30 Mar 2022

We are Exhibiting at PB London this weekend! Come and see us on stand Q32!

We’re exhibiting at the show!

We can’t believe it, Professional Beauty London is only a few days away, it doesn’t seem like 2 minutes since we were last there and it’s been 6 months! And what a busy couple of months it has been, where we are so happy to finally announce that we have launched our online payments feature for tanning courses! So, we can now offer payments through stripe for all of our clients, whether you are wanting beauty/hair deposits, or wanting clients to purchase tanning bundles upfront, we’ve got you covered. We can also offer Klarna as a payment method, meaning that this allows your clients to buy now and pay later for their courses.

We also have lots of new features to demo to you, including our brand-new age verification tool, that only allows courses to be sold if there has been a proof of identity verified on the account. This is an extra security step to ensure that no one under the age of 18 can use a tanning bed. We also have a whole range of new reports to demonstrate, allowing you to get further insight in to your business and your KPI’s, plus these can be viewed on our Siteview app which is now editable! Appointments can now be made, updated and amended within the app, which is also native in the app store and on google play; in which all salon owners and employees can download and use on their phones & tablets. Making the ease of usage of the app even better now!

We also partner with both Dojo Payments and Star Micronics, in which both of these brand’s equipment work hand in hand together to create the seamless retail solution! We will be showcasing the new Star TSP100IV on stand, to show you how you can print client receipts and the also end of day reports from the printer. The new printer is also much smaller in size, meaning that this saves space at your registration desk to allow for a much smarter looking solution. Dojo have some new, compact card readers to go alongside the new printer, working hand in hand to create a smart retail environment.

If you’re lucky enough, you should have received a VIP invite from us so you can receive early entry in to the show on Sunday at 9.30am – there should be a VIP link on the email where you can register for your early entry pass!

We will be exhibiting at stand Q32 across the 2-day weekend, offering live demonstrations to all visitors, and don’t forget if you visit our stand to make sure you sign up with us for your exclusive show offer, where we will be giving up to 30% off hardware and 30% off first 3 months software to all attendees!

What can you expect us to be working on next?

Even though we know we had a couple of years where events were closed, from the last couple of events we exhibited at, we have taken on board feedback and put together a plan to begin a road map for the next few features that we hope to have developed for you. Here’s what you can expect from us from our next few phases of development.

Salon Forms


Predominantly for the beauty and aesthetics industry, Salon Tracker are hoping to integrate with ‘Tally’ to create forms that can be associated to a booking, complexed registration forms for spa and medical services and also potentially forms that can be associated with patch testing. These will also be sent via email to clients and stored electronically within the system. Salon Tracker will provide standard report templates through Tally and these will be editable for clients to amend to suit their services.

Salon TV


Salon TV is a new feature that allows Salons to broadcast their live bookable item times and waiting list times to a TV through streaming, using a google chrome cast. Clients will w be able to view when the next bookable item is available, therefore in the tanning industry they will be able to see the waiting list and approximate waiting time until their appointment, same in the barber industry and also this feature will work really well for anyone who offers a walk-in service.

Salon Assist

An improvement on the Salon Signature pad, as this can allow clients to be registered via a tablet, without needing to be on the Enterprise package. A tablet is client facing at the reception desk, allowing clients to register a new account, or check in to say they have arrived at the salon for their appointment (great for businesses in the hair and barbering industry). Some of the company’s tanning clients already use Salon Assist as a form of security, by asking clients to ‘check-in’ when they arrive for their appointment, alongside a PIN pad, where the client will then check in and enter their secure pin to ensure this matches up for their appointment.

Salon Occupation

Using motion detection and hopefully electrical usage tracking, Salon Tracker can use detectors on their powered bookable items, or through smart intelligence on security cameras to determine whether someone is having a treatment at any one time. This type of technology is used to stop malicious behaviours, to detect if a bed has been used but not necessarily started through Salon Tracker, and also to match up payments at the time of hair/beauty appointments, as motion sensors and occupancy trackers should match the times of a transaction.

