Salon Tracker Webinar: Extending Course Expiry Dates and Crediting Client Services! Weds 9th April 11.00am

Welcome to Salon Tracker Webinars!

Morning guys, Happy Wednesday! (Just to remind you what day of the week it is! Seems like they’ve all merged in to one at the minute!) But we hope you are all keeping well and staying safe at home during these unprecedented times.

So, during this time we appreciate it’s been really difficult for all salon owners and your employees too with the forced closure of your businesses, everyone’s usual day to day routine changes and many of you find yourself with a lot of spare time on your hands. It’s been a very different day to day for us too, as we’re used to speaking to you all most days to help with management, training and marketing advice for your salons. With that said, that’s why our team have got our heads together to see how we can help you guys out during this time, to also prepare you for once we return to some normality!

And so, introducing ‘Salon Tracker Webinars’! As you are already aware if you are a customer of ours, we have frozen ALL your subscription payments for the foreseeable, as we wanted to ensure that we are looking after you in this time and appreciate the use of the software is limited. However, just because we have paused payments, it doesn’t mean we have paused our support to you, and so all webinars are FREE!

Not only did we want to look after you, we wanted you to be able to look after your clients too, which is how we identified what our first webinar was going to be about.

We understand that a lot of your clients will have purchased services prior to the lock down, with some of them potentially buying these literally days before you were forced to close. And if any of these courses or packages have expiry dates, the time that we are in the lock down will have eaten in to those clients already bought services.

And so, for our first session we’re going to show you how to extend expiry dates, re-activate expired services, credit services to a client’s course and even give you a head start on some ‘Welcome Back’ offers to be having a think about!

For those of you who are in the tanning industry (where most of your courses will have expiry dates) we will also be writing scripts to be able to do blanket course extensions too once you can reopen! But this webinar was aimed at showing you how you can manually extend courses using the software, and credit services when your clients do eventually come back in to the salon, to also make their welcome back appointment more personable too if you are extending/crediting their services in front of them.

So, when can you catch this webinar?

We will be going LIVE on zoom tomorrow (Thurs 9th April) at 11.00am! It will last around 30 minutes, consisting of a 15 min webinar and then some time for Q&A at the end!

All details are below:


Salon Tracker is inviting you to a scheduled Zoom meeting.

Join Zoom Meeting
https://us04web.zoom.us/j/205954026?pwd=d2M5VlNTbW1ON0lONWtWL0crUGxPUT09

Meeting ID: 205 954 026
Password: 020263


Simply click that link tomorrow morning 5 or 10 mins before 11, and you should be prompted to download zoom and then you’ll be good to go! I have left the meeting ID and password there, should you need it, however by clicking the link this should be enough to enable you to join.

Hope to see you there, in the meantime take care and stay safe!

Salon Tracker x

How to Keep Busy With Your Salon Whilst at Home

Before we get into the blog, just for any our customers that aren’t already aware, we have frozen all payments for your software subscription. We are wishing you all the best during this time and look forward to speaking with you in the near future.

As I’m sure is the case for many of you right now, times are very tough and there’s a lot of unknown and panic surrounding what’s going to happen in the coming weeks. Sadly, no one really knows the full extent of what will happen, so today I’m going to try a highlight a few positive areas and ways in which you can stay on top of your salon jobs and marketing during this time.

Keep in touch with your customers
Now more than ever will your customers be using their phones and browsing the internet, presenting you with the perfect opportunity to ensure that you remain stuck in their minds until you reopen. Now obviously, when everything is back to normal you will expect to have a huge rush from your regular customers, having gone weeks or months without a treatment, and this is going to be great for your business to reintroduce itself. However, you also need to be trying to target new customers during this time, in order to keep a strong and steady cash flow when you do reopen. If you don’t maintain regular contact with your customers, and this can just be done via social media on Facebook and Instagram, it could result in a number of your customers going and trying a different salon, which could result in you losing out on hundreds and thousands of revenue. All it requires is just to post maybe 2/3 times a week just checking in on your clients and it will allow you to stay present in their minds.

