Feature of the Month - Our New Features!

New Year, New Features!

To start off the new year right we have a brand-new release packed full with new features that you, our customers, have been asking for. For this month’s feature of the month we have decided to give you a quick rundown on all the exciting new features you can expect.

Split Bookings Online

A highly requested feature that is new to Salon Tracker is split bookings online. We created this specific feature with hair salons in mind but this can be easily altered and adapted to work in other types of salons. What this feature does is it allows your customers to split up a booking, to for example, allow room for a development time if they’re getting their hair coloured. This feature allows you to set a development time for certain services which will automatically be added in if any of your customers book a hair colouring online.

Double Payment Sense Terminals

A new feature for our payment sense using customers on the professional package and up is you can now link two card terminals to your salon tracker rather than just one. You can give both terminals names and have them linking to different bank accounts. Then when it comes to a customer wanting to pay, you can select which card terminal you would like to send the payment to. This could work well for many different scenarios for example in a tanning salon who may rent a beauty room out to a self-employed beautician who both use the salon tracker but require card payments to go into different accounts.

View Customer History

One new slight tweak to the system that has been requested from some of our clients is that you can now see a customers recent booking history from the booking calendar. This means you no longer have to go into the customer card to see any recent visits they have had or what service they were booked in for last. This will be especially useful for busy salons on days where all you need is a quick look at your customers details before completing their service.

New Waitlist

A new feature available on all three of our different packages is our new and improved tanning waiting list.  Though our original waiting list will still be there, we have added a new one especially for customers who use the timer view for their sunbeds.  Instead of being at the right hand side of your screen, you are now able to add waiting customers to a list below a specific bed and once its time for them to go on the bed, all you have to do is click a button to move them up to the bed. This allows you to be more specific when giving customers waiting times for each bed.

Double Calendars

Another new feature available on our professional and enterprise package is double calendars. This means, for example, if you’d like two tanning calendars this is now possible. This will be useful for large salons with many sunbeds or salons spread over two floors. This will just help to ensure that calendars aren’t too full and will try to help stop confusion.  As well as being useful for tanning salons, this could also be a useful feature for different salons such as hair and beauty.

If you have any questions on our new features or would like any form of training on these please don’t hesitate to get booked in.

If you’d like a FREE demo and two-week trial please call us on 0113 350 8230 or alternatively email us at info@salontracker.co.uk

Salon Tracker x

2020: The Start of a New Year & New Decade!

Happy New Year! 2020: Not only the start of a New Year, but a new Decade too. Bring on the Twenties!

Our Salon Tracker team would like to welcome you back! We hope you’ve all had a fabulous Christmas and enjoyed the festivities with family and friends.

But now, it’s another blank canvas, a fresh start and a New Chapter! And we all know that January can be a bit of a quieter time for a lot of businesses, but this only provides some extra breathing space for you to be able to spring clean the salon, re-organise your strategy and maybe think about your marketing for this year too. So, it’s time to take down the remaining Christmas decorations and refresh any old stock that you may have lying around and start this month fresh, with a clean new start!

January is also a good time to have a sit down with your team and discuss how the last year went, make sure all of your staff are happy and then make adjustments for anywhere where you think there may be room for improvement. This also then gets all of your staff members involved in ensuring the business is just as successful this year as the last. But not only that, it also ensures that they are happy in the current work environment too, boosting team morale! It’s great to keep your team involved in how business is performing, maybe even create a fun little presentation to talk through how your staff have helped you to achieve success.

A marketing and sales strategy is also great to have, as this is something that you and your team can work towards, and this then provides you with something to measure performance against at the end of 2020! If you need a bit of help with your marketing tactics, our sales team have lots of tips and experience to be able to help you with some campaigns, and if you are a follower of our blog, we are always offering our best advice and promotional ideas. So keep posted on our news page https://www.salontracker.co.uk/News throughout the year for some new tools & tips!

