August Bank Holiday SMS Ideas

How are we already coming up to the August Bank Holiday? This year’s flying by. We’ve got just under a month until it’s here, but it’s important that you start planning your offers and campaigns early, to make sure that your customers are aware of them. But don’t worry, we’ve come up with a few different ideas that you can use in order to make sure that you make the most of it.

On Salon Tracker you can create your own custom SMS messages and send them out to all or a specific range of your customers. Or you can use our pre-filtered templates as a guide. The marketing suite is available on our professional package, making it easy to send out messages straight to your customers. For this August Bank holiday weekend, we thought we would help you out, here’s a few different SMS messages that you could send out to entice your customers:

“Hi <Forename>,

Special Bank Holiday Weekend offer on all Tanning Courses. Buy one get an extra 20 mins for free!

<Salon Name>

<Salon Number>”

"Hi <Forename>,

Book an appointment over the August Bank Holiday, and receive 30% off any treatment booked in September! Call now to book in.

<Salon Number>”

 

This is a great one, as it gives people a reason to visit again in the coming months, so we definitely recommend doing an offer along the lines of this.

“Hi <Forename>,

August Bank Holiday sale now on! Up to 30% off on all treatments, please contact us to make a booking.

<Salon Name>

<Salon Number>”

 

“Hi <Forename>,

Treat yourself this Bank Holiday Weekend! Book an appointment now to receive up to 50% off treatments!

<Salon Name>

<Salon Number>”

These are just some examples that we came up with, but you should always make sure that the deals you are offering suit you and your salon. For example, if there’s a service that you know your customers love you could do a deal for that. Or, if there’s a new service that not many customers know about then you could do a deal on that to get people interested in what it is.

If you are interested in taking a look at our marketing suite, you do get 50 free SMS credits to have a go with on your 2-week trial. Feel free to call us on 0113 350 8230 or alternatively email us at info@salontracker.co.uk, and we can get you booked in for your free demo and 2-week trial! We are exhibiting at Salon International this year; you can find us at stand T174 and see the software live in person, as well as meeting the team. Look forward to seeing you there!

Salon Tracker x

Utilising Instagram for your Salon!

When it comes to running a Salon, we know that it can be difficult trying to showcase your work to potential customers and also keep up your social media presence. Here at Salon Tracker we believe that Instagram is a salon owners’ best friend.  This is because you can use it for things such as: showcasing your work and salon, interacting with customers and also bring in new customers.

Showcasing your Work

Instagram is a great way for your salon to display your work. For example, if you have the customers permission, you can post pictures to your Instagram. This will then enable others to see the kind of work you do and will therefore entice them to go and book and appointment with you. Be careful to only post your best work as having a constant flow of posts, multiple a day, could be seen as annoying by some customers which may then deter them from coming in. However, this will rarely be the case and showing off your work on Instagram will help you grow your following as a business.

Some of our fave Instagram feeds from our customers are @glamourforever1 and @fiftyshadestanningsalon

These Salons do great in showcasing some amazing work making all us here at Salon Tracker want to pop in for a treatment!

Communicating with Customers

Instagram is also a great way for you to communicate with your customers on a more personal level.  This could be from you encouraging engagement on your pictures to you replying to their comments.  This will help your customers view your salon as a friendly place and will mean they feel more inclined to keep coming back.  Also, from an outsider’s point of view, if they see a salon page actively talking and communicating with their existing customers, they will be more likely to visit that salon.

Client Sharing

Instagram is also a great platform for your customers to share your work with their friends and followers. By them sharing pictures of treatments they have had in your Salon and you actively encouraging them to mention or tag you in these, this means that more people will be seeing your work and therefore may be encouraged to visit your salon.

Stories

Instagram stories are another great feature that you could utilise for your Salon. This is a feature where you can add pictures and videos to your profile and they will be visible for all your followers to view for 24 hours! This is a great feature for you to do things such as advertise limited offers and also repost all your client’s pictures, they may have shared themselves. When it comes to limited offers, these stories are a great way to advertise them as they automatically disappear after 24 hours. 

We hope these tips and tricks help you with your Salons Instagram account and don’t forget to give us a follow @salontrackersoftware to keep up to date with our latest offers and features!

Salon Tracker x 

Here's what you didn't know about Salon Tracker!

So I bet you're all curious to find out what exactly it is that Salon Tracker has been keeping from you... well, the truth is; it was never really a secret. Salon Tracker is a software of many features which means that some features often get forgotten about when they can actually be really useful and beneficial to your Salon so read on to find out more!

So first things first... Groups.

