Every successful business owner understands the importance of keeping customers happy. For spas, however, making their clients happy and ensuring their well-being is the business model in a nutshell.
Increasingly, the way for spas to attract and retain clientele is by providing customers with the features they’ve come to expect for easy appointment scheduling, payment methods, and all other interactions. The most efficient and effective way for spas, salons, and other professional service providers to meet the expectations of their customers while also streamlining their business processes is by implementing a point of sale (POS) system. The right POS system combines all front-end and back-end operations in a single easy-to-use interface, and at an affordable price.
POS systems for spas help those businesses manage their appointments and other online bookings while also making their marketing efforts more effective and automating their bookkeeping functions. When choosing a POS system, spa owners must consider the features they require for appointment booking, staff management, profitability reporting, marketing, product sales, inventory management, special offers and promotions, gift cards and more.
The Most Important POS Features for Spas
The core benefits of a good POS system for spas and salons should impact the following:
- An increase in the number of return customers, as well as increasing long-term loyalty
- Greater revenue generated by upselling customers with salon/spa packages or other product sales
- Faster growth potential for the business by filling bookings weeks to months in advance, as well as supporting a recurring revenue model
One of the POS features that spa customers value the most is how the systems allow the business to personalize its services by offering special deals and/or helpful information tailored to each customer’s interests. Clients also appreciate being offered loyalty programs and free or discounted upgrades for subsequent appointments.
Spa customers increasingly expect businesses to accept more types of payments, including online transactions, mobile and contactless payments, and chip-card readers. The POS system should make it easy for customers to purchase and use gift cards, and to bundle multiple services into custom packages.
An innovative way to streamline recurring revenue is to offer customers a premium membership. For example, customers opt into a monthly membership for a set fee each month and then can exercise those payments into services for the future, either in one visit or multiple visits depending on how much they accrue over time. For the business owner, this creates a reliable recurring revenue stream even at times when business might be slower.
Point of sale systems for spas should include the following key features:
- Appointment scheduling should be available online, allow customers to view the times available with their preferred staff member, make it easy to select a time that fits their schedule, and send email or text reminders of those appointments. Spa owners should be able to designate blocks of time for administrative or maintenance tasks, for walk-in customers, or for special engagements (think bridal packages!).
- Inventory management allows spa owners to track, in real-time, their supplies of products used by the staff, as well as those they sell to clients. The POS system should provide alerts when the inventory for specific items falls below a preset threshold, and then automatically place orders to replenish supplies.
- Loyalty programs have been shown to attract new business in addition to encouraging repeat customers. A POS system for spas should track the number and type of appointments each customer makes, offer automatic discounts when certain conditions are met, and generate special offers based on the customer’s history and preferences. Premium membership is also a great model to ensure automatic monthly revenue and keep customers coming back time and time again, all while creating a recurring revenue stream with less effort than one-off promotions.
- Back-office management includes features that integrate the POS system with the business’s accounting systems, including employee scheduling and payroll. By capturing information about the customers and the business’s internal processes, the POS system can make the operation run more efficiently because all the information the spa owner needs appears in a single location.
- Marketing is especially challenging for many spas and salons, but POS systems can boost the business’s marketing efforts by allowing it to notify customers of special offers and other news via email, text, or other methods.
- Mobile and cloud-based applications make it easier for spa owners to manage their business remotely. Running a business tends to be a 24-hour job, but it doesn’t have to be in the “office”. Check real-time data from anywhere, and make adjustments to bookings, schedules, inventory orders, and/or promotions from any device.
How Spas Can Benefit from Point of Sale Systems
Scheduling mistakes can cost spas a great deal of potential revenue. Preventing schedule errors is one of the money-saving features of point of sale systems for spas. Here are several other ways POS systems help make spas more profitable:
- Allowing customers to schedule appointments via an online calendar. In addition, POS systems can auto-accept or manually confirm bookings, automatically send confirmation and reminder emails, and sync with Google Calendar
- Manage staffing by automatically assigning employees to match workflow, offer staff profiles, and view staff calendars by team or individually
- Improve marketing efforts by integrating personalized email offers with customer histories and informing them of new services as the business expands
- Gain insight into how effectively the business is managing staff, including time-off, clock-in and timesheets, multiple roles, and labor cost reporting
- Accommodate scheduling of multiple treatments in a single appointment, or multiple appointments spread out over time
Advanced reporting capabilities expand the uses of spa POS systems by applying analytics to customer data and business processes. The systems provide a dashboard view that displays real-time sales data, detailed information on cash drawer activity, tracking of voids, sales performance by each employee, and the impact of labor costs on the business’s overall performance.
Finances Online identifies predictive buying as one of the two most important trends in point of sale systems for spas and salons. The goal is to apply customer information to identify purchasing patterns and predict future customer behavior. By tying the predictions to CRM systems, spas are able to offer their customers promotions and other special offers that are customized to their interests and purchase histories.
Above all, spas need to match their specific requirements to the features and capabilities of a POS system. These include the ability to meet and exceed the expectations of their customers, and to integrate all aspects of spa management, including ties to external calendars and accounting systems, all at a price their business can afford. The result is happy customers, more efficient business management, and ultimately, a thriving business reaching its full earning potential.
Learn more about how the talech POS system helps spas, salons, and other professional service professionals optimize their customer relationships, staff management, and other business processes to boost profits and improve the experience for their customers. We work with you to determine the best ways to meet the needs of your customers and employees so your business can thrive. We take the time to learn your business so we can balance your specific needs with your budget and comfort level in a custom POS system implementation. The result is a valued investment that will pay for itself in short order. Reach out to us today to sign up for a free demo and learn more about how talech can be your valued partner in the POS world.