We are releasing a new software version also next week, therefore for any of you that are already users you will be automatically get the new version through auto-updating, so get ready for this in a few days! However, for anyone that is thinking of trialing our software out, keep posted next week on our news page as we’ll be showcasing what our new software has to offer. January is a great time to improve organisation of your salon, and so why not try our software out for a fresh new management system this year. Salon Tracker is FREE to trial for a fortnight, to give you a feel for the system before you make a decision on any packages.

So, we hope that 2020 is a successful year for you and we’d love to help you to boost profits & performance! And so, if there are any sales, marketing or organisation structures that we can help you with along the way just call our team on 0113 350 8230 or drop us an email at info@salontracker.co.uk.

We look forward to working with you, let’s have another great 12 months!

Salon Tracker x

It’s the Holiday Season!

Another year down, and 20 years since the Millennium! I know we say this every year but time really is flying, and what a busy year we have had here at Salon Tracker HQ. We’ve expanded our team (again) with 4 new team members this year, and also had our debut at 2 new shows, Beauty UK and Salon International; where we might have had the privilege of meeting some of you face to face. And for any of you that came to Salon Int’l, you might have dropped by our stand for our Champagne Reception, which we actually WON! A great little competition winning for us & you guys, we had such a fun weekend and really enjoyed meeting you all and helping to improve your salons!

We have also enhanced the software massively this year, where we have introduced a lot of new features to improve the usage and really benefit your salon business. Our best features include our new split-booking online, so that for all of you that require development times to be taken in to account for treatments, such as for highlights, brow tints etc, the online booking will now automatically account for the development time for those treatments, so you’re no longer having to make amendments within the salon once those bookings are made. We will be demoing this for the first time at PB London, which has moved to March next year, so hopefully will be a bit more Spring-like and another great show weekend. Keep posted on our news feed in the New Year for the link to register for your FREE tickets! You may have also seen that we have launched ‘QR Scan’ for online booking registration within the salon, this seems to have gone down a treat in some of our salons already where they have seen their online bookings increase by over 50%! Head to our Instagram @salontrackersoftware to see our board examples!

We’re really looking forward to 2020, the start of a new decade and we’ve got lots more exciting things to add in to the Software in the New Year. We’ll be exhibiting at a couple of shows too, and might even be running a little workshop afternoon in the Summer (TBC), but keep posted for more details on our blog next year! But for now, 2019 is nearly out, we hope your last few days at the salon are busy and everyone is in the festive spirit! From all of us here at Salon Tracker, we hope you all have a fantastic Christmas and wish you a Happy New Year, and we’ll speak to you in Jan!

Best Wishes,

Salon Tracker x

Please Note: We will be closed from 1pm on the 24th of December until the 2nd of January 2020. If you need any emergency support during this time then please call 0113 350 8230 and leave a voicemail or you can message us on our Instagram @salontrackersoftware, and someone will get back to you ASAP with best endeavors. 

Please note that there will be no support on Christmas Day, Boxing Day or New Year’s Day.

From everyone at Salon Tracker we hope you have a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year! Thank you for a great 2019, we can't wait for the next one!

Christmas/ New Year Lookbook

It’s now a week till one of our favourite times of the year again… Christmas! Here at Salon Tracker Software we adore everything that Christmas involves from the decorations to the outfits at the Christmas party.  This week’s blog is a look book of some of our favourite Christmas looks, it will also allow you to feel inspired how to decorate your salon.

Makeup

At Christmas you may partake in many events such as family dinners, work Christmas parties and other activities with your friends such as nights out celebrating and congratulating one another. Each individual is different but for most girls they love to get dolled up for Christmas day and the events that come before and after.

Many prefer a natural makeup look

Makeup to look like a reindeer, why not?

