How your Salon can help Children In Need this year!

Children In Need has come around again and we've only got just over two weeks to get prepared! Here at Salon Tracker, we want to help children in need as much as possible and I'm sure you do too. Your Salon is a perfect platform to raise awareness, with clients coming in and out everyday you're bound to make a difference. If you're unsure how, here's a few ideas on how to get started...

Getting in the spirit

Getting in the spirit of Children in need is always a good place to start. Simply dressing up in the Salon works wonders and definitely brings good vibes to the Salon for clients and your staff - you could even get your clients involved and use a Pudsey photo booth to spread awareness on your social media. Dressing up doesn't mean you have to be extreme, just some Pudsey ears would make the cut as the more Pudsey your clients see, the more they will want to donate! Buy your Pudsey ears from the official shop - Official Pudsey Shop

Everybody loves a bake sale

Bake sales are the most mainstream way to raise money, but also the most enjoyable! Getting each member of staff to bake a small batch of Pudsey-themed bakes will go a long way, charging clients a small amount per item and giving all profits to Children in Need will work wonders. If you had 10 members of staff, and each member of staff baked 12 cupcakes sold at £1 each, you'd raise £120 for children in need! £50 worth of donations is enough to pay for specialised equipment for an assistance dog supporting a child on the autism spectrum to reduce anxiety and increase his confidence - that's amazing!

Be involved

Getting involved doesn't have to cost a lot, if anything at all! You can order your free supporter kit from the BBC children in need website which includes a money box, posters for your window display and around the salon and stickers to put wherever you like, loyalty cards perhaps? It also comes with a free guide, so you're all covered! Click Free Supporter Kit and order yours now!

Donate a small portion

Why not donate a small percentage such as 5% of any treatment to children in need. Not only will your customers love that you're doing such a generous thing of your own back, it will also encourage new customers to come and have treatments with you because they can be happy for some of their money to go towards such a great cause whilst getting a treatment out of it too! And you know what new customers leads too... repeat customers! It's a win win situation. You could even start doing Pudsey themed treatments such as Pudsey nails and donate a bigger percentage to the charity for these treatment which will encourage more clients to get them hence spreading more awareness for Children In Need!

Social media works wonders

Your social media platforms are perfect for advertising about anything, so why not use it to your best advantage and advertise about Children In Need? Simply put a link to the donation page on the official BBC children in need website, even if you don't know who's donated and who hasn't, at least you're raising awareness to all your followers. 

These are just a few ideas of what you can do for Children in Need this year, and with just over 2 weeks to go, you've got plenty of time to get organised! Good luck!

Just so you know, Children in need will return to our screens on BBC on Friday 15th November, so tune in to find out exactly what your donations can do!

Salon Tracker x

Feature of the Month: Stock Ordering

For those salons that have a large retail section, whether these be creams, hair serums, moisturising sachets and so on, our software has a built-in HQ stock ordering system that helps to speed up and improve the accuracy of managing your retail products.

Whether you are a single or multi-site salon, we have implemented a thorough system, where an order can be made from the salon itself by any employee, quickly and simply. If you are already familiar with our stock management system, you will remember that we have a ‘low stock quantity’ field (where this amount is chosen by the salon owner) and then we also have a ‘default re-stock quantity field’ for easy re-ordering.

The benefits of these fields with our system is that once a certain product reaches its low stock quantity level, when an employee comes to make a stock order they can simply click ‘autofill’ and the default re-stock amount will be ordered automatically.

Once the employee then submits this order, it then has to be ‘accepted’ by a head office member. So, for example, if they don’t have the adequate amount of stock at HQ in order to send the required amount to the salon, they can then pick & amend this order accordingly, before actually processing it.

If the correct amount of stock is there at the HQ, then a member of staff at HQ will set the order to ‘accepted’ and then this moves on to be picked from the warehouse.

During the picking stage, there is another checklist that requires the staff member organising the stock from the warehouse to double-check the amount before signing the paperwork off to send the stock into ‘transit-mode’. This is so there are no areas where the stock is unattended, or hasn’t been checked, in order to ensure accuracy is maintained throughout the whole stock ordering process, from order to delivery. Also then ensuring that no malicious behaviours can happen, as if there are any anomalies identified at any time, the sign-off reports at each stage of the stock order; 
Salon order > HQ acceptance > warehouse pick > in-transit > delivery
It is then easy to identify where the variances are happening and this can be resolved accordingly. 

