How To Choose The Best Spa Management Software

July 29, 2021 | 5 Minute Read

Technology has disrupted the beauty industry for the better. We’ve seen how technology has been able to simplify processes for the most complex business models. Now we’re seeing how the same innovation is being applied to spas and salons. It’s not enough to just have software that is functional. Spas require software that is intelligent, powerful, and intuitive to streamline and scale their business for years to come. Introducing spa management software of the twenty-first century.

What Is Spa Management Software?

Think of it as your spa’s personal assistant. Someone who aids with scheduling appointments, organizing customer information, handling inventory, collecting payments, and more. Essentially, spa management software is a digital solution that makes the lives of owners and staff members easier. Although most spa management software has the same goal— to automate daily operations and keep costs low, we know that no two software are ever developed the same. With hundreds of options to choose from and every digital solution with its own unique features and design, narrowing it down to one can be an exceedingly difficult decision.

That’s where this blog comes in handy. Whether you’re a first-time spa owner or someone who’s looking to switch from their current software, look no further. We’ve compiled a checklist of key features to consider when deciding on a solution that could potentially make or break your business. Let’s begin!

Key Features Of Spa Software To Look For

Every spa management software comes with the basic features you need to run your business. When choosing your spa software, take a careful look at each feature and really envision whether it would work effectively in the background of your business or not. At the end of the day, this software is going to be the backbone of your business operations, so you’ll need to ensure that its functions are easy to use.

Booking & Scheduling

This should be one of the biggest focal points of your decision, granted you’ll be making appointments every single day. Your clients don’t like to be kept waiting and want their appointments made in a flash. It is imperative to choose a spa management software that will be able to book appointments within seconds and has the capability to manage hundreds of reservations. Adding, removing, and editing appointments should be a breeze. If your spa contains many services, staff members, and rooms, it would be wise to choose a solution that has a staff and room allocation feature to organize your business operations. Moreover, having one condensed view of your daily, monthly, and yearly appointments would provide an instant view of your availability, helping your customers get booked faster.

Integrated Point of Sale - POS System

This is another fundamental feature every spa software should have to manage client transactions and sales data. Having a point of sale POS system integrated with your spa software will simplify and speed up the checkout process immensely, and without the need for bulky hardware. Another important feature to consider is its payment capabilities because a powerful point of sale POS system should be able to factor in discounts, promotions, referrals, and rewards points seamlessly and accurately.

Inventory Management System

Every business needs to have a powerful inventory management system to keep track of its entire inventory. Without one, your inventory will probably be in shambles. One of the main features that your system should have is the ability to track the number of products in your inventory and adjust accordingly after each sale, return, or new shipment. Another useful feature to look for is a “running low reminder” so that when your business is running low on resources, your software will remind you to order more products for your retail or back bar. Some spa management software even can track back bar product consumption to ensure your stock is constantly optimized, and you never waste products or over-buy anything ever again.

Available Support

No matter what, running into questions will be inevitable. When searching for any type of software solution to implement, ensure that the company you go with has a support team available to help you when you need it. Nothing is more frustrating than running into a technical problem and not being able to solve it. Your software should solve your problems, not create more. Is there a number or email you can call? How long do they take to reply to an email? Do they work weekends? How big is their support team? These are some questions worth digging into when evaluating the strength of their support staff.

Nice To Have Features

Now that we’ve covered some of the basic requirements that all spa management software should have, let’s dig a little deeper and look at other features that you probably didn’t know you needed until now.

Online Booking

Trust us when we say that your front staff and customers will thank you for this one. Providing your customers with the opportunity to book on their own schedule, whenever and wherever will be a game-changer. Online booking truly allows your business to operate 24/7, even when your physical store is closed. This is a feature that will help your business maximize reservations to ensure as many slots are used up as possible. When evaluating its online booking module, ensure that its design and functions are user-friendly and customers are able to easily book. Furthermore, look to see if there are any advanced features such as complete integration with your appointment book for a seamless booking experience. For example, If a customer cancels their appointment online, their data should be updated on your appointment book so that the following slot will be made available again, without the need for manual correction.

Customer Relationship Management

Customers are the lifeline of any business. In a service-oriented industry, keeping your clients happy and satisfied is crucial. This is why having a software solution that allows you to be a part of the customer journey from the first contact, through the buying process, and thereafter is incredibly useful to cultivate strong relationships. Having an advanced customer management system – CRM would also allow your business to access customer data, boost communication levels, and ultimately stay connected with your customers at all levels. Also take a look at whether the software would be able to track loyalty points, redeem rewards, provide gift cards and hold membership accounts. Although these features may seem petty, they’ll do wonders in building long-term customer relationships.

Marketing Tools

When done right, advertising and promotional activities such as mass emails and SMS text messages can be extremely beneficial to your spa. This is why many businesses sometimes pay to use third-party software for their marketing efforts. However, utilizing different software separate from where you keep your customer’s info can become tedious, especially if you do not have your customer’s data already in your marketing software. This is why some spa and salon management software come with integrated marketing tools so that you can promote to your customers, seamlessly. Having all of your customer’s data, marketing tools, and analytics under one dashboard will definitely simplify your marketing efforts.

Employee Management

We’ve mainly focused on what spa management software can do for your clients, but what about what it can do for your staff? Sometimes collecting each staff member’s availability and creating a schedule accordingly can be a tedious process… Lucky for you, some spa management software can do just that! Employee management systems can host this unique feature to rid the burden of managing your staff schedule and allow more focused efforts to be spent on your customers. Another neat feature to look out for is the ability to set targets and goals for your staff to monitor and encourage productivity!

Reporting

The strongest indicator of a healthy business is by looking at its sales performance. When choosing a spa management software, it must have a powerful reporting system that provides you with real-time sales reporting. Having immediate access to insightful data will help you visually analyze business information and make informed business decisions. A good reporting system will come with a multitude of reports such as a key performance indicator, service performance, inventory, sales, and more. Access to meaningful data will help your spa identify its strong and weak points. Another important feature to consider is how the information is displayed. If the data is unclear and not understandable, it is merely useless. Having meaningful data portrayed in a transparent chart and crisp dashboard will make a huge difference in the way you gather your data.

Mobile Access

Most business owners do not have time to go into the store as much as they’d like to. That’s why having a digital solution that is mobile-friendly will make a huge difference in the way owners manage their stores. This means that you’ll be able to access your store’s data, manage appointments, monitor staff productivity, supervise inventory, and more from anywhere! Having a mobile-friendly platform simply creates greater flexibility and accessibility.

Introducing Klickbook

You can spend all your time looking for spa management software that has all the above features listed… Or you can save all your efforts and take a look at Klickbook.

Klickbook is Milano Software’s newest, most advanced, and comprehensive business management system for spas. This software is unrivalled to others. It is a highly functioning, cloud-based software solution that allows spas to manage every aspect of the business. As long as you have access to a web browser on your PC or mobile device, you will be able to use all of Klickbook’s features. It consists of a fully integrated online booking, point of sale – POS, staff management, marketing, customer relationship management, and inventory system. It even has the capability to integrate whatever features you need to successfully run your spa.

This software solution is unparalleled to any other with all of its meticulous details and unique functions that are designed to put new-age business management at ease.

Start your journey with Milano