Top 5 Reasons to Promote Booking Online

It’s a simple fact that people book services online these days, and it happens more than you might think. For example, when booking a flight, you don’t call the airline and wait on hold until someone can get to you. You hop online, any time of the day that you wish, cruise through all of your options and make the booking….just like that!

Booking appointments for salon and spa services should be no different. In fact, as more of the tech-savvy generation fills up your salon’s schedule, you’ll soon realize that it’s absolutely expected. Without online booking, or easy access to it, eventually your business will be at a competitive disadvantage.

So, to keep you and your salon firmly in the game, here are the top reasons why you want to offer online booking:

1. Clients can schedule appointments whenever they want. It adds convenience for the customer and makes for better customer service.

2. Booking online frees up your front desk staff. If more bookings were done online, the receptionist would have more time to do other tasks, which in turn would help the salon run more efficiently.

3. Your clients will automatically clean up your database for you. If they’ve moved, changed emails or have a new phone number, they are more likely to update their information when it’s in front of them when making the online appointment than to have to remember to tell the receptionist when they call in. Clients will also let you know if they wish to communicate by email, text or both.

4. It gives you the opportunity to sell gift cards and memberships, or to recommend or reserve product for the client’s next visit without having to even be open for business. This kind of service helps build customer loyalty and can be achieved without any physical interaction.

5. And the best reason? The average amount of time between client visits changes based on how the appointments are booked. If clients call in or pre-book in person, the average time between appointments is five weeks and six days, however when appointments are booked online, that time drops to four weeks, five days. That’s an increase in 25 percent! Using this model, you’d have two additional appointments per client for the year!

Keep in mind that these reasons stated above only hold if you choose great software with the features needed to offer such options. Here’s what you want to look for in online booking software:

• Look for software that understands the unique work flow of a salon and allows flexibility for you to set gaps and control how appointments are booked.
  
  

• Great software will work better than any receptionist. You want the flexibility to set up bookings so it’s foolproof. There will be no gaps, no isolated bookings and no squeezing in appointments where they really don’t fit.

   

• Find software that allows you to set the order of services versus allowing your clients to do it for you. Think of it as adding in a men’s cut or a bang trim, for example, when a client’s color is processing. To make the scenario work, you need the correct order for services for the client, such as color, cut and then finishing services, not the other way around. Without this ordering, you would not be able to correctly double book.
  
• It’s also important to have software that’s easy for your customers to access and to use. With cloud-based software bookings can be done in real time, at any time of the day and all your client needs is an internet connection and a porthole either through your website or a mobile web app.

The whole idea with online booking is to save you and your salon time and effort but also to provide much-appreciated convenience to your clients. So, are you ready to start booking online?

If you’re still using an old handwritten scheduling book, it’s time to get you into the 21st century, and Rosy Salon Software will help get you there—not just with salon software for scheduling and management, but specifically with online booking.

Learn more about the new Mobile Web App from Rosy Salon Software!