Table of contents
- Key Takeaways
- Time Management Tips during Peak Hours for Busy Salon Owners
- Plan your Day & Segment Services
- Strategic Scheduling Structures your Day for Success
- Switch to Staff Scheduling Software
- Don’t Ignore Walk-ins
- Managing Nail Services and Nail Art
- Use a Smart Salon POS
- Protecting the Hair Styling Schedule
- Continuously Evaluate Peak Hour Services
- Final Word
“Time is money” is a phrase that holds true for the hair and beauty industry. No matter what kind of beauty business you own, you probably call yourself a “busy” salon owner. Managing peak hours in a salon almost feels like controlled chaos.
As a salon owner, it’s your responsibility to manage a high-volume salon efficiently without losing quality. You’ve only passed the test as a beauty business owner once you’ve done that.
When you walk into any busy salon, you will find an array of different services happening at the same time. Haircuts, hair styling, nail art, facials and so on. Managing peak-time in a salon is no mean feat. It’s better to absorb pressure rather than amplifying it.
The key to optimal productivity in your hair salon or nail salon is beauty salon software. Through this blog, we aim at discussing how you can optimise your salon’s performance and productivity with salon computer software.
Key Takeaways
- To achieve peak-time efficiency, optimal staff scheduling is important. Overlapping shifts during peak hours can hamper productivity.
- To stay on track and understand client booking patterns, service duration, inventory and marketing, it’s best to use simple, intuitive technology such as Salon360App.
- To avoid bottlenecks when clients are in the salon, segment services by complexity and duration.
- Review peak performance every week to find any loopholes and address them accordingly.
Time Management Tips during Peak Hours for Busy Salon Owners
Plan your Day & Segment Services
Without planning, your beauty business will reach nowhere. It’s best to segment services by time and complexity.
For each service, assign realistic time slots. Consider potential consultation, complexity of the service, and give some additional time for any other quick service. When a salon owner segments services, they will be able to cater to peak hour demand.
Ideally, you should be creating three service tiers – quick services, standard services and complex services.
Quick services include basic cut, file and nail polish, trims and express blow-dries. Standard services encompass gel nail polish, haircuts, hair-dos, and styling. Complex services include acrylic nail extensions, nail art, bridal/party makeup, hair colouring and facials.
During peak hours, ensure you make slots available on your hair salon software only for standard and high-margin services. Limit complex services unless they’re pre-booked.
For acrylic nail extensions or nail art, only cater to clients on an appointment basis.
Strategic Scheduling Structures your Day for Success
When you own a salon, creating a well-organised daily plan is a must. It helps optimise yours as well as your team’s productivity.
During staff training sessions, highlight the importance of setting realistic timeframes for every appointment. If a stylist spends one hour for a haircut, there is definitely something wrong.
When sufficient time is allotted for each service, unnecessary delays can be eliminated. No matter how many clients visit you during peak hours, you will be able to manage with strategic scheduling.
Switch to Staff Scheduling Software
The biggest time management asset for a beauty business is salon staff scheduling software. With proper scheduling, you can achieve efficiency during peak time.
Instead of having only senior staff perform the service, ask junior stylists to help with less important or minor tasks. This can include a hair wash before a haircut or a blow-dry after a haircut.
You can also have a dedicated floor manager who can just look into operations and not particularly be responsible for servicing clients.
A common mistake new salon owners make is that they tend to mentally map everything. By having an up-to-date calendar, every stylist and technician will know what is expected of them.
Thus, to ensure every client receives a quality service, it’s best to let every staff member know what is expected of them beforehand.
Don’t Ignore Walk-ins
Be that kind of salon owner who handles walk-ins tactfully. Allow most of your appointments to come on your salon appointment system. However, leave some room for walk-ins or any last-minute requests.
By offering flexibility, you can accommodate new clients who’ve just passed by your salon or even cater to any emergencies. A few salon owners argue that walk-ins cause chaos. Well, they don’t if managed well.
While your hair salon programs will manage scheduled/fixed appointments, work on creating a smart walk-in system.
It’s best to have a walk-in specialist. Train them to greet clients in a way that would make them feel welcoming without rushing them. You should limit walk-ins to quick services only. Avoid servicing them if they’re coming for a haircut or hair-colouring services. This only applies during peak hours. On any other day when you don’t have many bookings, ensure you give them what they want.
For walk-ins on a busy day, you can even use a digital queue system. This will help them get a chair when their turn comes. It’s similar to what you’d see in a visa or passport centre.
Also, don’t forget to let these clients know that you take pre-bookings for appointments on your app, and they can do it themselves. In order to upsell future bookings, you can even give them a 10% discount coupon or any similar kind of incentive.
Managing Nail Services and Nail Art
Let’s come to the crux of the topic. Anyone who runs a nail salon knows how time-consuming nail art services can be.
Thus, limit nail art services or nail extensions only on an appointment basis. Any walk-ins during a rush hour, don’t get into offering detailed nail art services.
Make it clear in your communication that anything beyond basic designs will require an advance booking. The clients who want detailed designs will understand and ensure they book days in advance.
Certain nail salons even ask the clients to pre-select their designs at the time of booking. This helps the nail technician be prepared with the required colours and raw materials.
You can even consider curating a peak hour menu. Include fast-moving designs that are easily achievable. Include French manicure, ombre and other designs. Also, assign a fixed time duration for such services. It shouldn’t be more than 45 minutes.
This also helps you limit any kind of colour change requests. Another thing you need to keep in mind is to not offer discounts during peak hours. Based on the demand, you can use tiered pricing.
Use a Smart Salon POS
In order to control service flow in real-time, using a salon POS is a must. With an efficient point-of-sale system, you can optimise your salon’s performance and ensure quality is maintained throughout.
With a POS, even walk-in clients can be managed without disrupting appointments. It auto-calculates wait times and assigns a token number to them.
Another advantage of a POS is quicker checkout. You can simply enable contactless, QR code payments or one-tap checkout so that clients can be cleared quickly. Ideally, checkout should take under sixty seconds.
Protecting the Hair Styling Schedule
70% of salon services include hair services. It is literally the backbone of peak services. Thus, it’s important to guard them since they contribute a major chunk to your revenue.
To ensure the hair styling schedule remains protected during peak hours, allocate a buffer time of 10-15 minutes between each appointment.
As mentioned earlier, assign a junior stylist to fill in if the top stylist hasn’t finished another client’s haircut. They can take up minor tasks such as hair wash and blow-dries.
By splitting roles, you take the load of the shoulders of the top/senior stylist.
Continuously Evaluate Peak Hour Services
Managing peak hours is easier said than done. It’s important to review peak days to see how they went and what mistakes your staff is making. This will also help you identify what’s causing scheduling/work stress.
By continuously evaluating your salon operations, you will be able to provide your clients with a better experience. By regularly improving schedules, you can identify any areas that still have to be addressed. Look for any inefficiencies or bottlenecks.
You can optimise your schedule by using beauty salon software. It helps optimise your time management schedule as well.
Final Word
Managing peak-time in a salon can be stressful. However, with a proper structure and process in place, services can be managed efficiently.
Salon360App, hair salon software is built to segment services, manage walk-ins, control time-intensive services, and ensure stylists are able to maintain quality during the busiest hours.
It has built-in features including online booking, smart staff scheduling, CRM, POS and analytics.
Discover how Salon360App, the smart salon software can manage your beauty business during peak hours.
