Feature of The Month - Online Deposits

As a Salon Owner is there anything more frustrating that a customer not turning up to their booked appointment? Especially during those busy periods.

Well, that’s where our new Online Deposit feature steps in. It’s the perfect feature for reducing your no-shows and making sure you’re never left out of pocket if a customer doesn’t show for their appointment. Did you know that an estimated £1.2 million is lost each year due to customers not showing up to their hair appointments?

How Does It Work?

Working alongside Stripe we have been able to implement a seamless payment system into our Online Booking, allowing customers to pay with card, Apple Pay, Google Pay and Klarna.

Within Salon Tracker you can set the deposit amounts you wish to take, whether this is a percentage of the total value or a flat rate, and these can be different depending on the treatment the customer is booking in for. You can also set a maximum deposit amount; in case the customer is booking in for multiple treatments. 

When the customer makes a booking on your online booking system, it will automatically take them through to the payment screen, and then a confirmation screen of what’s left to pay when they come in for the treatment. Then on your Salon Tracker system the booking will show as the deposit paid and the deposit amount will show on your reports.

Why Should You Implement Deposits?

The main reason is to get those No-Show bookings reduced! If customers are paying a deposit for a booking, they will be a lot less likely to just not show up as they won’t want to lose the money they have already paid. Introducing deposits also shows your customers that booking slots and your
technician's time are valuable, so this can increase the respect from your customers as they won’t want to waste your time.

Taking online deposits can also help to cover your costs in advance, such as the cost of supplies, tools and your employee’s time. Whereas, if you don’t take deposits and the customer doesn’t show for their appointment this could end up being time wasted, as it can be hard to fill last minute appointments.

How do I Get my Online Deposits Set Up?

If you're wanting to introduce online payments into your Salon, all you need is to be setup on our Enterprise Subscription and we can help from there! Our payments are taken through Stripe so these are very secure, all you need is to create a Stripe business account but again we can help guide you through this setup!

If you are interested in getting set up on this please call on 0113 350 8230 or email info@salontracker.co.uk and we will be happy to discuss this with you.

Salon Tracker x

Planning for the year

January is often a quieter period in Salons after the mad rush of Christmas, so there is no better time than now to plan for the year ahead. At Salon Tracker, we believe that the best way to approach marketing for the year is to plan around the different holidays and target these periods specifically.

The first few months of the year are always the cold ones, and there’s no better time to visit the salon. Often this can be a quieter time for tanning salons so why not offer some special courses during this time and build your client base ready for the summer. For beauty and hair salons, you may have seen an increase in gift voucher purchases over the Christmas period, so why not encourage your customers to use these now. Also, customers will be trying to fulfil their new year’s resolutions, so what better way to have a ‘new year, new me’ moment that by getting a new hairstyle or having a pamper.

Other major events to center your promotion around during this time are Valentine’s Day and Mother’s Day. Before you start advertising around these days, why not look at previous years and see which of your treatments are most commonly purchased around these periods, and create special packages featuring a few of these at a reduced price. Also, why not create some hampers featuring some of your retail products as well as a gift voucher. You may even want to do a little complimentary fizz with all services booked in the week leading up to, and week after Mother’s Day, to make the client’s service seem a little more luxury!

The next period is filled with bank holidays (1th April, 18^th April, 2^nd May, 2^nd June, 3^rd June) which means customers will be going out and need to be booked in for their pre-outing pampers. This is prime-time for salons, so now may be a good time to push your service packages, for example; if you are a hair and beauty salon you may want to do an ‘Bank Holiday Bundle’ consisting of a couple of mini beauty treatments and maybe a hair style? This year we’ve gained an extra bank holiday due to the Queen’s Jubilee. It’s a great marketing technique to promote the extra Bank Holiday date, as believe it or not there will be a lot of your clients who are still unaware of the Bank Holiday change, so make sure you get in there first to get your calendars booked up.

Going from Spring to Summer, Wedding season will be approaching, as well as proms and graduations. All of these events will drive customers into your salons, whether it be for a fresh tan (spray or real), or for a makeover. Targeting your audience is essential to ensure that your diary is filled to the brim, so why not try something new. Maybe offer a raffle entry for every treatment purchased with the winning prize being a free makeover for their special day. Alternatively, you could offer a trial day at a reduced cost so customers can see how they’ll look at on the big day and minimise the stress on the actual day. This would mean they’re visiting the salon more often and may be more inclined to do so again in the future.

Also, during the summer period, people will be jetting away on holidays after being limited so much over the past two years. What better way to get their tans started than by offering special courses to encourage them into the salon before they go away. Soon enough we will be back around to the autumn/winter period and then it will be time to start looking at Halloween makeovers and Christmas party prep.

Hope this has given you a few pointers to think about, and of course as always if you want to chat to a member of our sales and marketing team for a few extra tips, we are always on hand to help you with any marketing tools, or simply to offer further advice on using our software functions!

Salon Tracker x

Q & A - Hair and Beauty Special!

We know we specialise in Tanning, but did you know we also specialise in Hair & Beauty too? All your questions answered!

Can you view the salon calendar from home?

