If your hair salon doesn’t currently have salon booking software or has the wrong one, you are likely experiencing scheduling errors on a daily basis, like overlapping bookings, schedule openings, lack of availability, shift swapping, and disorganization. These common problems can cause confusion within a salon business, negatively impact productivity and revenue, and even harm its reputation because they directly affect the client experience.
Fortunately, salon booking software offers a practical solution to these issues. However, not all software solutions in the beauty and wellness industry are created equally. The booking software you choose for your business will have a substantial impact on efficiency and, ultimately, the continued success of your salon.
What Is Salon Booking Software?
Salon booking software is a tool designed to make appointment management as effortless and efficient as possible. Your software should simplify every aspect of appointment booking, employee scheduling, and inventory management. In other words, a complete salon management software offers features that will help you boost revenue, attract and retain clients, and save your team time and effort.
With a powerful and innovative software solution, it’s easier than ever for clients to book appointments at their convenience — there’s no longer a need to call the salon or pop in to find out when an appointment is available. Managing employee shifts and performance is also more straightforward, and there’s less risk of shift misunderstandings and issues during shift swaps.
Salon booking software can also streamline inventory management to ensure your business never runs out or over-orders supplies, with some offering mobile access to inventory management systems.
How to Evaluate Salon Booking Software
Salon software with online booking has functions and features that can vary, meaning you may prefer some capabilities while wanting to bypass others. With these key considerations, you’ll be able to find the most suitable salon software for your business:
1. User-Friendly Interface
Any kind of software is only useful if it is user-friendly. A user-friendly interface is visually appealing and effortless to navigate. A clean interface layout with pleasing design elements and legible fonts is far easier to use than one with a chaotic design, unsettling colors, and mismatched fonts.
Choose software with an interface you and your clients will enjoy using. To evaluate the interface, simply spend some time navigating the platform. Assess how intuitive the platform is and whether you think it would be straightforward for your team to learn.
Meevo’s customizable Smart Centers offer owners real-time insight into valuable metrics that make it effortless to track KPIs, goal performance and much more. Each employee can track metrics according to their role, simplifying task management for the whole team. You can add or remove Smart Center tiles in your hub to improve the user experience.
2. Comprehensive Online Capabilities
While smooth, error-free appointment management is essential, marketing efforts are just as important. You should engage your clientele with marketing tactics like email campaigns and social media activity to keep growing your brand.
Salon software with marketing capabilities is a practical way to boost your brand’s online visibility on social media. Software with email templates and campaign performance analytics makes marketing easy.
3. Flexible Pricing and Stylist Management
Salon software pricing structures vary. Some come in basic and comprehensive packages, while others offer a lot more choice. Typically, going with a flexible option is the best approach for most salons, especially newer salons that are still getting up off the ground.
Look for a salon booking system with different prices for stylists. Salon appointment booking software that enables flexible pricing makes it possible to manage your salon without having to pay for features you won’t use.
The Yield Management feature in Meevo makes price adjustments straightforward. This feature allows you to increase pricing during peak times and adjust pricing for specific booking days or with certain employees. Yield management is just one of many add-on business boosters that streamline salon management.
4. Integration and Compatibilities
The right platform should integrate easily with your business’s website and social media channels. This way, you can guide your audience from social media to your booking software. Plus, mobile booking software for salons ensures anyone can book an appointment at your salon from their smartphone, so you want to ensure the software can integrate with mobile devices.
5. Performance Monitoring
With comprehensive salon software, you can monitor your business’s performance. Innovative analytic features let you gain insight into future performance metrics, enabling salon owners to make relevant business decisions and plan more effectively. Make sure the software you choose can help you gain a clearer picture of how your salon is performing and where you could improve.
Beyond performance, online presence is another vital area of business to monitor. Meevo’s Marketing Suite includes an Online Presence Management feature that keeps you in control of your brand’s online reputation. This feature can help you track and respond to customer reviews and engage clients through social media platforms.
6. Advanced Features and Customization
Why settle for a booking platform that only offers a few basic features when there are software solutions that provide comprehensive online capabilities? The best salon software can offer much more than seamless appointment management.
Some of the most valuable features to look for in booking software beyond effortless appointment-making include simple reporting, inventory management, employee management, superior customer service, and secure payment systems.
Client Management is another advanced feature in Meevo that can help you cater to your clients by managing even the smallest details. This kind of feature tracks customer data so you can personalize client experiences in meaningful ways, fostering client loyalty.
Many customers tend to prefer the convenience of online shopping, so salon software with customizable online retail space can boost business. If clients forget to grab something in the salon, they can head to your website later and conveniently pick it up there instead.
Selecting the Right Salon Booking Software for Your Business
No matter how many stylists are on your team or how many customers you see on a frequent basis, evaluating your business to know what you need from booking software is an important part of the process.
The size of your business, the number of employees, and your budget are all critical factors when choosing the right software. With these details, you can compile a list of requirements you need from the software. Whether you want software that can help you book appointments and offer an online retail space, or you feel your business could benefit more from inventory management, create a list of requirements.
When comparing different software, look for industry-leading, top-rated options, and smaller, more specialized software solutions. Create a list of the platforms with your must-have features for salon booking software. After that, compare pricing structures, customer service support, and other capabilities between each software to narrow down your selection.
Once you have found the right salon software for your business, you will need to train your team so they can use the platform correctly. Choosing software with e-learning and onboarding features can simplify the process of welcoming a new platform into your business. Features like a built-in assistant, tutorials, and virtual tours and clear on-screen prompts make platforms more straightforward to use.
Schedule a Salon Management Demo With Meevo
For more than three decades, Meevo has provided innovative solutions for beauty and wellness industry professionals. Our powerful salon booking software has a world of benefits to offer, with comprehensive online capabilities, flexible and custom pricing structures, and advanced features. Beyond the platform, you’ll experience superior customer service, as we take pride in prioritizing you and your clientele.
Meevo provides everything you need to keep your chairs full, your team fiercely productive, and your profits soaring. Use Meevo from anywhere, from any device, and choose from payment plans that suit your business and your budget best. Schedule a demo or learn more about Meevo today.
