Are you wondering how to increase your salon bookings? Especially online?
With everyone shopping online these days, appointment-based businesses have to leverage online scheduling lest they lose online clients.
For salon businesses, the biggest chunk of your new clients comes from social media.
These are people who want to book appointments with you instantly upon seeing pictures of your happy clients on Instagram.
They don’t want to come by your salon without an appointment and they don’t exactly fancy manual appointments (phone calls or texting). That is why you need an online salon booking system that allows clients to self-schedule at their convenience.
But then competition in the hair and beauty industry is quite intense.
Your competitors are advertising their salons on social media, they have online booking systems, and they are targeting the same clients you intend to attract and retain.
You must, therefore, do something different to attract more online bookings.
Tips To Increase Your Salon Bookings Online
To increase your salon bookings online, you need to:
1. Invest in the right scheduling software
● All scheduling software isn’t the same.
A good booking system will help you provide a superior customer experience. It will even help you market your salon business on social media.
But then with too many options in the market, finding the right online hair salon software can be quite daunting. To help you out with that, here is a summarized guideline to choosing the right salon booking software.
● How easily do the software’s booking widgets make it for you to add ‘Book Now’ buttons to your online profiles?
You need a system that allows you to seamlessly incorporate online booking buttons into your salon’s website, social media profile, and email signature. That enhances the ease and speed of making appointments with your salon and, consequently, increases your salon’s online bookings.
● The software provide multiple secured payment options or not?
Good software will support cash, credit card, and debit card options, of course.
An excellent one will help you do more, e.g. allow you to create mobile wallets for easy access to coupons and loyalty cards by clients. Is it too technical for first-time users?
Your software should make your booking page so convenient and fun to use that even Luddites would be tempted.
● Does it have enough security features?
The data you collect and store through the software should be safe from cybercriminals. The software should eliminate every possible risk of fraud at every step of the payment process’ checkout.
It should ensure that your payment gateway is error-free, all transactions are smooth, and the refunding process is flawless in case of appointment cancellation.
● Whether it support your digital marketing and promotions?
Reputable software should help you communicate with clients via automated emails or SMS. You should be able to send out appointment confirmations and reminders or info about new offers with a single click of a button.
Does your online booking system allow seamless voucher generation, say gift vouchers? How easy is it to access online and telephone support for your software?
Sometimes your clients will encounter problems when booking your services online, and that might necessitate technical help from the developers. How fast you can get it will determine if you retain the affected customers or not.
● How does your salon management software organize databases?
If, for example, you want to record or access information about a client’s allergies or favorite products, how fast can you access it?
You don’t want to keep clients waiting at the chair for hours as you surf through endless, unorganized chunks of data.
2. Leverage Reserve with Google
Being an appointment-based business, you probably already know the importance of optimizing your business for Google. Google shines a light on your business and makes it visible to your target clientele.
That’s why you have to invest in local SEO, particularly Reserve with Google. Reserve with Google goes beyond shining a light on your salon business. It essentially allows interested clients to book your services without having to come to your website- straight from Google Search and Google Maps.
That eliminates the unnecessarily lengthy and complicated booking steps, which consequently encourages clients to book more. Furthermore, clients can get all the information they need with regards to location, office hours, real-time available slots, and pricing options right from Google Search.
As we said, you have to meet clients exactly where they already are if you are to be different from the competition.
3. Improve your booking page accessibility
All your salon customers aren’t gifted the same physically, mentally, or both.
You could be leaving out a huge online demographic if your website, and particularly your booking page, is too complicated for the blind, the deaf, people with cerebral palsy, among other physical/mental challenges.
How can you bring these people on board and make it easy for them to book appointments with you?
- Unless it is absolutely necessary, don’t use flashing or moving images on your booking page. Some of your clients suffer from photosensitive epilepsy and are at a high risk of getting seizures.
- Use reasonably large fonts on your website and for clients with low vision. You can even enable clients to adjust font sizes on the booking page (or zoom in) to enhance visibility for people suffering from dyslexia.
- Choose booking software with voice booking features. Something like an automated AI that takes clients through the entire booking process. All a client needs to do is call in and then answer questions as asked by the AI assistant.
- Add alt text to images not just for good SEO but also for better website accessibility.
4. Invest in vigorous campaigns
Do you see the way you advertise your salon and its services?
Add a viral factor to your booking platform by, for example, offering referral discounts for existing clients who share your salon’s booking page link with their social media followers.
Other ways include:
- Add a Book Now button to all your social media profiles. Your salon booking software should make that effortless for you.
- Create a loyalty program for online clients. Create a system where the more a client spends on your booking page, the more they save.
- List your salon business (and the booking link) in online directories.
Final word
Increasing your salon bookings online goes beyond getting new clients. You have to ensure that your
services are impeccable for better customer retention.
Don’t make any promises online that you aren’t exactly sure that you can or will keep. Set reasonable minimum and maximum lead time while at it for more effective schedule management.
Use these tips to increase salon bookings online and do share your comments which of these tips worked best for you.
~Written by Lena Linetti.