Supporting Our Salons During Covid-19

Supporting Our Salons During Covid-19

The recent and ongoing Covid-19 pandemic has been a really unprecedented time for us all, especially for the salon industry, as you were forced to close for almost 4 months. This has taken a huge toll on the financials of businesses, with the immediate pause on appointments not being able to take place, and with no forewarning.

When the government announced that all salons had to close, we were all already aware of the ongoing harrowing Covid-19 pandemic, however weren’t all necessarily prepared for the affect that it would have on local businesses as the lockdown lasted for several of the following months. 

For businesses especially in our salon sector and also for the hospitality industry, who rely solely on customers for their income, this took such a large toll on your businesses. And so, from the outset, we wanted to support you (our clients) as much as we possibly could, to ensure that you were able to sustain as much income as possible whilst the pandemic continued. We instantly froze all client’s subscriptions from 23^rd March, as it felt morally wrong to charge for a service that you were unable to use, even if that did mean that as a company we also took quite a large hit with income too. But we wanted to do what felt right, and look after our clients which always has, and always will be our number 1 priority.   

We left all payments frozen for the duration of the lockdown, until the government gave the go ahead for salons to open again. Dependent on type of salon and local area, the dates alternated for different salons, however we only resumed payments for each individual business when they themselves were actually able to open their doors.  And with the local lock downs, the subscription freeze remained in place, where we would only charge our clients when they could legally open their doors to trade.

Following that, we wanted to further support as we know currently footfall in salons has not returned back to the usual, first of all due to social distancing regulations and secondly, as the public are still apprehensive about visiting places. So, to alleviate the stress a little we have also offered all clients 50% off their next 3 months after they were able to re-open. We wanted to support during the aftermath of the lockdown, whilst appointment capacity is currently reduced meaning a lot of our salons are running on a reduced number of bookings compared to what you maybe typically used to. Evidently meaning there could also be a reduced income when you still have employee wages to pay!

Aside from supporting with subscriptions however, we also introduced some new features to the software, to help manage the new social distancing measures and make the organisation and running of our salons as safe as we could.

We saw such an increase in demand for our online booking over the lockdown, as a lot of salons opted for no walk-ins. So, for anyone that offers online booking within their salon, we introduced a booking delay time so that for every booking made, an instant gap was placed to allow for essential cleaning and also to adhere to social distancing, ensuring the previous clients had exited the premises before the next client arrived for their appointment. 

We also advanced our Siteview feature, to allow the adding, editing and cancelling of client bookings to be completed using a mobile app, instead of therapists needing to use the main Salon Tracker PC itself. Evidently, this was to stop overcrowding at the main salon reception desk and to allow employees to manage their bookings using their own devices.

And then, for anyone who wanted to trial our software we also extended the same offer to them too!

Then we also offered support & advice on cleaning measures, and to ensure masks/visors are worn (which is now since a government legal requirement). But with the cleaning, we can also ensure that the sunbeds cannot be set for a new customer until it has been deep cleaned with our 'dirty-bed' mode, that stops the integrated timers from being set until the bed has been set as 'clean'. With the cleaning for beauty/hair/nails, we can add any relevant amount of time automatically to an appointment, even if it is booked online, to allow for sufficient cleaning between customers. We then advise where you can you run a 1 way system, with separate entrances and exits to the salon if you can, and also try to get disposable towels (or ensure that after each client you wash towels/gowns on a high degree anti-bacterial wash, as a renewable option).

For any further advise on salon safety or if you would like to discuss any queries you may have, we are always on hand to help, or if you are new to us and are looking to trial the software now back to school is here, get your FREE trial in time for autumn by heading to www.salontracker.co.uk or call our team on 0113 350 8230!

We're so happy to be working with you again and hope the re-opening of your salons has been successful.

Salon Tracker x

Salon Tracker’s Top Beauty Picks from Lock down.

 

As lock down comes to an end, one thing that didn’t slow down was new tips and tricks from the beauty world. One of the main sources of these tips was Tiktok, an app many of our sales team spent a little too much time on! As many places are re-opening and life is slowly getting back to normal, we thought we’d share our favourites!

