Q4?


Sales are one of the main contributions to your business turnover and obviously improving your company profits. And evidently, you rely on your sales for being able to put more money in to your business, in order to continue your growth. If you are a user of Salon Tracker currently, you’ll know that we have an extensive reports section that tracks everything from your sales revenue to stock management, your busiest times of the day to your best-selling product categories. You can actually run our reports for the last half of the year collectively. So, this is a great reflection of how business has performed since Jan and also helps you to forecast for the rest of the year.


Something we like to do after the first half of the year as a business is determine where we are against our targets, and also reflect on the client feedback that we have had. As often, this feedback generally can then contribute to your targets for the rest of the year. And these don’t just have to be sales focused, this can be regarding your salon décor, new products or features you may wish to introduce. Or, it could even be employee related, regarding recruitment or improving staff morale. Whatever this may be, now is the time to reflect on business to ensure that by the end of December you are closer to where you anticipated to be by the end of 2019.


As a business, we send client feedback questionnaires and feedback forms after 6 months, in order to establish how they have found our service and what improvements they are looking for from us as a company. By reviewing these forms, this has helped us to ensure that we are working on the development of required features and following up on all client feedback. So, maybe as a salon this is a good time to sit down and run through any reviews that you had on Facebook, or maybe you use Google reviews? Whichever review service you use, this is a good evaluation to determine what your clients have had to say about your business and how you can use this feedback smartly to impact your salon positively going forward.


Something else we like to establish during our mid-year review is, how are all of our staff getting on and is team morale where it should be? Especially if you have recruited recently, it’s a good time to ensure that staff feel that they have progressed with your company and to make sure that they feel they have had adequate training. So, maybe plan a staff night out or a little team meeting one afternoon, to make sure that you have a happy workplace! We had a little meeting recently with our sales team and discussed where we think we could improve on certain areas of our job roles. We have then planned a few team-workshop days in, to make sure we are building on our skills and also to ensure that we’re having a bit of fun whilst doing this. So, if you feel that there are areas of your salon business where staff could learn a few extra skills, maybe have a little training afternoon or book out an evening one night in the next few weeks to have a bit of a fun activity-based workshop. Get a few refreshments and nibbles in and keep it light hearted, to ensure that the team actually enjoy the workshop too.

We were also recently invited to a Mabo media client conference day, which was a fantastic insight in to how another business has evolved over the past few years, and how they ensure that they keep their team motivated.

There were a few good pointers taken from this conference that we feel are relevant to a half year review, so here’s a little break down below of what we learnt and some new useful ways of thinking for your forward plan in to the next half of the year.


Team Building – Training:

Mabo explained how they implement a 9-month full training programme for each of their team members and how this really helps to ensure client retention is guaranteed. As obviously, the more trained a member of your team is, the better service they are likely to give your client – which then has a positive knock on effect on the reviews that will be generated from their great service. So, if you feel that a member of your salon team could benefit from a bit of training, or you don’t currently have a set training programme in place for new team members, this is a little something to think about.



KPI’s

Following on from team building, the more experienced your team is and the more they enjoy their role within your company, the better the sales performance is. It’s so true that a happy team = happy customers, which evidently means that your company profits will continue to improve if you have a content team, that are experienced in delivering a good service. So basically, your team is the fundamental factor to ensuring client retention and business success.




Recruitment – The right team member

A really interesting statement was made about recruitment. Obviously, lots of us when advertising job vacancies state required skills and preferable experience – which there is definitely a level of experience or interest required from a candidate who is applying. However, Mabo advised to not necessarily hire based on experience alone. So, for example, say you have 1 candidate with 5 years’ experience, and someone else with 1, don’t necessarily disregard the person with less experience, as sometimes it’s about the right person rather than who has the most knowledge. They explained that each company is different, and therefore as long as the candidate has the minimum skills required, it may be that they are a better fit for the role, as their passion for the job and will to learn your companies way of working may be higher than say someone with more experience. This was speaking theoretically, however was quite interesting so wanted to share with you all!



Company Feedback

Obviously, we all know that reviews are the new research methods when someone is deciding whether to purchase from you or not. Your company Facebook page is the new Google! So, it’s a good time to ensure that you have as many recent and positive reviews as you can on there. If you look over this and feel like your reviews are lacking a little, maybe this is a good time to run a client-feedback campaign, or invest in a reviews company service – where the companies can help you to gather real reviews for your business. However, if you’re on a bit of a budget at the minute, even just something as simple as running a salon competition and anyone who leaves you a review automatically gets entered, could be an idea? Great social engagement for your salon then too!