Once the stock is in transit, this then has to be re-counted again by the delivery driver, to take responsibility for the stock on driving before it is delivered at the salon premises. Again, this is part of the process of double-checking, in order to ensure stock accuracy is 100%.

This is then delivered successfully to the shop, where whoever the staff member at the salon is taking the stock order in, they also then have to re-count and sign for their stock to make sure everything is as it says against the order, proving that there isn’t anything missing (or too much of an item also).

Once the salon is happy with the order, this can then be amended and saved in the products section of the software, in which this the auto-updates the amounts on the stock control list so that the salon stock is correct for the next retail purchases.

If that’s been a little difficult to follow – here’s some screen shots below to help you to identify the stock ordering journey. 

Step 1 - Auto-fill stock order from default re-stock quantity using stock management order form

Step 2 - Order form is sent to & then accepted by HQ if they have correct stock

Step 3 - Head office count & pick stock from warehouse ready to send - then move in to 'transit' for delivery

Step 4 - Order is delivered to salon, staff member accepting stock has to check & mark that they have correct amount

Step 5 - Once salon staff accepts stock & is happy with quantity, stock management system auto-updates values

Our stock management feature is included on the Professional package & above, with HQ ordering being part of our online Enterprise package. Sound like this could help your salon? Download your free trial at www.salontracker.co.uk/freetrial.aspx.

Salon Tracker x

Salon Tracker's Halloween Hot List!

It's getting around to one of our favourite times of the year again… Halloween! Here at Salon Tracker we love everything about Halloween, from the decorations to dressing up with some funky hair and makeup looks. For this week’s blog we have decided to do you a little look book of some of our favourite Halloween looks and also give you some Halloween decoration inspiration for your salon.

Makeup

Whether you’re looking at transforming yourself into your favourite character or just want to look downright terrifying, makeup is the way to take your look to the next level.  When it comes to makeup this can add to your already out-there outfit or if you’re last minute like some of us, it could be the whole outfit.

 Here are some of out favourite makeup looks for this year:

We love this classic Violet Beauregade look from the classic Charlie and the Chocolate Factory film!

This devil makeup is perfect for if you want something a little different but don't wan't to go too over the top with your makeup this year. 

This terrifying Pennywise look would be great with just a simple white dress. 

We think this skull makeup would look great with a full black outfit!

Hair

Hair is another aspect, just like makeup where you can add to your outfit or put your hairstyle at centre stage. You could rock Harley Quinn’s signature dip dye or style your hair into thing such as devil horns and cat ears.

This classic red and blue dip dye could be done with semi permanent hair dye or even a wig! (here's one we found on amazon https://amzn.to/2BcTrTM) 

These DIY devil horns would look great with the devil makeup above and a nice red or black dress

Outfit

The outfit will always be our favourite part of Halloween. Whether you choose to go with one of the classics like a devil or witch or if you go more modern and decide to go with something new from a film like Pennywise the clown from IT you can put your own spin on any of these outfits. We also love a matching outfits with your besties!

Here’s some of our top picks:

We love this simple but stylish devil look from PLT! (Check it out here https://bit.ly/2ppBoHl)

We love the idea of matching your costume with your friend so this dark and light angel idea is perfect!

Decoration

One way you could encourage all your staff and clients to get into the Halloween spirit is to decorate your salon. This could mean just adding some small details such as pumpkins outside and allowing your staff to wear some Halloween themed accessories or you could go all out at turn your salon into a Halloween haven with cobwebs and all the decorations you can find.

Adding small details like this to your Salon will really lift the atmosphere for staff and clients!

We hope these tips give you a little bit of inspiration for Halloween this year Be sure to DM us pics of your halloween looks and decorations on instagram @salontrackersoftware

Salon Tracker x 

How to Market your Salon

Salon Marketing

Marketing is divided into two subcategories these are known as online and offline marketing; both have the same objective but achieving the objective is done differently. Some salons have online marketing only other have offline marketing only and many have both marketing types to help promote the business.