Heatless Curls

One of the hacks our sales team learnt was a new way to do heatless curls, one of the most popular hacks in our office. This is also known as ‘dressing gown curls’ and requires you to wrap your damp hair around your dressing gown cord, gradually adding bits in and then securing your hair at the bottom. You then need to leave this in for a few hours or even over night and your hair will be nice and curled, as though you’ve spent hours on it! This is great as you can do this on a night and by the time you wake up for work in the morning, your hair is basically done, plus you have the advantage of this not damaging your hair.  If you want to see how to do this, here’s a YouTube tutorial: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XBLpOqGWda0

Fluffy Brows

A makeup hack we learnt from tiktok was a new phenomenon called soap brows. This is a quick trick to give you full, fluffy brows using a bar of soap. Whilst you can get a product called ‘brow soap’ which seems to work slightly better, many tiktok users tried this trick with normal hand soap and it seemed to work nearly just as well. To do this trick all you will need to do is start with clean brows and your bar of soap. The you just need to slightly wet the soap and run your eyebrow brush through it. Then brush the soap through your brows in an upwards motion before shaping your brows to the shape you desire.  This will give you natural looking fluffy brows. Here’s a link where you can buy your own brow soap https://www.beautybay.com/p/wes

t-barn-co/soap-brows/?ctyid=gb&gclsrc=aw.ds&&gclid=EAIaIQobChMIp-mv1fu46wIVCe3tCh2SSgXBEAQYASABEgJkzvD_BwE

Fake Tan Contour

Another trick we have learnt over lock down is how to contour your face (and body) using fake tan.  This will mean that you can roll out of bed in the morning with a nice chiselled look, with no time or make up needed.  All you need to do is do your fake tan routine as normal, but after this is done, you’ll just need to grab a makeup brush. Then you can get your fake tan on the brush and start shading in areas that you’d like a little more definition in such as your cheek bones and nose, we’re even seen some people using this to contour some abs and muscles!

Henna Freckles

One running theme with all these hacks is the ‘no makeup makeup look’ and minimum effort on the day to day. This tip is no different. One of the most popular new trends, that comes and goes fairly regularly is faux freckles.  Whilst many people were blessed with natural freckles, there is a handful of us who are unfortunately not. Whilst there are many makeup products that you can use to create freckles on the day to day, one new trick that has come out of lockdown is henna freckles. This is where you use henna to create the faux freckle look and this will last a few days or even weeks! There are loads of helpful videos on how to do this on YouTube and tiktok but we should mention that you need to make sure that you get a trustworthy henna and do a patch test first. Here are some great temporary products you could use instead of henna or to practice with - https://www.beautybay.com/p/freck/faux-freckle-cosmetics-neutral/?ctyid=gb&gclsrc=aw.ds&&gclid=EAIaIQobChMItIL3g4K56wIVYIBQBh0wXQCUEAQYASABEgKd9_D_BwE

These tips and tricks helped us through lock down so we hope some of these may work for you too!

 

If your Salon has just re opened or if you’re getting ready to re-open and you want to be a bit more organised why not take advantage of our FREE two-week trial? Just give us a call on 0113 350 8230 to get booked in now!

Were also going to be at Pro Beauty London on the 10^th-12^th of October so come pay us a visit there to ask any questions or take a look at our software!

 

Salon Tracker Team x

It's been a year!

It has been a very different year to say the least!




I’m sure I have had the pleasure of speaking to the majority of our clients, If you haven’t spoken to me yet… I’m Halle. I am part of the marketing and sales team at Salon Tracker Software.

I started working at Salon Tracker at the start of August this tends to be our more off-peak season which meant that my first few weeks were focused on learning the software and all aspects of the job. When I first started at Salon Tracker, I found it very difficult to build my confidence which is a natural thing when starting a new job role, I would always double check with my colleagues before answering client’s questions. However, a month down the line I was able to confidently answer client’s questions without questioning myself. Confidence is key and now that mine had been built I was able to take on more responsibilities. I also built my courage through dealing with a variety of different tasks and by the end of the year I was able to carry out my day to day responsibilities without any hesitation.

After time passed, I became more confident therefore I was able to carry out complex tasks independently. An example of this is the education project that I was given responsibility over, I started from scratch and created all the tools and brochures that I needed in order to expand Salon Trackers clientele to the educational sector. I took on meetings with multiple staff members from a variety of colleges and began to develop my knowledge on how the software can be tailored to the educational sector. From these meetings i developed further knowledge on how to deal with our new clientele and what information they needed to know at which stage throughout the process of setting up the software.

I then started to work closely with my manager and fellow colleague to create new and edit already existing brochures. Myself and Naomi began the task of recreating the Salon Tracker Main Brochure which is sent out to all potential clients, this was a very difficult task at first. Once we completed and reviewed the changes both together and independently it became easier to notice the errors that were made and what action was required to correct these.

I also took on the role of creating multiple users guides for specifics features such as our site view and online booking applications as well as creating an overall user guide of the software. Within these user guides there are images and arrows on each page describing and showing the clients how to carry out specific tasks. This idea was an original and came to me when I spoke to customers who struggled with the software and how to carry out daily tasks therefore, I created the user help guides to assist clients with the functionality of the software.