Use social media marketing 
Now that you do have more time, it means you can spend time on organising a schedule for your marketing posts, this can range from images that have been taken of clients’ treatments in the salon, a relatable quotes, videos…anything. I’ve actually seen a few salons I follow myself on Instagram doing quizzes to keep their clients engaged! I’ve seen some salons offer prizes and some just doing it for fun, obviously whenever there’s some sort of reward up for grabs its going to catch the attention of someone more. So it might be a good idea to start off with one including a few prizes and then you can keep switching between the two, this doesn’t need to be done too often but I’d say at least once a week and try do them on the same day and time every week so people begin to catch on and remember to join in more often. By including prizes for a treatment at your salon, it will help to bring in new customers which will hopefully continue returning once they’ve had a treatment!

Send out a survey to your customers
Another great way to keep your customers engaged with your salon, whilst being able to find out from them what improvements they would like to see, is by sending out a short survey somewhere between 5-10 questions. This is a great way not only to find out things like which treatment customers like the most, but also allows you to see if there’s any treatments that clients would like you to introduce in the future. The best way to go about it I would say is to use SurveyMonkey.com to initially create your survey, and then you can just post the link on your social media pages asking if customers wouldn’t mind spending a few minutes of their time to fill it out for you. I mean, time is all that a lot of people have at the minute, so you should be able to get quite a few responses from this. Although it’s important to get it sent out to the customers, it’s then what you actually do with the information and data you’ve received. So, you might want to spend some time analysing the information and then putting a plan into place about how you go about meeting any requests or changes customers have asked for. Once you have a plan in place, you may then want to use social media again to tell your clients about the plans you have made. For example, if the survey results showed that a lot of customers wanted you to introduce a new treatment, you can post to tell them that it’s something you’ll be introducing when you’re back open. This will help to again build engagement and also get clients excited for when you do reopen, meaning that they are more likely to book. It could also encourage others to that haven’t visited your salon before to make an appointment, as they may be interested in trying out your new treatment.

Keep your employees in the loop
It’s also super important to keep your employees in the loop and to stay in contact with them. If you haven’t already it would be great to make a group chat so you can all stay in contact and check up on each other, and it also makes it easier to update everyone on any news regarding the salon as everyone is in one place. It’s also great if you can encourage staff, and even regular customers or family and friends to share are key marketing posts or updates regarding your salon to give a better chance of reaching your client base.

Use this time to train on Salon Tracker 

There might some features you’re not sure how to use on the software, or even some that you didn’t know existed, so this is a great time to brush up on software and make sure that you’re using it to the full potential. We are still open and working, so if you do have any questions or want training on aspects of the software the team are more than happy to help you with that. We are actually planning some webinars to hold over the coming weeks, so even if you don’t have access to the software currently, you can still connect and join in! We will be posting information and sending out emails with exact information regarding these in the coming days, so make sure you keep an eye out for this.



As I mentioned we are still open for business, all working from home but we’re still able to help you out if you do have any questions. If you are interested in trialling our salon management software during this time, you do get a free 2-week trial and free training which can all be done online and over the phone. If you would like to get booked in for this then you can email us at on info@salontracker.co.uk or alternatively you can call on 0113 350 8230 and we will be happy to arrange that with you.

We are wishing all salon owners the best during this time.

Salon Tracker x

Salon Trackers Top Picks for Hair, Beauty, Nails and Skin Care

For this week’s blog we have decided to let you know our team’s top picks for hair, beauty nails and skincare!

Barry M Nail Polish

One of our top picks for nails is Barry M nail polish. They have a massive range of colours and different formula’s all for cheap and cheerful prices. They have a huge range of normal polishes and gel polishes for just £3.99 a bottle. To make it even better the Barry M Nail line is 100% vegan and cruelty free! You can shop the whole range here -  https://barrym.com/collections/nails

Nivea Tinted Moisturiser

Tinted moisturiser is also a firm favourite in the office. It is perfect for everyday in the office or out and about. Tinted moisturisers, unlike foundations are a lot lighter on the skin and more natural looking. Out top pick is the Nivea one. This comes in a few shades and is available in boots and Superdrug!