We're so excited for the show this weekend, it's great to be back exhibiting! If you haven't registered for your exhibitor pass yet, follow the link below:


23 Mar 2022

Why Should You Visit Trade Shows?

Trade shows have been held now for years, in all different types of industries and there are plenty of
different salon, beauty, spa, clinic and hair events that are held all year round. You may have seen us before at shows such as Professional Beauty, Salon International and Beauty UK demonstrating our software to hundreds of customers throughout the events. Trade show exhibitions like these are great for salon owners and staff like yourselves who are looking to find out more about the industry, network and to see what great products and services are available.

What to do if you are wanting to visit…

The first thing you need to do is register for your ticket, depending on the show you may need to purchase a ticket so it’s best to book in advance as sometimes you can get your ticket for free or cheaper the earlier you purchase.

You also want to make sure to pre-plan your visit ahead of time! Most shows have apps or websites that you can go on to see which stands you want to visit and where they’re located.

Lastly, make sure you give yourself enough time to get round all the stands you want to visit and take into account time you might want to spend watching live talks and for stands you may not have spotted during your pre-planning!

Once you get there…

Visiting a trade show is the perfect chance for you to not only meet companies you already work with but to also meet new companies and find new and exciting products and services that can help to benefit your salon. According to CEIR, 92% of trade show attendees are looking to discover new products. New products are great to test in your salon, whether these are to sell or to use during services, there are always fresh and innovative products to keep you on top of the industry trends.


With us all been locked inside for the last 2 years it’s nice just to get out again and interact with those
within your industry. At many trade shows there are also live speakers and demonstrations that you can watch from industry leaders which can be very beneficial to watch. These range from anything such as business stages with marketing and social media tips to demonstrations on how to do skin, nail and makeup treatments. If you check before going to the show, you’ll be able to find a list of planned live stages and seminars that you can attend and watch during your time at the event. These also give you a great opportunity to network and create contacts with those in your industry and with those that follow similar interests.

One of the best parts of visiting a trade show are the freebies! Keep your eyes peeled for any stands offering any free products, not only is it nice to get a freebie it also gives you chance to test a product you may not have looked at or thought to try!

Not only do you get to meet hundreds of new businesses, it also gives you chance to see and meet businesses you haven’t interacted with before. Exhibitors tend to offer visitors deals or special offers for visiting them whilst at the show, so this is a great chance to try out your negotiation skills and get yourself a good deal.


Don’t forget we’re exhibiting at Professional Beauty in London next weekend on the 3rd and 4th of April! Come see us on stand Q32 to meet the team and see the system live in person, we can’t wait to meet you all!

Salon Tracker x

16 Mar 2022

Our Essential Features

 

At Salon Tracker, we aim to help your salon become as efficient as possible. In order to achieve this, we have a range of different features which help save time and improve your overall running of the salon.

Advanced Calendar Options

Salon Tracker allows you to have a digitalized appointment book with split-screen columns for multiple therapists. Depending on which package you are on, you are able to have multiple calendars for different areas of the salon, for example, a tanning and beauty calendar. Also, you can have colours associated with your treatments so that you can easily identify them within your calendar.

Client Record Card

All client information, including date of birth, contact number and notes can all be stored securely within the system. This not only eliminates the need for paper record cards but also reduces the waiting time in the salon as you are able to pull their records up quickly. With the use of our fingerprint readers, you can also assign a customers’ fingerprint to their customer card and speed up the process further by simply asking them to place their finger on the reader upon arrival. This would then bring up the customers’ record.

Stock Management

Our software allows you to accurately track your outgoing stock as it automatically depletes when products are purchased. You are able to set your own low stock warning levels so that you can be alerted when you have sold certain amounts of stock. You are able to set different values for different products depending on popularity. Default order quantities can be set for individual products and used to create automated stock ordering forms.

Advanced Business Reports

Our system is able to generate a whole range of reports and charts which cover everything from sales to stock to staff management. You are able to alter the timeframes you run your reports to pull daily, weekly, monthly or yearly data. Our reports can be exported so that you can access them in both excel or pdf form. Also, with our Enterprise package, you are able to view your reports from home via siteview.