Overall, the past year has been quite enjoyable. Despite everything that I have previously learnt I am constantly looking to expand my knowledge of new things. I am loving getting to know are existing and new clients. I have many projects planned for the near future so keep tuned to see what the Salon Tracker team is up to over the coming year.


I hope to hear from you soon!


Halle.

How to bounce back after Lockdown

I know lock-down seems like it never really happened, and it was all just a bad dream but the reality is that it definitely did happen and your Salons were closed for just under 4 months! That's 1/3rd of the whole year! And that also means 33% of bookings, takings and your day to day social interaction taken from you... so what now? How can you make up for that lost time and come back stronger than ever? Well I've got just the tips you'll need, so keep reading! 

For all you hair, tanning and nail salons, you'll probably have already experienced the initial rush of all your clients going crazy for their first appointment after lock-down to get their short fingernails looking luxuriously long again or more importantly to get their severely grown out roots back a beaming blonde along with finally getting their summer tan and now its been over a month since you opened, you're probably wondering when the next rush will be... well why not try the following:

An SMS marketing campaign!

If you didn't already know, Salon Tracker has a built in marketing suite where you can send your clients a text directly from the software promoting an offer or you can specifically filter out a selected audience of customers e.g customers who haven't visited in a while and send just that group of customers a texts tempting them with an offer of 15% off if they book an appointment in the next month which will bring your clients back in and keep you busy enough too! P.S, if you're not quite sure on how to use your marketing suite, just give us a call on 0113 350 8230 and we'll give you a free training session on it! Or... just head to your Salon Tracker help section and there's a full help video on it.

The classic recommend a friend campaign!

Why not get your loyal customers to rave just a little bit more (than they already do) about your amazing salon but this time do it for a reward! For every friend they refer, why not give them a voucher of £5 to redeem off any treatment or product? This way, not only are you gaining new customers, but you are also encouraging your current customers to visit again! 

Claim that online presence!

In this day and age, having a broad social presence is extremely important as nearly 1/3rd of the worlds population use Social media regularly and social media is the hub of finding a good business, just like yours. Being a young adult myself, I know that all of the places I have ever had an appointment with have been found online - especially Instagram. It is the common trend to get your hair done and post on your feed #newhairday then tag the salon that created this look for you. Not only is this a free form of marketing for you, it is done completely off your clients back shared with all their followers.Their followers will then click on your profile and see all the work you've done and want to book an appointment themselves... which is where having online booking becomes important. Over the past 4 months, our customers upgrading to our online Enterprise package has increased by around 60% resulting in our Enterprise package now being our most popular. You'll find that your bookings will increase dramatically by having online booking as again, the millennial era are much more inclined to book online rather than having to ring up, especially if your social media pages are tempting enough!

For you guys that unfortunately haven't opened yet... beauty salons, aesthetic clinics, lash parlours... we really feel your pain and we are so happy you finally get to open again in a couple of days time! We know you're going to be extremely busy for the next month or so and we know exactly how to best handle it with these following tips:

Make use of your break slots!

Within Salon Tracker you're able to add breaks in not only on the current day but you can also add them in advance routinely e.g 1pm every day meaning that nobody can book an appointment (online and in salon) over that set break which means you'll actually give yourself a break in the busy times to come! To add a routine break in go to Management -> booking items -> click edit on the person you want to put a break in for -> click on breaks tab and click add -> set the type to the desired amount of types you want the break to reoccur. Breaks are essential and you will definitely thank me later!

Encourage your clients to use online booking

Rather than your phone and messages me absolutely bombarded, make it clear that the only form of bookings you'll be accepting is online bookings and send them the direct link making it nice and easy for them. They can also cancel their booking directly from the mobile web app so you can invest all that time into appointments and sorting the Salon! 

Take advantage of the re-book feature

To make sure this big wave of clients isn't just a one-hit-wonder, you should make full use of the re-book button which pops up right after you've confirmed the appointment. You can then book them in for a routine appointment like waxing for 2-3 weeks from the current date and it'll bring you up all the available time slots so there's no room for double booking errors. Better yet, you can print them a reminder in the same transaction! This will put you at ease knowing you're not just going to have one busy month and make it more of a continuous thing.

That's about it for today, if you do have any questions regarding any of the above information then please get in touch on 0113 350 8230 or alternatively email us at info@salontracker.co.uk and we'll be happy to help!