Marketing online 

The main focus in online marketing is on social media. Social media marketing is when the company use social media sites and social networks to market and promote their products and services. Social media is beneficial for the company as it is popular with a variety of different people this means that the company will connect with a larger audience this will therefore be cost effective for the company. Online marketing helps to boost online reviews as customers are able to easily write reviews for other potential customers to see this will help to connect with the business’s audience. This also allows you to promote customer service and this is vital to a accomplishing a successful business as you are able to respond to your customers and potential customers to answer any enquires, they may have. However, it is important that staff members are qualified and invest their time into the different social media accounts your business has to ensure that the content isn’t boring or repetitive this will help to prevent the bad publicity that can occur as a result of using social media.

Email marketing is also promoted through social media as your salon is able to share their email so those who prefer to communicate through email are able to do so this means that your business has reached a larger target audience.

Google Adwords can also be used to help develop and further promote the business. This method allows your business to display their advertisement on google and it is largely focused on keywords. This is an affordable method for many business’s that helps to grow business leads and sales. However, with Google AdWords your business will pay when a potential client clicks on your advertisement regardless if they have inquired into your business or not.

Advertisements are the best way to communicate with your customers; this includes Facebook advertisements and magazine, these allow you to share a variety of information about your business.

Blogs also help to promote your salon as it allows you to communicate with your customers and keep them updated on any events occurring that may be beneficial to them. Blogs also allow you to communicate with other salons in your local area and worldwide. However, writing a blog is very time-consuming meaning that your staff may not have the time to compose the blog whilst at work therefore will be required to do it at home, this could affect staff moral in a negative way.


Running contests allows your business to interact with customers and potential customers as well as build awareness of the products and services that your salon provide.

Having links to your official website on your social media accounts will help promote the business as it raises awareness of your business and has a positive impact on the business income, this can be due to customers buying products on the website or registering to become a client and book in for a service. If your salon is interested in putting links to your website on the different business social media accounts it is essential that someone with the knowledge and skills carries out the task of linking because if it isn’t done correctly then it may not connect and could potentially cause an error.

Another method within online marketing is for your salon to sell products online, this means that they will reach out to a wider range of clients as it is accessible for people who may be unable to attend the salon to buy the products.

Marketing offline

Getting your business involved in national events such as salon international in London or Pro Beauty North is beneficial for your business as its raise’s awareness. These events are also attended by a diverse wide range of potential clients therefore they provide you with a platform to promote your business and the services you provide. Even though this method helps promote your business if it is not done in the correct manner it could potentially ruin your reputation and become very costly.

Buying a TV advertisement allows the business to demonstrate how the products and services you provide work and display the advantages of using your business services and products. This type of advertisement allows your business to reach out to a wider range of potential clients which therefore will further influence their purchasing behaviour causing them to convert into paying customers.

Another method is presenting your business on the radio this will reach out to a wide variety of people including your local audience therefore will grow brand awareness. Listener loyalty plays a main role in potential customers purchasing influence as they will listen to the same radio station on a constant therefore will trust what they advertise meaning that they are more likely to pay attention to the advertisement therefore more likely to attend your service. However, many individuals will listen to the radio on their commute to work this means that other businesses will request the same slot meaning that the price may be increased. The radio can also be background noise meaning that people may not actually pay attention to what is being presented therefore it may not be effective in helping your business gain more clients.

Billboard advertising is another method that can be used by your business as your business services are on a large eye-catching graphics display board that cannot be avoided. This method offers a design opportunity as it offers a lot of space and freedom for your salon to be creative and promote the business in the way that best suits them. Billboards expose your salon to more than one target audience as a variety of people will look at the billboard whilst walking or driving past etc.

If your salon and the staff members who work within the service are willing to be involved in the community this will be largely beneficial for the business as it will build partnerships with other businesses in the local community. Planning and hosting events which allows the local community to access promotions, giveaways and contests will allow the community to feel included within the local business therefore this may attract more local customers.

Re-marketing to previous clients has shown to be another effective method of advertising as it involves creating an appropriate campaign and use an appropriate method of communication to reintroduce previous clients back to your new and improved services and products. In order to attract previous clients, it is essential that you get to the point this will allow you to raise curiosity and offer a trial this could be done by offering free samples or a product for free. However, this method may not always be effective as previous clients left your business for a reason and this could potentially be because of the persistent marketing that they found irritating, this will create a negative relationship between your business and the previous client in which they could pass to family and friends therefore damaging your reputation.