Intelligent Marketing Suite

Make use of our built-in sophisticated marketing suite, allowing you to text and email clients. Tailor your campaigns to your needs and target specific customers or use our pre-made campaigns. Reach customers instantly whether they are at work, home or on the go and encourage client return with personable approach.

If you would like to see these features in person, we will be exhibiting at the Professional Beauty London Show on the 3rd and 4th of April on stand Q32! Feel free to come down and visit our stand for an in-person demo and to meet the team, we look forward to seeing you there.

Salon Tracker x

9 Mar 2022

Salon Tracker Solo


NEW PACKAGE ALERT!

Salon Tracker would like to introduce their new software package, aimed at single person run and mobile salons. Salon Tracker Solo gives you some of our most exclusive features for half the price of our enterprise package.

This package is specifically created for smaller salons in mind meaning that you’re only able to have this package if you have one bookable item in your salon. This can be anything from one hair stylist, one beautician or one sunbed.  If you don’t fit these criteria don’t worry, we have plenty of other software packages for you at great prices.

Here are some of the features we are offering in this package:

Customer Tracking

This package gives you the ability to store all customer data such as contact information, booking history and purchase history. This means you can look into a customers account to see when they last visited and how often they usually come in. You can then use the system to directly text them using our one-way messaging system to see if they would like to get booked in. This package can also use this contact information to send your customers automated SMS booking reminders to help reduce no shows.

Business Reports

This package also gives you access to our 8 standard business reports. This allows you to pull reports detailing information such as your end of day cashing up, all the actions which have taken place on your software throughout the day and also retail and booking sales for the day. You can run all reports for a day, month, year or even set a specific date range which you want to see this information for.

Retail Products

Selling retail products is an easy way to increase your salon revenue by quite a lot. Salon Tracker solo gives you the option to store all your retail products and sell them to your customers directly through the system.  This makes the selling of retail products even easier as you can just add them onto your customers booking.

Online Bookings and Payments

‘36% of salon bookings are made out of hours’

In order to make sure your salon is getting all the bookings possible; we are offering our online booking and payments feature as a part of this new package. This means you can offer 24/7 booking for your clients. With this feature you will get your own booking website which you can add on to your social media platforms and we can design to fit your salons. You will also be able to use our new online payments feature which allows you to take deposits or full payments online through stripe when your customers are making their bookings. This again helps reduce the risk of no shows.

 
If you would like anymore information on this new package or would like to get booked in for a free demonstration and trial, please don’t hesitate to contact us on 0113 350 8230 or email info@salontracker.co.uk.

Salon Tracker x

2 Mar 2022

SMS & Email marketing tips and tricks!

With SMS open rates being 98%, there is no better time than now to push SMS marketing! Which is why we've put this blog together to demonstrate how you can effectively use our marketing suite.

If you are on our Professional and Enterprise package, you're probably familiar with our marketing suite where you can target a specific range of customers and send them either a text directly from the software or use mail chimp to upload this list of contacts and send them an email! Either way, I bet you wasn't aware of the exact filters you can use on the software to precisely target your customers.

Alerting your customers their booking services are due to expire

The software has a clever way of monitoring your clients booking services such as tanning minutes remaining or beauty packages remaining. As a result of this, you can send out a text directly to those whose minutes are due to expire in any set time frame, whether that's the next month, 3 months or 6 months!

This will then encourage your customers to come back in the salon and use up their minutes thus resulting in them purchasing more and so on!

To use this filter go to:

Marketing > Filters > select 'Alert customers their bookable services will expire' > select dates to what you would like it to be e.g next 3 months or next 6 months > change the 'next month' to the time frame you would like also > apply filter > send SMS. 

The text is already pre-written for you but if you want to change the next please be aware it will need to be under 160 characters for it to be classed as 1 SMS credit. You can also preview the text to your own phone using the 'Preview Mobile Tel' box to input your number then press the phone mail symbol on the right hand side to make sure you are happy with the text!

Push your online booking for those customers who haven't booked online yet!