Double Wear Estee Lauder

We know that for certain occasions tinted moisturiser just doesn’t have the coverage we need. This is why the Estee Lauder Double Wear Foundation. This foundation is a staple for many of out team as is long wearing and leaves your skin looking smooth whilst still looking somewhat natural. You can shop this here https://www.esteelauder.co.uk/ and we’ve also heard that Primark beauty have a great  dupe for this if you’re not wanting to spend that much!

Garnier Hair Food Mask

When it comes to haircare, one thing we love is the Garnier Hair Food Masks. They come in three different scents for different hair types. Even better you can use it in 3 different ways! It can be used as a conditioner, rinse out mask or a leave in conditioner for we or dry hair! You can see the collection here https://www.garnier.co.uk/our-brands/hair-care/ultimate-blends/hair-food and right now they’re on offer for 2 for £8 at boots so snap them up whilst you still can!

Dermalogica Skincare

Dermalogica skincare is also a necessity in our office. They have a wide range of products for all different sorts of skin types. They also offer a digital skin analysis which helps you work out what sort of skin types you have and what products you may need if you’re unsure. You can shop the collection and work out what your skin needs here www.dermalogica.co.uk

Body Shop Hand Crème

Hand crème is especially important in times like these where you’re hands may be a little dry from all the extra washing! At Salon Tracker we all make sure we’ve got at least one hand crème from the body shops at our desks at all times. There is a range of different scents and also often seasonal scents that are limited edition. You can get yours here www.thebodyshop.com

Due to the current circumstances Salons are facing in the UK and Ireland we have currently put all subscription payments on hold until salons are able to get back up and running. During this time we advise all out customers to keep using their software for any training or financial purposes. We are also looking at running some workshops and seminars so stay tuned for the announcement on that!

Stay Safe!

Salon Tracker x

How to keep busy during unfortunate downtime in the Salon

It’s the middle of March already and right now you would probably expect to be on the

horizon of your busiest period of the year in the Salon. But… with the pandemic disaster in full swing, you’re no doubt going to struggle to keep a busy Salon whilst all this is going on. Not to worry! There are plenty of ways you can keep busy in this unfortunate downtime and we’re going to tell you exactly how...

First of all – if you don’t have Salon Tracker, now is the perfect time for a free trial!

Salon Tracker is a very effective way of keeping on top of the Salon in terms of appointments, SMS reminders, marketing texts, stock control, business reports & lots more! Whilst you are having some downtime in the Salon, why not try a 2-week free trial of the software and see how it could work for you? We offer free, unlimited training as well as support and there are no set-up fees. If you’re currently with another software provider, we will transfer your clients from that software in the trial period and will also offer your first 3 months at 30% off for moving from another provider! If this sounds good to you, then just go to https://www.salontracker.co.uk/FreeTrial.aspx and a member of the team will be in touch as soon as possible to get this arranged for you.

A marketing campaign

Around this time of the year, you may find it difficult finding any time to fit in a quick marketing campaign to send to your clients. So now is the perfect opportunity to perhaps send a campaign out informing your clients about an offer you are holding on gift cards. For example, you could put an offer on that entitles clients to buy a £30 voucher for the price of £25 and so on. Not only will this give you that bit of income in this quiet period but it will ensure clients will be coming back in when this disaster has calmed down and also encourage the rebooking of brand-new clients!

A big spring clean/ makeover

I know its often hard to find the time to do a thorough clean of the Salon and it probably bugs you that you can’t get it as clean as you want it. Well now’s the perfect opportunity to do so! If you’ve got a day where you’ve got next to no appointments in, grab your cleaning stuff and hinch away. Not only will it leave your Salon sparkling, but it will also boost your mood! Even better still, if you’ve been thinking of redecorating the Salon to have it exactly as you want it, why not go for it and get your staff in on it as well instead of hiring decorators? This will keep you busy for a few days and will really give the team the opportunity to bond as well as being extremely satisfying when you’re finished.

