Salon and Spa Reservation App: Top Benefits and Features to Know About

Salon visits are no more a luxury today. People tend to spend a lot of time and money on salon and spa affairs. However, last-minute appointments can seem to be a dreadful and uncomfortable thing for many. Things have changed much with time and the same can be seen in case of scheduling appointments for the spa and salon services.

Such kind of app solutions is important today as it offers a flexible solution to the users to make appointments as per their convenience and accessibility. Again, it helps the business to have the slots filled up seamlessly without any mix-ups.

If you are still wondering why you have such a software solution developed for making reservations for your salon and spa services, then you should keep reading this article.

Every app solution has been developed with the agenda of resolving some issues faced by the concerned industry and things are not much different in the case of salon and spa business.

Challenges faced by salon and spa business

Scheduling and managing appointments

The salon and spa business may witness rush during peak hours but this does not mean that you cannot build a scheduling system that can manage it. You can transform your business as well as save everyone’s time through such a solution.

Keeping engagement and retention

Customer retention is one of the crucial factors for sustainability. Many salon businesses fail to do well when it comes to building and maintaining the relationship with customers. Many even don’t have a system to collect client details and even don’t feel the need to do so.

Gaining market recognition

The lack of advertising and marketing makes it difficult for the spa and salon business to get noticed and they have to depend solely on its location for the same. If the business is not located on a prime location then it becomes difficult for them to be visible and boost brand awareness.

Enhancing staff productivity

In case you are facing issues when it comes to handling appointments, then you may find it hard to optimize your service by appointing a staff member for a customer at a time. This can seem to be hard for you especially in the case if you have more than a branch to manage.

The challenges in the salon and spa business can be effectively addressed by the development of a booking app. Such an app comes with some evident benefits and the same has been explained below.

Benefits of a salon and spa booking app

Online booking helps with retention

Once the client finds an online reservation for a salon or spa to be comfortable, they will be inclined towards using the app for future bookings. More than half of the customers actually find it comfortable and keep on coming back to the online option to make bookings. The main reason for such a thing is the ease it offers the customers compared to the other options available out there. Online booking facility helps in a number of ways and guests can choose it to find the right services they are looking for, to find the preferred time slot availability or to find last minute availability.

Online booking tends to boost customer experience

Customer experience is said to be influenced by the online booking service. With time, more number of people tends to make their reservations outside the hours of the store and so offering mobile app booking service becomes extremely important. Again, today even during the working hours people prefer to choose a mobile app to make a booking and this makes it extremely crucial for the business to have it. To keep it straight, you have better chances of losing your customers if you fail to offer a high-quality online booking service for your salon or spa.

The salon or spa business which is into offering services like waxing, lashes or facial, seems to have a better response from mobile app booking. As per Zenoti, 66 percent of the booking made over spa and salon business is identical to what has been made previously. Again, it has been seen that 72 percent of those bookings are just the same as the previous bookings and so it helps with rebooking in a better manner.

Now, if the salon or spa is offering a wide variety of services then the booking process can easily get complex. So in such a situation, having an efficient mobile app reservation system can seem to be effective.

Online booking encourages more spending

The clients, who are habituated to book online for the spa and salon services, seem to spend more. The trend has been seen to be pertaining across all the salons and spas that are spread across different regions and of different sizes. One of the major reasons that it has become so popular is the ease of engagement it offers for the brand. Ease of use is another reason why your repeating clients prefer to opt for aan app booking service.

So if you are convinced about building such an application for your salon and spa business then you should be clear about the features that you plan to include in the mobile app.

Features of a salon and spa booking app

Personal accounts

For different reasons, it is very important to have the feature which keeps all the personal accounts of the users on the salon and spa booking app. The feature is designed in a way that every time the user chooses to use the app for any service; he or she will not have to fill in the personal details again and again. This way the user can easily choose the service they want as per their convenience by selecting the favorite specialist.