Moving from making bookings manually on the phone to using an online booking system can be a drastic change for both Salon owners and Salon Clients. Some may resist to the change and prefer to ring up themselves and do it which as you all know, can be very time consuming! So for those customers you're struggling to get using online booking, we've got you covered with a marketing filter!
Offering a simple gesture of just 10% off or £5 off can work wonders for encouraging your customers to book online, once they've done it they'll find it easier to continue doing therefore saving you time and utilising your online booking to its best ability!

Go to:

Marketing > Filters > select 'customers not online' > apply filter.

Give something back to your best spending customers

Whether you want to send it to your Salons best spending customers in general or for your self employed staffs' own customers the extensive filter selection has both covered!

That way your loyal customers will feel appreciated and will be more inclined to return whilst encouraging them to recommend you to other people!

To do this:

Marketing > Filters > select 'Custom - create your own marketing campaign' > select 'best customer by spend' drop down > select your preference e.g 'best 10' then click apply filter. If you want to use it for your self employed staff then use the + button to add another filter row and use the dropdown to select 'customer by bookable item' then use the other drop down to select the correct booking item.

Birthday texts

Everybody loves to receive a birthday text, especially when it has an offer in it! The software has 2 types of pre-made filters for your customers with birthdays coming up. 1 is made for all customers called 'birthday gift message' and the other is for your high spending customers with birthdays coming up called 'birthday gift message for high spending customers'. It's up to you which you choose - whether you're feeling generous or extra generous - we've got you covered with this filter. 

A birthday gift doesn't have to be a lot either, it could be small voucher or even a percentage off but if your clients get that extra personalised touch - big or small it's bound to work wonders for you. You can even get extra personal and categorise the texts for genders, e.g men could get a free haircut for their birthday and women could be given a free manicure.

To do this:

Marketing > Filters > select 'birthday gift message' > change the 'next month' drop down to what you would want it to be > apply filter. 

For customers who haven't visited in a while

Life happens, things get in the way and self-care becomes a thing of the past for some people. Well why not give them that gentle reminder to say that you miss them and would love to see them back in the salon? 

You have probably forgotten about half of the customers that you've had in the salon once and haven't been in again yet. Lucky for you - the software cleverly recalls these for you, down to the exact date they were last in. So if you're having a bit of a quiet period and need that extra push, use the 'for customers who haven't visited in a while' filter and go for the 'last year' or 'last 2 years' filter which will then provide you with a list of people that haven't visited the salon in that time frame. Entice them in with 10% off which will bring them in and encourage them to return, therefore boosting revenue and keeping you busy!

To do this:

Marketing > Filters > select 'for customers who haven't visited in a while' > change dates to your preference (1-2 years normally works quite well) > apply filter.

If you would prefer to use email marketing, all these filters can still be used but instead of clicking 'send SMS' you would click 'send email' which will then export the list of clients into a .csv file which can then be uploaded directly to mail chimp! 

Learning new things can be quite daunting and we get that, that's why we offer free training with your monthly software subscription which can be booked whenever you need it! Just call us on 0113 350 8230 or alternatively drop us an email at info@salontracker.co.uk.

New to our blog page and want to give the software a go? Register for your free demo and 2 week trial here: FREE DEMO & TRIAL

Salon Tracker x



  











23 Feb 2022

Feature of The Month - Online Tanning Payments

We know a lot of our customers have been waiting for this feature for a little
while, and we’re happy to announce its almost here! We recently released our online deposits feature for hair, beauty, clinic and spa deposits and have since been working hard to get our release ready for tanning salons. The salon world is ever changing and the post-Covid era is making online payments one of the most popular forms of payment for customers.

How Will Our Online Payments Work?

As with our online deposits, our online payments will work through our seamless integration with Stripe, allowing customers to pay with card, Apple Pay, Google Pay and Klarna.

When a customer goes to book, they will see any remaining minutes they have in a services drop down and any available to purchase for that bed. If a customer wishes to purchase some new minutes, they can select the course or minutes package they want to purchase from the drop down. This will then take them through to Stripe where they will pay with their chosen method, once the payment has gone through, they will see a payment successful screen and then have the option to continue with their booking.