If you are still busy in the Salon then that’s great, just make sure you take all the precautionary measures to ensure you and your staff are safe as well your clients. A little notice board inside and outside of the Salon as well as being promoted on social media is where you can start. 

The notice board should include:

• If anyone with an appointment booked or wants to use the sunbeds, please make sure you have had no sign of any COVID-19 symptoms e.g a high temperature, a cough, shortness of breath. If you do, please rearrange your appointment to the late future!

• If you are still attending the Salon, please make sure you wash your hands as soon as you enter the Salon. Hand sanitiser will also be provided.

• Ensure we at the Salon are taking extra precautionary measures to make the Salon as safe as possible, we always disinfect equipment after every client.

• Anything else you feel is important.

If you still don’t want to risk the Salon being open, you could encourage your clients to purchase gift cards for their nearest and dearest or for themselves for the future when all of this has blown over -just to keep your head above water in this global disaster.

In light of the current pandemic - we are all working from home however if you do have any questions just give us a call on 0113 350 8230 or email info@salontracker.co.uk and we’ll be happy to help - it is business as usual!

Salon Tracker x

Business Planning for SS/20

Nearly through the first quarter of the year already! So now is definitely the time to start looking in to planning for the next season, as days get longer and nights get lighter – you want to ensure that your business has a Spring/Summer strategy in place to work towards.

This is also a great time to reflect on the last quarter, to also see where you are against the targets you set yourself for the past 3 months, and how business has been since the New Year. It’s also a good time to measure success against where you were this time last year, and see if you’ve had any improvements. A lot of businesses find that this is also the perfect time for a team night out, to boost staff morale and keep the work place atmosphere up! Quarterly reviews are also a great time to implement any changes that you feel necessary for the salon as we head towards Spring/Summer – maybe it’s a good time to refresh retail ranges and also improve the salon aesthetics in time for the new season.

So, first of, what can you capitalise on during the next few months to create some PR and social media marketing coverage. The first big one, in a couple of weeks, is Mother’s Day; on Sunday 22nd March this year so it’s around now that you need to start pushing your Mother’s Day offers so that your customers are aware of this on time. What are you thinking of doing this year at the salon? Common advertises include, ‘Mother and Daughter Pamper Days’ or ‘Family treatment days’ – especially if you are the owner of a spa or gym. You can create a family wellness package so that sons and daughters can take their parents to celebrate Mother’s Day together. 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!

Next up, Easter! Falling this year on Sunday 12th March, you’ll always find that clients want their ‘bank holiday pamper’ in time for their night out. So, 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 ‘Easter Bundle’ consisting of a couple of mini beauty treatments and maybe a hair style? These can then be pushed on your social media channels and can also lead to an ‘Easter Styling Competition’, where you could ask any clients who have had any seasonal treatments to share these online, tagging your salon, to then be entered in to a competition? This gets people shouting about your business, improves online engagement & promotion, whilst also making a bit of fun for the clients too!

Speaking of Bank Holidays, the Easter weekend is closely followed by Mayday and Spring Bank, in which this year the first May Bank Holiday actually falls on a Friday, which will contribute to the amount of clients looking for their Friday night style-up! It’s also a great marketing technique to promote the change in 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. You might even look at running a ‘Bank Holiday Beauty event’ which you could advertise to clients to attend with friends and family. If some of the client’s friends haven’t been to the salon before, this then helps with your salon reputation and WOM promotion, by creating a fun event for everyone to talk about.