Groups is the bit in Admin where you can create a 'group' for pretty much anything! Customer discount groups, deposit groups, Happy hour and different pricing structures for different sunbeds / stylists.

Discount groups - Perfect for if you offer student discount, NHS discount, staff discount or any other form of discount you'd like to give! The client just needs to be put into this group on their client card so that every time they make a transaction it will automatically take the discount off. Easy as that!

Different pricing structures - do you have a lay down bed that you charge more for than your stand - up beds? Or a stylist that has more experience and qualifications than some and charges more? Well don't worry about getting mixed up with who charges what anymore and charging the wrong prices. Our groups can be specifically set up so that only the price for that stylist / bed comes up when purchasing something under that Booking item so you can only select the right price.

Deposits - are you sick of people not turning up to appointments, especially expensive and time consuming ones? Good thing we have a deposits group available! This allows you to select the certain treatments (or all) you want to take deposits from at the time of booking. For example, you can charge a percentage of the total treatment or a set amount which will automatically charge the client before
they can book the appointment. 


Happy Hour - if you have a quiet period in the Salon and want to boost your sales maybe implementing a happy hour is for you! Perhaps a happy hour where if a client purchases a 60 minute course they get 15 minutes free would work? Once set up, like on the example on the left, happy hour can occur once a week or once a day at a specific time frame and will automatically grant the offer! A brilliant and no-fuss way to boost your sales in those quiet times.




Secondly, the bit on the marketing suite you didn't know about...

Reviews! As well as being able to send offers out to your clients via text, you can also send a review request text after their appointment. Best of all, you can actually choose which client to send the text too rather than it automatically sending to everyone.

All you need to do is go to your marketing suite, click on the reviews tab and edit your message in the box. Once done, right click on a past appointment and click 'request review' and it will send them a text from your Salon. You can also make it so that it warns you if you are sending another review text within 12 months so you don't annoy your clients... a brilliant way to boost your social media presence without barely realising it!







Sending and accepting stock orders from multiple sites

Do you have multiple sites that you would love to be able to place their own stock orders to the HQ directly from the software? 

Well, using our stock order forms in management, your staff at each site have the ability to place an order that sends directly to the HQ terminal where the HQ can accept it and mark it as shipped, then allowing the site to accept stock and replenish stock levels. The system also has an 'auto fill' button where it automatically puts in every stock item you are running low of at its 'default restock quantity' level making it a quick and easy task for everyone! 


Annual Charts 

So you may know about the 28 plus reports we have in our reports section of the software, but did you know about the annual charts too? We have a selection of charts available which can show you your most successful months and your least successful months. What the charts work really well with is our marketing section. If you have a month you can see you haven't done so well in such as June in this example, you can then use that information to then do a marketing campaign the following June to try and boost your Sales that month.

The waiting list

Do you have a busy tanning Salon with people queuing out the door for a bed without really knowing who's next on the free bed? Salon Tracker has the perfect solution, add each person to the waiting list and when one of their names goes green, that means they are first in line and can be put on a bed.

No more arguments about who goes on the bed next or losing track!


So if you have any questions about the features I have listed above or would like to get booked in for a bit of training on them, please feel free to give us a call on 0113 350 8230 and we'll be happy to help!

Salon Tracker x 

Feature of the Month! E-Signature Pad

As we go through Summer, we know that this is a really busy time for you guys in the salon. Sometimes, that increase in footfall takes over and you can struggle to manage the admin side of your appointments. Especially those of you that offer treatments that have age restrictions or require patch testing beforehand, as you then need signed customer consent prior to allowing these treatments to be booked. Especially with the new GDPR legislations, you have to ensure that you record this information in a secure way too, in which if you were used to having disclaimers slotted away in filing cabinets – it is essential to ensure that the security of these follow the latest laws.

And so that’s why for this month we wanted to discuss our ‘Signature-Pad’ with you.

Not only does this feature allow you to get customers to sign your agreements or salon terms digitally, the signed PDF is then also stored securely, under GDPR compliance, within their software client card.

So, how does this work?

Before now, you may have had your client cards on paper, with extra documents for your signed consent forms and agreements, that maybe got filed under a customer’s name in a cabinet or storage container. With our Signature feature, you can simply laminate your general terms at your cash desk, have them stored on say a tablet, or an iPad for customers to view, email them out to a customer or even still give them a printed copy to read and take home. Whatever your preference for your salon, the difference here is, the customer reads through those terms as they normally would, however this time signs for them on your Signature Pad and their e-signature is then stored under a PDF copy of those same terms, within their digital client card. This means now, where you once had realms of filing cabinets full of disclaimers, you can now go completely paperless! 21st century or what! And if you ever need to update the text of the agreement, it is a simple document swap out within our system and you can get the customer to re-sign via the Signature pad next time they are in the salon. Simple as that and also really easy to use!