Customized settings

Everything that the client sees on the app should be customized in a way that the salon booking system becomes more accessible. Some of the things which you should make possible for clients in your app are:

• Flexibility to choose whether to cancel or change the appointment at any time.
• Have a default appointment period set
• If the client needs your help in choosing certain services, hide the options
• Define the order in which actions need to be taken
• Set yourself some notifications
• List out the specialists that client can choose to book
• In an online form add your own user agreement
• Whether to let the client request a callback or not can be decided
• Offer the client the option to choose from the interface languages

List of services

Salons have changed over time and it is no more about just cutting or coloring hairs. Salons now come up with an extensive range of services which include head massage, scalp treatment, laser hair removal, and others. One of the best ways to showcase the services to the users is to come up with a photo library segment in your app. Again, this also helps you from the advertising perspective. So all you have to do is to add this feature in your main navigation and put up your services with pictures and videos. Users will also get to add in their favorite services into the wish lists.

Listing services with prices

To connect with users you need to be transparent with things and for that, the best way you can choose to follow is to mention the prices of your services within your application. This is very important because users of today are more inclined towards comparing the rates of your services with that of your competitors. You can make your pricing look good for your users by mentioning discounts, adding combo packages and variations, and mentioning price along with different categories.

Appointment booking service

Every application should have this feature included. Just by going through this feature, your app users will be able to make a booking for their salon services in a seamless way. Moreover, by including an in-built calendar within your application, you will be able to plan your meetings with the service provider as per your convenience. There are a few things that your app should ask you when you land on the booking form and the same has been explained below:

• The preferred service
• Date and time
• Whether it is the first booked service with the salon/beautician
• A message for the service provider

Once all such things have been dealt with, the customers will be able to go ahead with the checkout procedure. Here the order will be finalized and the customer will make payment.

Select your choice of beautician

When it is about availing beauty services or hair treatments, clients are quite selective in nature. They are not comfortable in reaching to someone random out there. So while making the booking for the service, you should allow your client to select the provider of their choice.

In-app payment facility

In-app payments are another function which you can have included in your application. You can let your customers pay for the service by adding in options like Braintree, Stripe or PayPal in the application. You can even include the option of debit or credit card within the application for easy payment for clients. So, all that you need to do here is to handle all transactions and the account through the admin panel of the app. You can also let the customers make payments for the service using Apple Pay or Google Wallet.

Push notifications

Push notifications are one of the best ways to stay connected with your regular customers. It lets you come up with customized messages which can be sent to any number of devices at a time and keep them motivated to come back. Push notifications can also be used by the app for salon and spa to send in new price slashes as well as new services.

Loyal customers should be offered with discounts and deals

There are always some regular customers who visit the salon to avail of the services. So it is time you show some gratitude to the customers by offering them with some special offers and loyalty discounts. Such offers will attract the customers and they will keep coming back to you rather than using any other application. Discount codes can be included within the discounts and customers can scan them over QR codes, for some free services, customized services, etc.

GPS technology integration

Including GPS technology within the app will let the customers who are looking for a salon or spa to easily track and locate it. Moreover, the feature of geofencing can also help the salon with attracting a specific set of clients who are located in the vicinity.

Clients’ feedback

Feedback is important for any business and can be used in many ways. Helping with the evaluation of the performance of the salon or the spa is the reason why people choose to go with feedback. Most of such business apps work by offering a rating between 1 and 5 stars. It will not take much time for a client to write a review about their experience and a single click of the mouse can be enough to let others know what they felt. You can even think about adding a visual review in your app for the users who are not interested in reading through the list. Such ratings always help other clients to make a clear decision regarding whether to use the service of the salon /spa or not.

You can come up with a customized questionnaire that you plan to get on the feedback form of the app. It can be things like whether the clients liked the friendliness of staff, location of the salon or spa, the ambiance, cleanliness, etc. When you have the freedom to choose your parameters you will be able to get proper and valuable feedback.

Easily accessible on any device

The number of internet users is growing exponentially every year and this means people are using different mobile devices for the same. This means it is important to develop a salon or spa reservation app which is responsive to all the varieties of devices available in the market. So just by using any mobile device, clients can easily make appointments on the go and will not have to handle any kind of difficulties. For sure, you don’t want to let your users face an issue where they don’t find anything that they are looking for, once they entered all the information and clicked on a form or page.

Final thoughts

Just like any other business, salon and spa business can gain enormously by coming up with a mobile application for making reservations. Businesses can customize the application based on what services are listed and how they plan to serve the clients. Such a booking service app can help the business to easily reach clients in a better manner and make the whole booking process seamless.