If you do not have the software at all and would like some help managing your busy diary then please do enquire at https://www.salontracker.co.uk/FreeTrial.aspx and a member of the team will be in touch as soon as!

Best wishes,

Salon Tracker x 

Deferred Beauty Salon Re-opening, Leicester and Aberdeen Lockdown

Hi Everyone,

Hope you are all still keeping well!

So another little update from us (Feel like we've been doing a lot of those recently!)

So unfortunately, we received the news that the reopening of contact-service beauty salons was deferred for a further fortnight from the 1st August, and we were given 15th August as the earliest re-opening date. 

And this week we have also seen parts of Leicester have to re-close again, following your re-opening Monday.

Aberdeen also saw a local lock down earlier this week, with salons been forced to close there for a minimum of 1 week too.

Therefore, we just wanted to let all of our clients know that if you are in any of these affected areas, we will continue to, or re-freeze your subscriptions, payments will remain frozen until you can re-open, where we will then credit any pre-paid days for you.

You can still use your software during this time for reports, training and accountancy purposes!

And if you have any questions, please don't hesitate to contact our team who are happy to help, mon-fri 9-5!

Keep posted on our news page for all updates, where we will also be giving you some tips next week on how to bounceback business post-lockdown.

Until then, stay safe and take care!

Salon Tracker x

Re-opening of all Beauty Salons!

Since the re-opening of most UK salons on 13th July, we have had the pleasure of being able to speak to lots of you again and help you to re-setup your salons after the recent lock-down. We saw many of our salons in Scotland be able to finally re-open their salons on 15th and 22nd of July too, all our gyms on 25th July and finally our salons in Wales were able to open on 27th July!


We're so happy that finally for the rest of you this Saturday 1st August, all of our remaining beauty salon clients are able to open! We're so glad to be able to work with all of you again. And for your subscriptions, don't forget we are giving you 50% off your next 3 months and also crediting any pre-paid days from before the lock-down, to further support you during this time.


We're aware that unfortunately for all of our lovely clients in Leicester, you are still in a local lock-down, so for you all of your subscriptions will still remain frozen until further notice from the government regarding lifting of the local lock-down. And then as soon as we have this date, the same deal will apply to you and you too will receive 50% off your subscriptions for the first 3 months once you are able to re-open again (plus all credited days from before the lock-down will still apply).

We look forward to speaking with you all again soon! And keep posted on our news page over the next few weeks, as we will be offering tips and advice for how you can bounce-back your business following the lock-down.


Good luck this weekend! 

The Salon Tracker Team

Re-Opening Is Finally Here!

Hi Everyone,

The day has arrived! for most of you the long wait is finally over!!
We are so pleased that you are able to re-open.

For all of our customers, you will have received a couple of emails last night about your salon re-opening and your Salon Tracker Subscription renewing, from Monday 13th July (England) and Wednesday 15th July (Scotland).

And for those of you that are unfortunately still awaiting a date:

Please note: this only applies if you are able to re-open next week.
We understand that there are a number of salons that aren't able to re-open in Scotland until Wednesday 22nd July, a number of salons in Wales still awaiting a re-opening date and a number of salons in England also waiting for a re-opening date, due to certain beauty contact treatments.

We just wanted to reassure you that:
We won't be reactivating your subscription payment until you are legally able to re-open.

Therefore, for all salons in Scotland that have a re-opening date of 22nd of July, the same below rules will apply for your re-opening, but from Wednesday 22nd July instead!

Any salons still awaiting a re-opening date, the same rules will apply from when you are able to re-open.

You may require your activation code on re-licensing if you haven't been in contact with us already.

We are open now (10th July) to begin taking calls to reactivate licenses. Please bare with us if you can't get through on the line, as we will have a high volume of calls due to the amount of salons requiring assistance. We promise, we will get back to everyone! 

We will also be covering Saturday 11th 8.30-4.30 and Sunday 12th 10-2 for further support.

We will also now be resuming all subscriptions from Monday 13th July (England) and Wednesday 15th July (Scotland) for all salons that can re-open.

If you are a tanning, beauty or nail salon in Scotland, your subscription will resume from
Wednesday 22nd July.

Please note: all payments will be 50% off for the first 3 months, to further support you during this time. We will also be honouring all pre-paid days from before the lockdown, so your subscription will resume following those credited days. Therefore, depending how many days you had remaining, your payment may be processed later in July or August.

If you are a salon in the UK, who is yet to still receive a re-open date, please note your subscription will still remain frozen.

If you have any further questions during this time, please don't hesitate to contact us.

We're so excited and can't wait to be working with you all again!

Best Wishes,
The Salon Tracker Team.