Yes, salon owners and employees are all able to view the salon calendar and reports from home and when on the move, using our Siteview app. Appointments can also be added and edited within this application. This is available on our Enterprise software package.

Can you take deposits/online payments?

We can yes, these can be taken both in the salon and online using our Stripe integration. We also integrate with Klarna payments. Online payments however are only available on our Enterprise package.

Can you market to your clients?

Our system has a full marketing suite built in, where both SMS and email marketing campaigns can be sent to clients. We currently have a direct integration with Mailchimp for emails, where we also have micro-marketing filters to target a range of customer groups.

Can you offer commissions?

Yes, we can, these can be set at a global level for the salon as a whole, or individual level per therapist or specifically based on a service sold.

How do you reduce no-shows?

We currently have SMS appointment reminders that get sent to the client 24 hours before an appointment and also our deposits feature, which both of these have significantly helped to reduce no shows.

Do you link with Payment terminals?

Yes, we currently link with Dojo payments for a seamless payment solution. We can provide more information on that for our clients.

Can you register patch testing?

Yes, this can be added on the customer client card as an alert and can also be recorded as a booking too to show when the patch test was carried out.

Do you offer appointment reminders?

Yes, we currently offer automated SMS appointment reminders, these can be sent out either 24 hours before, 48 hours or the week before depending on the client’s preference!

Do you offer disclaimer forms?

Yes, we do we currently offer disclaimers that can be signed using our electronic signature pad or can be agreed to online when the client fills out the online registration form.

Can clients book online?

Yes, clients are able to make appointments online through your own salon-branded web app, where appointments will link straight directly in to your calendar at the salon.

How do you represent development time?

Development time can be set up through a feature called ‘post-delay’ where we can allocate a certain amount of time for development to be added to each booking, in which this is also then taken in to account with online bookings too.

Can you handle stock takes?

A full stock control system is built in to the software so all stock is depleted automatically when retail products are sold. You are also able to organise stock from HQ to site locations using the same feature.

Are you GDPR compliant?

Our system is fully GDPR compliant and client details are protected by a privacy screen. Should these need to be viewed for an appointment, this is logged in an event and on a report. Fingerprints and biometric data are all also stored securely.

Can you manage a multi-site salon chain?

We currently specialise in multisite management and also offer a headquarters system, where every site location can be viewed from one main head office machine. Client data and products can also be shared and accessed across multiple sites.

What would you do in the event of another lockdown?

Over the last two lockdowns we froze all payments and subscriptions whilst our industry had to close. Should there be another lockdown, our clients have peace of mind that we will always freeze payments and our support will always be available.

Should you wish to trial Salon Tracker, head to https://www.salontracker.co.uk/FreeTrial.aspx and submit your details for your free 2 week try of our software!

Salon Tracker x

Hello 2022! Another year, brand new!

Welcome back, and a very Happy New Year to you all!

Hope you all had a lovely Christmas break and have enjoyed the festivities.

It's been a good time to reflect on the previous year over the last couple of weeks, on how as a whole we have all bounced back from the closure of our industry and managed to have a great second half of 2021. But not only that, it was a great time for extra planning too. As this time last year our salons weren't able to open and so it has therefore been a useful time to look at how you are able to reengage with your clients this January and really kickstart the New Year as a positive!

Quick note - a few dates for your diary this year with Salon Tracker; we are hoping to be exhibiting at the Professional Beauty London show across the 3rd and 4th of April at London Excel, and also at the Beauty UK show across 22nd and 23rd of May! We have lots of new features we hope to bring to you across those two events, keep posted here on our blog for release dates. Exciting new projects we are hoping to achieve however are; further advances with our online payments and also occupancy technology, allowing you to be able to track when a client is using a sunbed or is sat in a treatment chair using heat/electrical technology, to further improve security in your salons.

Over the next couple of weeks, we’ll also be bringing to you lots of marketing tips and ideas on how you are able to utilise our software over the coming months, to really give your business that extra boost. You’ll be able to find all of this information here on our news page, also over on our social media channels and, if you require any personal training directly for your salon, our team are on hand at the office to arrange a remote assistance session with your team members, to help to further improve their software skills!

For anyone reading this who is currently new to us and are in the process of thinking about a trial, we currently offer a FREE fortnight try-before-you-buy system, with no obligation, to allow you to see how Salon Tracker works for you operationally before you sign up to a package. To enquire about getting a free trial, please head to our website at www.salontracker.co.uk/freetrial.aspx to submit your details and interest, and a member of our sales team will be in contact as soon as possible to arrange a demonstration. The beauty of a demo with us is, all of our support is carried out via remote assistance software, meaning you can arrange a digital meeting with us, from anywhere, anytime! If you would however prefer to speak to a member of our team beforehand, we’re just a phone call away on 0113 350 8230, where we are always on hand to help you with any enquiries and questions you many have.

And to our lovely Salon Tracker customers, keep an eye on your update notifications over the coming weeks, as we have a release due with some great new reports and features to improve your current service. So, make sure to download the latest update when you see this prompted on your system!


So now all that’s left to say is, 2022, let’s go! We’ve got a really positive feeling about this year and we are so glad to be working with you all once again, to boost your salon businesses.

All the best wishes for this year,

Salon Tracker x