Red lips at Christmas are a must have for many

Outfit inspiration

Now Christmas is upon us, the High street shops are filling with glitter and sparkles. Christmas and New Years is all about sequins, satin, velvet, feathers, diamante and red clothing basically anything that screams strong glamour. This time of a year is all about making a statement with the outfits you wear especially when attending an event on New Years Eve this means stepping out of your comfort zone to wear something bold or sparkly this season.

If you're not a sequin fan why not try a red
jumper dress with thigh
high boots which is currently very
 fashionable. Comfy and cute!

Sparkles and silk equals the perfect Christmas party outfit

Sequin skirts would be another option to a
 Christmas party or alternatively a sequin top

Hairstyles

Over Christmas and New Year’s, it is essential for many individuals to ensure that they look immaculate this includes having the perfect outfit, makeup, nails and of course hair style. One of the most popular hairstyles currently is the high textured ponytail, as it is appropriate for every occasion especially during the holidays. Other popular hairstyles including a side braid and wavy ponytail, low loose swirl up-do, texture centred bun, thick textured ponytail and a simplistic down do. 

Half up Half down hairstyle,
 why not add curls as well

The current fashion trend a
high textured ponytail

Low neat ponytail

Nails

Every girl love being pampered this includes having their nails done frequently especially when Christmas and New Year occurs. At Christmas many individuals love to have art work on their nails this can include a Christmas tree on their middle nail. Other popular decisions for nails during this season includes the colour red, sparkles, animal prints, white prints and marble patterns.

Red nails are extremely popular
 at Christmas time

At Christmas time the nail art is extraordinary
these above are just a few
examples of the nail art
that takes place at Christmas

Snowflakes and white nails

Decorations

Decorations at Christmas are essential, here at Salon Tracker we love decorating the office, as it helps to encourage staff and clients to feel festive. Decorating could mean adding small details such as a snowflake sticker on the windows or a merry Christmas sign and allowing staff to wear Christmas jumpers or themed accessories. 

Add a Christmas tree to your salon to
ensure your clients and staff feel comfortable
and relaxed within the salon

Finishing touches to push the
excitement of Christmas

Add a few small decorations to brighten your
salon and ensure that clients and staff
are feeling the Christmas spirit

Salon Tracker x

Festive Feature of the Month! - Xmas marketing suite

Now we all know that December is the busiest time of the year for Salons which is great but what happens when we get to January and the boom of December has gone because you didn't get prepared or make enough time to do some marketing campaigns in December? 

Well luckily for you, Salon Tracker has a built in marketing suite with plenty of templates and filters already made up, making it super easy to send a simple text to your clients informing them of the offers you'll be hosting throughout January to keep you just as busy as you are in December!

If you're unfamilar with the marketing suite, you can always ring us up for a free training session -  we're always happy to help! But for now, let me show you exactly what the marketing suite entails...

First of all, there's a selection of pre-made filters to choose from which gives you a template already set, all you have to do is change the discount and the time frame! 



An especially useful one is the 'January Sale' which has everything you need to boost them sales in Jan. I would recommend sending this text towards the end of December so you give them chance to get booked in and organised as you never know the kind of January rush this text may bring. 

Better yet, you can preview the text to your own phone to make sure you're happy with it before you send it to all your clients!

Looking to send a text to just a specific selection of clients? Our extensive filters have got you covered. For example, if you only want to send a January offer to the customers that spend the most in hair retail, the little + button to the right hand side allows you to add up to 4 extra filters where you can really underpin the the selection of customers you want to send it to. You could even send two lots of offers and send a bigger discount to the customers who spend the most with you, almost like a loyalty incentive!

If you're stuck for offers you'd like to do over January, I've put together a few ideas that may be just what you're looking for:

Example 1:

"Hi <<Forename>>, as our Christmas treat to you, we're offering 30% off appointments booked for January if booked before the 31st December 2019. Call <<company number>> to book!"

Example 2:

"Hi <<Forename>>, book in for an appointment in January before the 31st December 2019 to receive a £20 gift voucher for any retail product in Salon. Call <<company number>> to book!"