Following all these Spring events, we then head in to Peak Wedding Season and also Proms & Graduations too, so you definitely want to start marketing your special packages early Spring, as lots of salons will be pushing similar promotions and so you want to make sure you are at the head of your game. Especially in the tanning market, we know this can be quieter over June/July and so this is a great time to boost spray tans and safe tanning over Summer! If there are quieter weeks for you, this could be a great time to push your salons blog, getting your staff members to write some Spring/Summer articles to boost your salon awareness. These could be anything from Summer wedding styling, to new seasonal products that you are going to be offering. This then creates some PR around your salon to be able to push online through your blogs and also share on social media, in the hope that this is re-shared/posted by people who follow your salon social networks.

Once you have planned for all of the above events, it may then be good to set yourself some new targets for the second quarter, taking you to the end of Summer, in order to track business performance based on Q1 to Q2. By doing this planning, you then allow your business to measure success before you head in to the Autumn, and shortly after that the Christmas period, so it is your Summer months that really set you up for the second half of the year. Towards the middle of Q2, around May/June time, this is a good time to check-out and plan for Autumn events, just as we are suggesting you do now for Summer, to get you in good stead for each season.

Finally, get yourself a company planner, that maybe even your employees can contribute to too. Plan in sessions to analyse business measurements and also some sessions to chat to your staff about business performance and how their work is impacting your growth. Make sure to do regular reviews with employees too, as the more your staff understand about your business the better this is work team morale and also this helps to boost motivation if employees have clear goals to work towards.

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! Look forward to hearing from you and helping you to boost sales this Spring/Summer!

Salon Tracker x

Meet the Salon Tracker Team

When Salon Tracker was first built there were only five staff members, six years on and we now have a team of over thirteen people, the expansion is tremendous and will continue through the years. As time has passed, we have welcomed many fantastic new team members. Let’s take a look at each team member working at Salon Tracker currently. 

Toby and Conor are members of our support team, they help the girls working within the sales and marketing team to find a solution when an error or problem occurs. They are always there to support their fellow staff members and Salon Tracker customers and they offer their assistance in all situations which can be difficult. 

Nicola is the head of the sales and marketing team at Salon Tracker, she sets achievements for the sales team to meet each year and will break these down into specific targets to reach each month. She is currently managing our multi-site salon project and will be dealing with all enquiries who have multiple salons. When her fellow team members are uncertain on how to carry out specific tasks she is always there to support and assist them, such a lovely manager. She is unlucky when it comes to holidays for example her most recent trip to Lanzarote started two days late after a sand storm hit the island and she was stuck in Alicante. Not the first unlucky trip she has had unfortunately. When the team carry out a fuddle, she has been voted the best fuddle food provider with her range of gluten free options.   

Joseph is the newest member of the Salon Tracker team and has been labelled a technical wizard by his fellow colleagues, as he’s always on hand to provide a solution to the range of different problems Salon Tracker face on a daily basis. Joe has been a part of the office now for just over four months now and has been a fast learner in regards to the software. He encourages his fellow team members to eat healthy with his Huel regime and meal prep however he is known for his regular cheat days, which influence the rest of the team, McDonald's Monday did someone say?

Halle is the newest member of the Salon Tracker sales and marketing team and is currently managing the companies Educational Salon Software project and will be dealing with all enquires regarding beauty academies. Even though she has only been with the company for six months now she has learnt a lot during her time with her fellow team members and is assisting customers throughout their journey with Salon Tracker, she has been labelled friendly by many. Colleagues state that she is the best dressed in the office and has never been seen without a face of makeup. Halle is known be her fellow team members as being the office organizer as her desk is always extremely clean, she doesn’t like boxes and always disposes of them from the office.

Naomi has been apart of the Salon Tracker team for over two years now she was the first apprentice to join the Salon Tracker team, her knowledge about the software and the company allows her to assist her fellow team members. She is also known as the technology wizard when joe is busy the team turn to her for her knowledge and support, she is always on hand to help. The girls in the office know Naomi best for her love of prosecco, she's the life and soul of the party, when work events are arranged, she must attend. Naomi likes to play tricks on her fellow team members, she’s a joker and makes her team laugh on a regular basis.