Once they have completed their booking this will show in your Salon Tracker system as an online booking, with the customers purchase being stored on their account. With online payments being activated for tanning, customers won’t be able to create a booking without purchasing minutes, helping to boost your sales!

Why Should You Implement Online Payments?

The main benefit of introducing online payments into your salon is that it makes
the customers salon experience much more seamless! Giving them the ability to book and purchase minutes online not only improves their customer journey, but also makes your lives much easier in the salon with reduced waiting times.

Customers are now using cash a lot less frequently, and it’s estimated that in
2026 the UK will become a cashless country. Many people prefer the convenience and ease of use of being able to pay for a service online. By integrating with Stripe, we have been able to offer a secure and safe payment method, so you and your customers are able to use our payment platform without the worry of information being at risk.


Revenue generated from online payments goes directly into your bank account through Stripe, and with any customers that opt to pay through Klara the full amount is sent directly to you. So, you don’t have to worry about following up on any payments, as there are all dealt with through Klarna.

How Do I Get my Online Deposits Set Up?

Our online payments feature is expected to be released for tanning salons shortly. If this is a feature you are interested in, we are looking for a handful of customers to test this for us, so feel free to give us a call or email on info@salontracker.co.uk and we will be happy to add you to the waiting list.

The feature is only available for our Enterprise Customers, if you wish to upgrade, please contact us and we will be able to arrange this with you.

If you would like to see this feature in person, we will be exhibiting at the Professional Beauty London Show on the 3rd and 4th of April on stand Q32! Feel free to come down and visit our stand for an in-person demo and to meet the team, we look forward to seeing you there.

Salon Tracker x

16 Feb 2022

Our New Release

As Salons start to become busier going into Spring, we have some new features in our latest release that we hope you’ll be able to utilise. Hopefully these new features will help to improve the day to day running of the Salon and generally increase overall efficiency.

Salon Tracker Solo

An exciting new edition to Salon Tracker is our BRAND NEW package ‘Solo’. This package has been tailored to suit the needs of those who are a single person Salon. Within this package, you will be able to have one Bookable Item whether it may be a single Technician or a single Sunbed. For information on this package, feel free to give our Sales Team a call on 0113 350 8230 or drop us an e-mail at info@salontracker.co.uk.


Clocking-in


Clocking-in is a popular feature on Salon Tracker to enable employers to track and monitor hours worked by their staff members. A basic version of clocking in is available in which you can simply clock in by clicking on your username within the system, and also a more enhanced version can be used in which you can clock-in with secure ID. Previously, the forms of secure ID that could be used included Fingerprint and Barcodes. However, we have added an additional form which is clocking in by password. Each employee can be assigned a password which they require to clock-in, ensuring that it is definitely them.

 

Virtual Timer

Another new feature we’ve added for our tanning customers is for use with a virtual timer. For Salons who use tokens to operate their sunbeds, it can be difficult sometimes to determine the wait time for any customers who come into the salon. With the addition of this new feature, you’ll be able to improve the accuracy of your wait time because if you can see that a customer has started the bed before the end of the dress down time, you can click to say the bed has begun.

 

Salon Holiday Feature

The final major feature we’ve added is the ability to add in whole Salon Holidays. Previously you would have had to add in holidays for each different technician/sunbed, which could be very time consuming, especially for national holidays such as the Christmas period, and also for our colleges who have long periods of time off such as the Summer Holidays. Now you can add in a whole salon holiday and it will block out that time period out for the entire salon.

 

If you have any questions regarding any of our new features, please feel free to drop us an e-mail at info@salontracker.co.uk and of course as always if you want to chat to a member of our sales and marketing team for a few extra tips, we are always on hand to help you with any marketing tools, or simply to offer further advice on using our software functions!


Salon Tracker x

Thank You for an Amazing Year!

2024 has been Salon Tracker’s best year yet! We are so grateful for the amazing year we have had and what we have managed to achieve.   ...