Example 3: 

"Hi <<Forename>>, any appointment booked in January receives a free retail product of their choice and 10% of their treatment! T&C's apply. Call <<company number>> to book>>

There are all sorts of things you can do with the marketing section, and utilising it to banish them January blues is a must do! 

If you don't currently have Salon Tracker, but want to give the marketing suite a try, then give us a call on 0113 350 8230 for a free demo and 2 week trial with 50 free texts to give it a go! 

Salon Tracker x 

Upselling in your Salon at Christmas!

3 weeks to go until the big day! How has business been so far this season? Obviously, for most, Christmas is one of the peak times for your sales and getting new footfall in to the salon. But there are lots of things that you can be doing to further increase your profits during this time of year. Here’s a few ideas that we wanted to share with you, to make sure your salon is sparkle season ready!

Bundles/Deals

We all know that Christmas is a highly competitive season for any sector, especially those offering retail products or services. So, for salons like yourselves, aside from your regular clients that will always come back at Christmas because they value you, other potential customers will be on the lookout for the best price, package or something that catches their eye. Put together some exclusive Christmas deals, these could be as simple as 2 treatments for a particular price, for example *Christmas Lash Special – get party-ready with an eyebrow and lash tint for <£x>*. You could also throw in a little sample of your upcoming stock as a complimentary freebie too, could be in a mini stocking as a little stocking filler to really get in to the Christmas spirit?! (And we’ll be chatting about samples further in our blog too!)

Christmas Gift Table

Our fave! For all those gorgeous Christmas gifts and packages that you may have in the salon, its all about the presentation. Make these products seem more valuable and attractive by organising them on a glitzy present table. Get your best Christmas decs out; were thinking tinsel, holly, glitter and get to work – might even be a nice little fun task for one of your creative staff members to do one afternoon! A good one to boost morale also, as let’s face it, everyone loves trimming up!


Gift Vouchers

A great way to secure business for January, but taking the money upfront! For those clients who are last-minute, they may treat someone to a voucher for your salon if you advertise it well enough. And especially for those who know a friend or family member who is a regular at your shop, they may be likely to purchase a gift for them from you, so vouchers are the way to go to increase your early 2020 footfall. You could even theme these up to make them Christmas edition vouchers, have a word with a local graphic designer and see what they can come up with for you.

Limited Edition Stock Offers 

Speaking of Christmas edition, we know lots of you get seasonal stock in and especially for peak season, you may have limited edition Winter products. So, this is a great time to market these and make them seem more exclusive and selective to your clients. You can put an ‘end date’ on when they will be available to purchase as well to motivate clients to buy them before a certain date!


Samples

You may be refreshing your stock for January and Spring 2020, and so if you have your samples in of next year’s products’ already, then Christmas is a great time to start showcasing these to your clients ready for the New Year. If your customers have been able to try them out with their Christmas treatments, this will hopefully prompt them to be more in the mindset of purchasing the full product early next year. A good idea to push your 2020 retail sales.


Social Media Competition

Increase engagement on your social networks and create a competition where you could include a treatment for January as the prize? To secure some extra footfall and further social interaction in the New Year. It could be something as simple as ‘post your Christmas <treatment> photo’ or ‘send us your salon selfie after your treatment’ and you’ll be automatically entered in to our January prize draw. It’s up to you what the prize is, but we all know that everyone loves a competition and it’s a fun (and free way) to market your salon with some cost-effective social media engagement.


Complimentary Treats

Improve the festive cheer in the salon with some complimentary Christmas treats (and maybe even a few prosecco’s) whilst your clients are having their treatments this December! It’s also a great advertising package, if you share on social media that with every December treatment there will be some freebie refreshments, this is likely to 1. Improve the mood of your customers and 2. Prompt others to visit your salon in the future if they can see this type of valuable service. We all know happy clients = happy spending, if your salon atmosphere is on point at Christmas, this can then contribute to your upselling as your customers are more likely to buy an added Christmas treat/retail product if you’ve built up that rapport with them on their appointment beforehand.

