The unique nature of how nail salons operate means that many of your decisions are made on the fly. The procedures that are specific to your industry often leave you using pieces of best practice techniques that are used in spas or hair salons. While this presents you with some of the guidelines you need to run your nail salon, the challenges that your business faces are exclusive to the nail salon business environment.
Seeking help in filling in the missing pieces of your nail salon business model can be found in the tools and features that a nail salon point of sale system provides. Implementing a cloud-based POS architecture opens the doors to exciting new features that will deliver profit-boosting results almost immediately while freeing you from your desk so that you can invest valuable time in building deeper relationships with your clientele.
But before you run out and dive into the technical waters of POS solutions, it is important to first gather the knowledge around the key points of POS platforms that align best with the nail salon business type. A proven method for building a POS system for the nail salon business model is to break things down into four key areas. By focusing your efforts on these four primary points of concern, you will implement a cutting-edge POS solution that has your business model and future growth in mind.
Building a Loyal Client Base
While this isn’t technically a feature that can be purchased, a modern, cloud-based POS suite will provide multiple tools that can be used for this one purpose. Think about this for a moment: instead of your staff having to run into the back or to a computer to see if a requested product is in stock, they simply use an iPad mounted at their station to do the lookup in that exact moment. The client and your employee can easily discuss next steps and make a quick service determination without your staff having to run a mini track meet to accomplish this same thing.
As small as this may sound, the ability to perform regular tasks such as these with relative ease and without interrupting the experience of your clients is a game-changer. To take this a step further, imagine the impact on a client when a staff member can look up a client’s session history and purchasing tendencies on the same iPad. By introducing a cloud-based POS solution that leverages iPad hardware and an app, your staff will be empowered to provide a very personalized and satisfying salon experience. What do you suppose that would do for your brand reputation?
Turn Scheduling from a Pain Point to a Pleasurable Experience
Coordinating schedules between customers on the phone and a seemingly full staff calendar is why many nail salons have a point person to do all of this heavy lifting. Even if your process is manageable, there is most likely still room for improvement. And, as consumers get used to ordering and viewing calendars online, you will do your business a disservice by not moving your appointment management functions into the cloud.
Online booking management is a key feature present in many cloud-based POS platforms. The top-notch POS providers will give you a branded app that you and your customers can easily use. Clients can review the calendar of staff availability that you publish, select a preferred time slot, and have the ability to choose their favorite nail technician. And, by allowing your staff to review and update their own calendars, appointment miscommunications and manning the phones become relics of the past.
Innovative Inventory Tracking Features Bolster the Bottom Line
Do you know how many bottles of red nail polish are currently in stock? Are you aware of how many more applications are left in the five bottles of that nail polish that are currently sitting open at the stations of your technicians? Diving into the finer intricacies of the supplies and products that you use will help you to maximize their cost-effectiveness. Accomplishing this requires that you use the powerful inventory analysis tools that are available in a robust POS platform.
The advanced data capabilities of a powerful POS solution gives your inventory controls a decisive push upwards. Next-gen product monitoring gives you an accurate way to track item usage down to the ounce. With data integration of transactions and stock counts, you gain an accurate picture of the financial output of each item. In turn, you can adjust ordering, set new standards for product usage, or see which of your technicians are more wasteful in comparison to staff averages.
Improve Staff Productivity While Streamlining Payroll Tasks
Encouraging high levels of productivity among your staff is going to be a challenge without having concise data to back you up. The ease in which sophisticated POS solutions integrate data from all areas of the business will give you the stats needed to develop concise production metrics. Through advanced monitoring and reporting functions, you can easily review staff performance in real-time, and make proactive corrections to maintain high levels of customer satisfaction.
The advanced way that a modern POS solution can help you to bolster staff production can also be used to automate tedious payroll tasks. Consider this situation: your nail technicians arrive, and log in to the iPad at their station to clock in for their shift. Their unique identification codes track things such as tips received, products scanned out for use, hours worked, and clients serviced. At the end of the day, the technicians sign out of your app, effectively clocking them out for the day.
The use of an app, when combined with this seamless ability to maintain an automated watchful eye on your technicians and staff, makes payroll an easy endeavor. Staff can use this app to monitor their own performance and to receive alerts when they are falling behind expected metrics. Scheduling can be managed easily, including shift swapping, while potentially controversial things like tip-sharing become transparent to all, boosting morale.
Implementing the Best Nail Salon Point of Sale System Requires a Helpful Hand
Diving into the complexities of modern POS solutions requires an experienced eye. While you may be tempted to make these difficult choices alone, understanding the nuances that go into every component you implement makes going it alone a frustrating journey. Understanding the keys behind what needs to go into a POS solution for spas will give you a leg up on selecting the best partner for your needs, and will allow you to focus your valuable time on the clients in your chairs.
Engaging an expert in POS and developing customer satisfaction must be a priority to ensure the success of your spa. You will require a solid foundation of software tools and hardware devices that are both flexible and easy to use. At talech, we developed a nail salon point of sale solution for spas that will seamlessly integrate into your business to help you reach your highest potential. Reach out to us today to sign up for a demo and to learn more about how talech can be your valued POS partner.