Giving away products for free is a strategy that will help you to promote your business as well as setting a standard for potential clients. If you provide clients with a small sample such as a lipstick sample it may persuade those who are interested to become loyal clients as the sample will show them the worth of your products and service, after all first impressions are very important. However, giving away free samples could be a waste of money for your salon as potential clients may not like the product your giving away and other individual’s may take the free sample without intentions of using your business therefore this money could have been used in other more effective methods of marketing.

Having a brochure for your salon is essential as it summaries your salon and the services and products that you offer. It will include offers that you do, pricing of all products and services as well as any bundles that you do, it will also include a brief over view of each service. Advantages of this method includes, time saving, cost effective and flexibility with design.

Salon Tracker X

The Benefits of Payment Integration!

Here at Salon Tracker, we realise how important it is for the modern salon to provide the option to pay by card. Therefore, we decided to implement a feature where our customers can link certain card machines directly to Salon Tracker. This way, when you go to confirm a payment on Salon Tracker, once you’ve selected to pay on card our software will directly send the price straight through to your payment machine, which saves a lot of hassle for your staff members. Especially during busy periods.

Reduces Staff Error

One of the key benefits of having a payment integration with Salon Tracker is that is massively reduces, well more or less stops staff error. This means that as staff will longer have to manually type the amount into the card reader, there is no chance of them accidentally entering the wrong amount. As such your receipts will always match your figures on Salon Tracker = less stress.

Reduces Waiting Times

Another reason to integrate your payment to your software is that it will massively reduce waiting times in your salon. This is because rather than having to manually input the charge that is displayed on the software, the correct amount will be sent straight through to the card reader, drastically cutting down waiting times for your customers.

Secure

Another reason to integrate your card reader with Salon Tracker is for security reasons.  As the correct amount will be sent through to the card reader automatically, there is no chance of any staff members accidentally, or purposefully, changing the cost. This means all your reports on Salon Tracker will fully match up with the amount you have taken on card.

How to introduce payment integration to your salon with Salon Tracker

If, after reading this blog, payment integration sounds like something you’d want to introduce in your salon, we’d be more than happy to help you get started with this. We currently work with PaymentSense and are working on a new integration with another merchant. If you would like we can pass your details over to our direct contact at PaymetSense and then they will be in touch with you to discuss the details of the integration with you and a possible contract with them. This feature is available on both of our professional and enterprise packages and we already have many of our customers who actively use this feature.

Don’t forget we are exhibiting at Salon International this weekend. Feel free to drop by stand T174 and someone will be happy to give you a live demonstration of Salon Tracker and answer any burning questions you may have about the software and our payment integrations.

We hope to see you there!

Salon Tracker x

What to expect from Salon Tracker at Salon International?

Less than a fortnight to go until one of the biggest salon trade shows of the year, and for Salon Tracker this is the first time that we’ve ever exhibited at this show, so what can you expect from us at our debut exhibition?!

First off, we’ve got a brand-new stand! For those of you that have visited us at a few events before, you may remember our previous stand that we have used for the past few shows since 2015. However, we thought that stand had served us really well for the last 4 years, but it was time for a change and what not a better time than to showcase this at our first time at Salon International - new show for us, new brand-spanking stand! We have also changed our branding over the last 12 months (which some of our main followers may have noticed our new geo-metric theme) and so we wanted something new to reflect that. We can’t wait to show you, and you can find us at stand #T174.

Also, for any of you that were lucky enough to receive a VIP invite from us, you should be aware that we are hosting a Champagne Reception at 1pm on the Saturday 5th October for all that attend, check your inbox or keep posted over the coming days to make sure you are up to date with all the information on that.


We’ve also got some brand-new features for you, and also a new layout on the system making it easier for you to view Salon Tracker on your screen. You can now hide all the menu options and the waiting list (should you not require this) to fully maximise use of your screen.