So hopefully there’s something above that’s ticked a box that you think you could use to it’s potential this Christmas. And even ideas that you can take forward with you in to the New Year, as some of the points that we mentioned are relevant and can be applied to other seasons. For example, Wedding and Prom season in Summer to mention one.

However, we hope you have a very successful Christmas season, and if you use any of ideas, we’d love to know about it! Especially if you decorate a Gift table we especially love to see those, send them through to us on info@salontracker.co.uk and we’ll be happy to share these also on our social media channels for you!


Salon Tracker x

How to make the most of the Christmas Rush!

It feels like 2 minutes ago since we were writing our Christmas blogs last year, we can’t believe it is already this time of year again! As we are all aware, the festive season can be one of the busiest times of the year for salons so we thought we’d let you know some of our top tips on how to make the most of it.

Retail Bundles.

One way you could really make the most of the festive season is to create retail bundles with all of the retail products that you already sell. For example, if you are a hair salon and you offer retail products such as shampoo, conditioner and hairspray you could make up small bundles, maybe even knocking a few pounds off. You could then market these as gifts for people to buy their loved ones this Christmas. All you need to do it gather all the components together and put a Christmas bow around them, then they will fly out the salon!

Treatment Package.

Like the retail packages, treatment packages are sure to be a huge hit. Especially at this time of the year where a lot of people are wanting to feel a little more glam ahead of all the Christmas festivities and the yearly office Christmas parties. Selling a group of different treatments as a package deal, with a slight discount will encourage clients to get more treatments than they originally thought they wanted. For example, if you decide to do a treatment package including a manicure, pedicure, spray tan and eyebrow wax. You may find that people who originally wanted just a manicure and pedicure booking this package because they ‘may as well’ because you are offering them such a deal. 

Decorations.

One way to really get you, your employees and your clients into the Christmas spirit is to decorate your salon. This is a really simple and easy way to do this and will (hopefully) put a smile on everyone’s face. You can go all out with a tree, tinsel and fake snow or you could down the more understated route with some fairy lights and Christmas jumpers. No matter which route you feel fits your salon best, this will draw attention to your salon for passers-by and will also help keep morale up in this especially stressful period.

Marketing Campaigns.

A way to encourage your existing clients to book themselves a visit before Christmas is to send them out a marketing campaign. This could be advertising any new offers or packages or you could even do this just to wish your clients a happy new year. Here are some examples we did in Salon Trackers intelligent marketing suite,

Hi <<Forename>>

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

We hope you have a lovely Christmas and we can't wait to see you in the new year!

<<CompanyName>> <<CompanyTel>>

Hi <<Forename>>

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

Come visit us to book in for our amazing Christmas bundle before it's too late!

<<CompanyName>> <<CompanyTel>>

When you’re using Salon Trackers marketing feature, your client’s forename and all your company details will automatically come up in the text. This is also a one way, messaging system so clients will not be able to message you back, they would have to ring.  Remember, to avoid using two credits per message, keep all campaigns short, sweet and under 160 characters.

Competitions.

A final way to make the most of the Christmas rush is to put on a competition. You could do this on social media or just in store.  There are many different competitions that you could do. We’d recommend doing them on various different social media platforms such as Instagram or Facebook. One example of a competition you could do over Christmas is an ‘Elfie’ competition. You could challenge your clients to upload a selfie of one of their treatments they have had done at the salon, and get them to tag your salon page. You could then choose your favourite caption and give the winner a prize to use in the new year. This will get people, who may not have heard of you seeing pictures of your work and maybe make them want to book an appointment with you.

We hope these little tips and tricks will help you over the busy period and if you want more information on our software and the advanced marketing suite feature we offer please don’t hesitate to give us a call on 0113 350 8230 or email  info@salontracker.co.uk

Salon Tracker x