The Best Of Both Worlds: Adding Booking Software For Your Salon

Whether it’s a hair and beauty salon or a spa and massage parlor, your business stands to benefit much from an investment in reliable booking software. Away from the most common benefits including saving time for your clients, and better schedule management for your stuff, let us critically examine how an online booking system will help you grow your salon in collaboration with other booking alternatives.

Booking software can be used as a stand –alone and fully-integrated system for salon bookings. Similarly, it can just as effectively be used as a complimentary booking option to bring in new customers. Salon and hair salons particularly thrive on a personal relationship with clients. With that in mind, it is then no wonder that most of the loyal clientele that have been regulars at your establishment for years will prefer to continue booking for their appointments over the phone. Some clients just prefer the old-school methods and as a business, it is your corporate responsibility and to your advantage to not only respects every client’s preference but also to make every deliberate effort to cater to and meet those preferences.

That does not in any way mean that your online booking platform will stay idle. Instead, it will cater to another group of clients. The younger clients, read millenials, would not have it any other way except through online booking. In essence, your business will attract and new clients through the online booking platform while still retaining those who are yet to embrace the idea of making their booking online. It is an absolute win-win for your business as your client base will significantly expand.

A word of caution, however is to ensure that you carefully check against the calendar on the online booking system to ensure you do not have a client who has booked through the phone being slotted for a time when another client has booked through the online system. Double bookings are bad for business and you do not want to be on the wrong side of that.

Even more desirable is to approach a professional software developer such as our company for customized software that will allow you to also manually update the schedule, in addition to the system auto-update feature. This means that once a client makes a booking via phone or any other channel except through the booking software itself, you can update the same so that these changes reflect on the online booking platform. Booking software show real-time availabilities and properly updating the system ensures that prospective clients will only see the slots that are available as at that particular time. This will definitely help with the challenge of double-bookings. Our developers are an expert and experienced team that will cater to your specific needs.

The work that goes into running and managing parallel online and offline booking system may seem like much. The reality is that it really is and without proper planning and consistent efforts, it can prove quite the challenge. Any salon with a clear goal for growth and profitability will however appreciate that the returns are actually more than commensurate with the effort put into it. If properly done, you can look forward to more clients and a great customer experience for each, which will definitely keep them coming back for more.

Any entrepreneur with a great business sense will be quick to tell you that new is good, but will also emphasize on the fact that it is never always about “out with the old and in with the new”. Often times an “either- or” approach may not always be best way to go. Salons can benefit greatly from adopting an online booking system and complimenting it with the traditional phone booking system.