How to Choose the Best POS System for Salon Business?
Modern salons have a few things in common, that being things primarily to do with style and an eco-friendly environment. There are, however, several areas that can make you distinguish your salon from the competition. One such area for business differentiation is customer experience and satisfaction. And very few tools can help with a customer experience like the best POS system for Salon businesses.
The right salon software helps you manage daily operations (in-depth benefits later) better. Its benefits aren’t the subject matter here. We’re looking at how to choose the best POS system for salon businesses. Therefore we will compare POS systems that help salon owners and also evaluate some vital points like:
What’s a salon POS system?
Why you need a point of sale for your salon
Common features of the best salon POS systems
Prices to consider
So if you’re ready to transform your business and find the best salon POS system for your operations, keep reading…
What’s a Salon POS System?
A Salon POS system is any software and hardware designed specifically to help your salon business operate smarter. Usually, you can handle all point-of-sale transactions, appointment bookings, employee scheduling, marketing, and reporting with your salon POS system.
Often the salon industry comes with the pressure to satisfy customers. So much that, professionals spend most of their time trying to juggle multiple customer appointments and payments, among others. These challenges only get worse during peak hours. This conundrum can leave you quite frustrated. However, buying the best salon POS software can solve a lot of your headaches.
As a result, your appointments, schedules, and entire business operations can become a breeze with the right help. With this help comes lots of free space to explore other aspects of business like expansion, increasing profitability, and many others.
The benefits and features that come with the best POS system for salon businesses positions salons that invest in them with a unique competitive advantage. Let’s take a closer look at some of these functionalities and understand why you need a point of sale software for your salon.
Why You Need a Point of Sale for your Salon
If you’re a salon owner, there are multiple benefits you can derive from a modern POS system for small businesses that’s been designed specifically for your type of retailer. Below are some of these benefits and advantages of using the best POS system for salon businesses.
Streamlining appointments – The challenging times to manage customer appointments are during peak hours. You can imagine how much this challenge costs your business every day. Ideally, every customer wants to be treated and serviced on time. However, high demand can, at times, prevent you from keeping meeting your appointments.
With a salon management software, you can reschedule, confirm appointments, and cancel appointments with a single touch of a button. You are saving both time and money. But there is more, the best salon point of sale system Will even send a customizable notification to your customer anything you modify your appointments.
Centralizing customer information – Gathering, saving, and tracking changes in customer behavior is the key to business growth today. In this regard, you will find a salon POS more than capable not only to keep track of customer information. Also, the system uses this data to generate targeted marketing campaigns for your business. You can compare Pos Systems regarding this feature with other traditional tools to see the difference it makes.
Also, you can implement sophisticated loyalty programs and other marketing initiatives, like email marketing. Data like customer details, service history, loyalty points, important dates, gift voucher usage details, and membership/subscription information can all remain within your reach through the best POS system for salon businesses.
Mind you; these are some of the primary benefits of such a system. You’ll find that several other benefits, features, and functionalities with the best salon POS system. Keep reading to know more.
Common Features of the Best Salon POS Systems
Unlike the traditional POS, most modern POS systems have certain basic features. However, a salon POS should come with features that specifically address the challenges of running a salon business. That’s why the best POS system for salons have the following functionalities:
Billing and POS Processing
The system helps you to quickly process payments through several means like credit and debit cards, cash, and cashless methods. Also, you can generate bills for your customers that you can email or print. The choice is really up to you. This feature also supports coupons, which allows your customers to redeem freebies and other delightful promotions you can put together with this system.
Besides, all your payments history and billing records are kept safe within the system.
Customer Management
With this feature, you can capture and retain vital information about your customers. The possibilities with this information are limitless. Some use it to capture customer feedback; others dig further to reveal useful insights into their business. It depends largely on the needs of your business; however, some common uses of this feature include categorizations of customers to create customer segmentation and pricing model generations.
Appointment Management
Your customers can quickly book appointments, follow up, or reschedule on the fly. It only takes an intuitive drag and drops features that are supported by the software’s user interface. Also, you can enable SMS text messaging to confirm appointments.
Staff Management
As a business owner, you know all too well the high labor costs and hurdles of managing permanent or temporary staff. Therefore, the staff management feature of the best POS system for salon and other such businesses help you keep track of vital employee metrics like employee availability, customer satisfaction, employee schedules, and turnover.
Marketing Campaigns
Many businesses plan very creative marketing campaigns but never get to implement these plans. The difference between planning and implementing a successful marketing campaign for your salon could very well be a salon point of sale system. Whether it’s an email-based marketing campaign, social or SMS, the best salon POS software got your back. Some of the other campaigns you can implement include membership programs, gift coupons, promotional packages, and loyalty cards.
As such, as these features sound exciting, you don’t want to choose top POS systems for your salon before asking yourself a very critical question: How much am I willing to spend for a better business? It also helps to check out POS system reviews by customers and know what others think about your options.
Prices to Consider
So you’ve decided to go with the best POS system for salon businesses. Perhaps you had a traditional POS in place but now looking to upgrade. It’s essential to understand that though these systems are very functional and add a significant amount of value, you have to see it as an investment. Therefore, you will spend some money. As to how much, it will depend on your business size, the number of terminals you need, and other variables.
Remember, the entire POS system comprises two components – hardware and software. Therefore, you need to take into account the cost of hardware too.
Let’s take a closer look below.
For a basic system, you should expect to pay between $1,500 and $2,000. Prices can reach $5,000 for the best POS system for salon businesses; these come with multiple capabilities and features.
For hardware, you expect to spend between $3000 to $4000 per terminal.
Normally, you will want a cloud-based POS, and these usually charge from $30 to $40/month
Also, you can expect to pay between $150 to $180 per month for a one-salon system.
Conclusion
You can 10x your current productivity at your business, provided you find the right tools. Here the best POS system for salon business offers an all-in-one POS solution. Considering the benefits, costs, and the difference it can make to your establishment, is this an investment you see yourself making? We’d like to know; please leave a comment in the section below.