As the signature is then stored under their digital client card, that then has the extra protection that the customer has to be logged in to their client card at the salon before being able to sign for your terms electronically. So, say you wanted extra security to ensure that the customer is who they say they are before signing, especially in tanning salons where there is the legality that all clients are over 18, you can utilise our fingerprint recognition to be absolutely certain that the client is who they claim to be before they are signing.

Our software will then track and audit each time someone’s client card is viewed, via our action log. This is so, if anyone tries to imitate or view someone’s disclaimer without the customer being present, our software would notify the salon owner straight away of which staff member this was, also providing the date and the time in which this was viewed too. Meaning this should also clamp down on forged signatures and any clients trying to bend the rules.

Sound like this could benefit you during this busy time? If you would like some more information on our Signature Pad, or perhaps you’d like to try our software out first...simply head to our trial page at:

https://www.salontracker.co.uk/FreeTrial.aspx

Remember, you can trial our software FREE for a fortnight, with no obligation, to see how our features benefit your salon before you make any decisions.

We look forward to hearing from you!

Salon Tracker x

Why Are Reviews So Important To Your Salon?

How much more likely are you to try something because your friends recommended you it, or because you’ve read some good reviews about it online? Well, I know I am! Knowing that people have had a good experience somewhere always gives people the confidence that they will have the same good experience too. For the most part, getting reviews from your customers will only boost your salons overall profile, however there can be the occasional one that will do the opposite, but don’t let this worry you, there are plenty of ways around these. But let’s start off with why reviews are so important to boosting your salons footfall…

In the last 5 or so years, the way we search for salons has massively changed. The first thing most people do is Google a salon and have a look at their social media, Facebook and Instagram being the main two. In fact, around 75% of people will go online to find a business before deciding whether to visit it or not. Facebook in my opinion is definitely the best place to market your salon to both your customers and any potential customers that are interested in your services. It not only gives you a platform to post any updates, pictures and offers, but also is a place for your customers to leave reviews (hopefully positive ones) on their salon experience. There are also the classic review pages like Yelp, Yellow Pages and Google. Although the perfect scenario would be that you have tens or even hundreds of 5-star reviews, this will more than likely not be the case. If anyone does leave a negative review regarding your salon, it’s essential that you reply to this to resolve any issues asap and make it known to any potential customers that it has been resolved.

The main reasoning behind making sure that you are encouraging your customers to leave reviews, is to show any potential customers that you have a positive reputation. Making them more likely to be inclined to visit your salon. According to a survey, 88% of consumers trust online reviews as much as personal recommendations, this statistic alone should already be enough to convince you that reviews are one of the best business tools. So, if you don’t already, you need to start encouraging your customers to leave reviews, especially on your Facebook page. It’s best not to ask every client who visits your salon to leave a review, you want to hand pick ones that you think are going to leave a positive review. These being your most loyal and friendly customers. When you do get a nice review, reply with a thank you message so that not only your customer feels appreciated, but also so that any potential customers can see that you have a good bond and connection with your current customers. You could also repost some of the great ones on your social media platforms, to spread the word even more. Every so often, you should think about thanking your customers who have left a review by giving them some sort of reward, discount or a free retail product, again just to show that you do appreciate them.

Make sure that you always listen to your clients feedback, both positive and negative. Even if it is something that you don’t agree with, check that there isn’t anything that you could be doing better. Or if it’s positive feedback, make sure that you continue to work in that way so that you can please all of your customers.

One feature that we do have on Salon Tracker is the ability to send out a direct text

message to specific customers asking them to leave a review at your preferred review platform, this being your Facebook, Yelp, Yellow Pages etc. You can also set a delay, to make sure that you’re not being too over the top and sending the message as soon as

they’ve left the salon. It’s better to wait a day or so before sending out the text message, so the customer has more chance to reflect. You can also set a warn period, this prevents you from over sending review requests. I mean, if someone was asking me to review something every time I visited the salon, it would put me off going. So, this will help to prevent you from doing that.

Hopefully this will have helped you to not only understand the importance of reviews, but to also get a better understanding of how you can get more reviews online. The more you have, both good and bad, will help to increase your footfall and give an overall better representation of your salon. We do offer a free 2-week trial, where you do get 50 free SMS credits, so you can give our review feature a go. Call us on 0113 350 8230 or email info@salontracker.co.uk if you are interested, and we can get you booked in for your free demo and trial.

Salon Tracker x

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