Social Content and how this can help your Social Media Strategy

Social media has evolved over the past 10 years massively, in which Mabo introduced a speaker from Google who provided some great facts! At current, millennials are 24% of the population. In 6 years’ time, millennials will be 68% of the population, which means the latest technologies and social media will be part of day-to-day life for the majority. Therefore, now is the time to ensure that you have active social platforms, that you update regularly. Some other great stats that we were given were, 2 Billion people have an active Facebook account and are actively using the app on average for 35 mins per day. Instagram has 500 million active accounts, with 64% of those users being aged between 18-34, meaning this is a huge target audience for salon owners. Therefore, if you aren’t actively posting on your social media, taking these facts in to account, it is definitely time to review your social strategy from the last 6 months and look at what you can do to improve your content for the future. One good tool that we would offer is, have a weekly blog or maybe weekly style advice? This not only gives you a purpose to actively share something on your social networks, it also gives your customers an insight in to what your business is doing week-to-week and also what your latest trends are.

So, we know that’s a lot of information to take in! However, we hope that there’s something that we’ve talked about today that really helps you to evaluate and forward plan for this business year. We look forward to hearing how you get on!

Salon Tracker x

Feature of the Month - Siteview on Holiday

As we enter the prime holiday season, I’m guessing that many of you will have a holiday up and coming?! Although when you’re on holiday you want to be away from all of the busy work stress, there must be part of you still that wants to know what’s going on in your absence. So, for this feature of the month we’ve chosen Siteview! For anyone who isn’t sure on what Siteview is, it’s a great feature for salon owners as it gives access to the systems reports, the calendar and the overall dashboard.

One of the main benefits of Siteview is that it can be accessed anytime, anywhere, as long as your device has an internet connection you will be able to login to your account. This is great for those of you that are going on holiday this summer, as many phone carriers now allow you to use your data abroad, meaning that you should be able to check on your salon whenever you want to and make sure that everything is in order. You’ll be able to look over your takings for the day/week, your staff takings and see how many new customers have signed up. With Siteview you can also look at your calendar, so you’ll be able to see which customers have been in etc. By just looking at the dashboard on Siteview, this will give you a pretty good overall for the day you have selected. So, if you just wanted to look at the dashboard it would only take you a matter of seconds to check this, and then you can go back to relaxing! It’s also great for your staff, as they can check their schedules for when they’re returning back to work from their holidays. You can set permissions for them so they are only able to access certain areas, for example, you can make it so that they can’t see any reports or the dashboard. 

Even if you’re not going on holiday Siteview is still a great feature for not only you as salon owners but also for your staff. Especially, during these busy summer months, it means that instead of having to stay late at the shop and sorting through all your end of day admin, you can just easily do this at home instead. And again, for your staff, it’s and easy way for them to check what time they’re working and what appointments they’ve got booked in, so they make sure that they’re prepared for them. Siteview is password protected, so you don’t need to worry about your staff or anyone being able to log into your admin account. It uses the usernames and passwords that are set up on Salon Tracker and these can only be changed from within the software, making it very secure. 

Our Siteview feature is available on our Enterprise package, we can show this to your over a demo if you would like. Feel free to contact us either via our email info@salontracker.co.uk or calling us on 0113 350 8230.

Salon Tracker x

Q&A time!

Have you got unanswered questions about Salon Tracker you'd like to know the answer to? Lucky for you, we created a Q&A session on our Instagram last week and I've pulled together what we think were the best questions asked!

Question 1: Does your software send appointment reminders?

YES. Is the answer to that one, our software sends automatic appointment reminders which can be altered to send 1 day before, 2 days or 1 week prior! You can also customise the text to say what you want it to say and the sender comes up as your Salon Name rather than a number so no clients can reply which will save you heaps of time. 

Salons have proven to have no shows reduce by a massive 80% minimum with use of our appointment reminders. If you calculate around 2 no shows a week both with a £60 service that's £6240 a year you're missing out on! 

Question 2: Can you link multiple Salons?

YES. Our software gives you the ability to link all your customers across multiple sites. On top of that, our HQ licence allows you to access all sites from your home laptop/ computer with access to editing bookings and adding them. 

Plus - we offer multi site discount too! Get in touch to find out more.

Question 3: Can I use Salon Tracker on an Apple Mac?

YES. Although Salon Tracked is primarily a windows based software... you are able to use it on a Mac providing you have parallels http://bit.do/Parallells-for-mac or boot camp https://support.apple.com/boot-camp with windows downloaded. This way the software will be compatible with a mac and plenty of our clients are using the software on macs! 

Question 4: Do you integrate with TMAX?

YES. We are one of few software providers that provide a full integration with TMAX so you can run your beds directly from the software which makes everything run so much smoother!

Question 5: What makes you different from your competitors?