Leah is a member of the sales and marketing team at Salon Tracker, she is currently managing and supporting our hair and beauty clients as part of her new project. She is always helpful to her fellow team members and continuously provides support to customers. She is the designated driver when work events take place such as the Christmas works party as she is extremely reliable. Tea duty is extremely important to the Salon Tracker office and Leah is always on hand to make the cup of teas and coffees without a doubt the best tea maker in the office.

Christie has also been a member of the Salon Tracker team for over two years now and at the moment is managing the company’s tanning clients as part of her company project. She is a dedicated hard worker who is always here to help her fellow team members. Christie is best known for her cake baking however she is yet to win the office bake off. The office prankster is her most popular trait every day without a fail she carry’s out a prank on at least one person in the office. The office turns to Christie when in need of a snack as her snack draw is the best in the office.

If you would like any further information or would like to get booked in for your FREE demo and two week trial contact us on 0113 350 8230 or email info@salontracker.co.uk.

Salon Tracker. X

Using Reports To Help Grow Your Salon Business

For those of you that already have Salon Tracker, I’m sure you already know about our amazing reports suite. We have plenty of different reports on the software, from the more basic cashing up report to the more complex reports like sales summary by category, there’s one for everything. Although you might already use the reports to get the figures and information you want, you might not be using them to your full advantage, and that’s where I step in. 

Sales by Hour

Once you’ve had the software for a few months, the reports will be able to give you a more accurate overview. The Sales by Hour is a great report, as it lets you see your peak hours when you’re super busy, and then the quieter periods where business is a little bit slower. From this you could then look to introduce a Happy Hour scheme, as this will help to improve business and revenue during these quieter periods. I mean you might as well give it a try and see if there’s any difference!

Sales by Day

This one is very similar to the sales by hour report, but it’s going to show you a bar chart of your sales by day. This is another great one, as it will give you an overall view of your best-selling days or your not so good days. This is a great one to pair with the Sales by Hour report if you are thinking of introducing a Happy Hour scheme, as you might want to look at only applying it on specific days. For example, if we look at the Sales by Day chart you can see that Sunday is the worst performer, however in most cases salons are open for limited hours on Sundays, so I am going to ignore this and look at the next lowest. Both Monday and Wednesday are showing similar figures, if we then look back to the sales by hour chart, it might be a good idea to introduce the Happy Hour on Monday and Wednesday only, between 12pm and 2pm. You can even set it up on Salon Tracker to only give discounts within a certain time period, which is great as it means that staff don’t need to remember to put the discount on themselves when putting sales through as everything is auto!

 

Retail Sales by Number Sold

This is a great report if you are wanting to focus on your retail sales, as it will list your best and worst selling items. This is great as it means that you can narrow down your stock to be the ones that you know your customers like, this will reduce your overall costs as you won’t be buying as many products. It also gives you more ability to try out new and different products, as you will have more budget to spend. By using this report, you could also look at increasing your prices on your best- selling products, as customers will still be likely to buy them even if the price is slightly higher. This doesn’t have to be anything ridiculous; it can just be a 50p or £1 increase.

Booking by Numbers Confirmed

This is another great report if you are wanting to look at your services in more detail, to see which services are performing well. As you can see on the report you will get a break down of your best to work selling service. This again is very similar to the retail sales by number sold, as you can see which services aren’t worth selling, and again which ones are your most popular so you can look to increase the price.

Hopefully this has helped you to understand how the reports suite in Salon Tracker can help you improve your business and grow your sales! If you aren’t already a customer of Salon Tracker and would be interested in taking a look at the software you can register for your free demo and trial here www.salontracker.co.uk/freetrial.aspx or alternatively you can call us on 0113 350 8230 and someone will be happy to help.

Don’t forget we are exhibiting at this year’s Professional Beauty London! Don’t hesitate to drop by our stand (S35), you can meet the team and have a live demonstration of the software. We look forward to seeing everyone there!

Salon Tracker x