Our newest features to be soon introduced include:

-Pay Online for bookings beforehand (great for securing appointments of a high value or if you wish to take a deposit)


-Split Bookings Online (meaning you can now account for development time on all colour treatments booked online)


-Unavailable Staff Swap (if staff are unexpectedly off work due to illness or unforeseen circumstances, you can now smart move appointments in a couple of clicks to a new technician of your choice, without having to rebook each appointment manually)


-Extended Waiting List on Timer Calendar View (we are aware that we are approaching Autumn & Winter now, and especially around the Xmas season, we know that your tanning salon beds & spray-tan booths are in high demand and therefore our new improved waiting list now offers an exact wait time for each sunbed, including an overall time to ensure anyone waiting has an accurate idea of how long until their appointment)


Our software packages now also update automatically, meaning the system will notify you when there is a new version to be downloaded, so you are no longer having to book slots with us for manual software updates! We have also recently updated to a newer model of Dell PC, meaning that your touchscreen is now 23” making the software really easy to operate and easily viewable for the employees using it. Therefore, there are lots of changes in store this time round just in time for the show and we’re really excited to show you guys in a couple of weeks’ time.


As well as these exciting new features, we are also holding some fabulous offers exclusive to anyone who visits us on stand! We are offering:


- 30% off your first 3 months of software (any package)

- 20% off all hardware bundles

- Up to 30% off all stand-alone hardware purchases


A great opportunity to make some fantastic savings with us for your salon just in time for Christmas!

Finally, there are a couple of team members exhibiting also for their first time in London with us, and therefore this will be a great opportunity for you to meet some of the sales team face to face! I know we’re all really looking forward to meeting with you guys and seeing how we can help to boost your salon business in the future.


If you’re still yet to register and download tickets for the show, just visit this link below to get yours – sign up literally takes a matter of minutes and then you know you’re sorted for the whole weekend! (please follow link below):


https://www2.theticketfactory.com/salon/online/?SessionSecurity::referrer=WWW&SessionSecurity::referrer=WWW


Any questions for us prior to the show? No worries, please email info@salontracker.co.uk, DM us on Insta @salontrackersoftware or simply give us a call on 0113 350 8230 and one of us will be happy to help with any queries you may have.


If not, we look forward to seeing you in a fortnights time! To remind you again, we’re stand #T174. See you there!


Salon Tracker x

Our Latest Features

As we approach Salon International, our developers have been working extra hard to make sure that we have plenty of new features ready to show you all! These are some of the main features we’ve been readily working on, but you will also notice there have been a lot of smaller tweaks and updates being made to the software recently.

Split Bookings Online

For any Hair Salons we can understand the need for the system to automatically put in a development time. This again is something we have been working on, and will be ready to demo on our stand T174 at Salon International. The feature is something we have already developed within the actual Salon Tracker software, and it is going to be a great addition online for any salons that have treatments needing a development time. Currently, the feature works by adding a wait time to the end of the treatment. For example, you might add in a balayage treatment that needs a 60 minutes development time, you can enter this in the management section. Then when you add the second part of the treatment, such as the cut and finish, it will automatically put the 60-minute development time between the two different services. This feature will work exactly the same online, meaning that other customers will still be able to book in with the same technician during the development time.

Unavailable Staff

You never know if/when a member of your team is going to get sick or is going need a day off work, and sometimes this can leave you having to call your customers and explain that you need to rearrange their appointment or move it to be with a different employ. There are three different options you can chose from when making a staff member unavailable:

1. Don’t move the appointments and manually rearrange them

2. Smart move appointments, meaning that the software will move the appointment to any available calendar slot matching the booking time.

3. Move the appointments to a specific technician of your choice

This makes it much easier if you’ve got tonnes of appointments, just to quickly and efficiently move them over into another technicians column.

Waiting list on timer view

Tanning Salons can often be very busy, especially during the summer months when everyone is trying to top up on their tan before they go on holiday. Our new waiting list feature works perfect tanning salons and helps to ensure that salons are kept organised with waiting customers. We do currently have a waiting list feature in place, which some of you may use already, however in order to make it easier to use and view we have introduced a newer version. You will now be able to have an individual waiting list for each bed, so not only is it easier to add people to the waiting list, it also includes an overall waiting time for the bed for anyone who is wanting to go on the bed once its free, so they know exactly how long they’ll be waiting.

We are exhibiting at Stand T174 this year at Salon International, so feel free to drop by and we can show you all of these great new features in person. You will also receive an exclusive offer by visiting our stand, so make sure you don’t miss out on that either! We look forward to seeing you there.

Salon Tracker x