• One of few software providers that provide full integration with TMAX
• We offer free support, training and set-up, just the monthly subscription - no hidden, extra charges.
• We listen to what each individual client has to say and adapt the software to their needs.
• Direct one to one communication with your own account manager.
• Hybrid software - both local based and online so software is still accessible without Wi-Fi.
• Bio-metric technology - Finger print reader for staff users and for clients.
• Unlimited training with no cap

Question 6: Can you do marketing through the software to customers?

YES! On the professional package and above, the software has its very own marketing suite where you can use a range of filters to filter our the group of customers you'd like to send an SMS too - which works perfect for getting customers that haven't visited the Salon in a while back in.

You can then use your own pre-made text templates or create your own. Once you're happy with the text, you can preview it to your own mobile phone to see what it will look like!    

Question 7: Are there any new features coming to Salon Tracker?

We have lots of new and exciting features in store over the next 6 months and we know you'll love them! Keep in tune to find out more.

Question 8: What are your prices and do you charge extra for support and training?

No we don't charge extra for support and training, it is all included in your subscription!

Our prices are: 

If you have any other questions you can think of, don't hesitiate to give us a call on 0113 350 8230 or email info@salontracker.co.uk and a member of our friendly sales team will be more than happy to answer them! 

Salon Tracker x

    

      

Father's Day Marketing!

Just over a week to go until Father’s Day, how is it that time of year again?! These annual celebrations are always great for salons, as it gives you a chance to put together some promotions and really up your customer count. As with most of our marketing blogs, we’re going to give you some of our top tips on how you can increase your footfall this Father’s Day!

We all know by now that social media has become the most popular method for promoting your salon, and it should be no different for your Father’s Day offers! Facebook and Instagram are the perfect place to get your offers out there, so that both your current customers and potential ones are able to see them. With the ability for people to share your posts, this also gives you a great opportunity to run some sort of competition, in which you ask people to share the post and like your page to be entered. This will massively help to not only share the promotions that you have on for Father’s Day, but it will also help to share your salon and hopefully entice people into booking an appointment. There are plenty of different offers and competitions that you can run, here’s just some examples that we came up with:

• Put together a few different package deals for different price ranges, that way you’re reaching a wider audience.

• Offer a voucher or a % off the next time they come in anytime someone books a Father’s Day treatment, that way you can get the customer to return again after Father’s Day.

• Run a competition for a luxury treatment bundle for a Dad and one of their friends or family members.

• Put together some of your best-selling retail products into a retail hamper pack, offering it as a cheaper price for buying it as a bundle.

Although just solely posting your campaigns on your Facebook page will still get your customers interested, there is also ways of targeting people that haven’t already liked your page. Across both Facebook and Instagram, you can promote your posts, so you can spend £5 and promote it to say 500 people that fit the category of person you’re wanting to buy your services. You can spend as much as you like, the more you spend the more people your post will reach. This is a great cost-effective way of promoting your offers, as you will only need it to get the attention from a few people in order to make your money back. I would recommend starting off with a lower value to make sure that it works for you, and then you can increase your budget gradually.

There might be some people that just want to keep it simple, and get their dad a gift voucher for you salon. So, if gift vouchers aren’t something that you already offer, it’s definitely something you should look at introducing in the near future. Many people will often first visit a place due to having a gift voucher, giving you a great opportunity to work your magic and make sure that they want to return again in the future. If possible you could even get some limited-edition Father’s Day gift vouchers, just to make it a bit more personalised for the occasion, and this will also help to catch the eye of any potential buyers. 

Although your treatments will be aimed towards Dads, you will more than likely be targeting your female customers, as they are the main buyers for Father’s Day gifts. This is where Salon Tracker can help you out! Our marketing section allows you to segment your customers, meaning that you can send an SMS message to only females or only males. This is great as it means that you can write a more female targeted message and then also send a more male targeted message separately. You can even set an age filter, so that you can target it further to young adults who will be buying a gift for their Dad. SMS campaigns are a great way to directly address the customers that you have in your database, and these can be sent our straight from Salon Tracker. We recommend that you only use around 150-160 characters for the SMS, as this means that people are more likely to read it, so make sure that you get straight to the point! Although email is another great way of marketing your deals to your customers, the open rate is much less in comparison to when you send out an SMS texts. Did you know that over 90% of texts are opened/read within the first 3 minutes! So clearly this is a great way to target your customers and make sure that your salon is full this Father’s Day. Understandably for those of you that own barber shops or work in barber shops it will be much harder to target a female audience through the SMS marketing suite, so I would suggest using social media to do your promotions instead.

Hopefully this will help you with promoting your salon this Father’s Day! If you would like to test out our marketing suite, you do receive 50 free SMS credits when you trial our software for 2 weeks, so feel free to contact our sales team today by either emailing info@salontracker.co.uk or calling us on 0113 350 8230 and someone will be happy to help.

Salon Tracker x