If your beauty business is not optimising on peak hours, you’re probably missing out. In salons and spas typically, evening and weekends (especially Friday and Saturday) are considered peak hours. These are the times when a large volume of clients’ avail services. As a salon, you need to make the most of these peak hours instead of missing out. By leveraging salon scheduling software, you can optimise peak hours, increase utilisation and reduce wait times. Every salon owner wants to see their calendars full at all times and maximise profit. The secret to filling every slot is out. Keep reading to find out how!
Tips to Optimise a Salon Booking System for Peak Hours
- Real-time Data Analysis
As a salon owner, you can’t just observe clients to determine when peak times occur. Though you can predict to a certain extent, it’s not always on point. That’s where salon scheduling software comes in. One of the highlighting features of salon software is that it provides you with a real-time analytics dashboard. You can identify patterns, opportunities and various trends for peak hours. Identify high-traffic periods as well as bottlenecks. A few metrics you should be looking at are occupancy, average daily rate, booking pace and cancellations. You can also look at daily/hourly demand.
For every salon owner, data is crucial. It helps you understand where demand is the highest, and it also helps you adjust staffing levels. For instance, if you identify that Wednesday evenings are busy for your salon, you can allocate more stylists during that particular period.
- Offer Promotions & Discounts during Non-peak Hours
Running a salon or spa successfully is all about understanding booking trends. While peak hours are crucial for your business, non-peak hours matter too. During slower periods too you can encourage bookings. Consider offering discounts or running a promotion. Doing so ensures your salon is busy all throughout the day and also balances staff workload. The best time to run any offer is Monday-Thursday from 12pm-5pm. Price-sensitive customers will be compelled to visit you during these hours. This will keep your salon busy all through the day.
- Demand Forecasting
Based on the data analysis, it may be a good idea to forecast your demand. Draw out reports to estimate the number of bookings or revenue you can expect from every peak period. When you’re analysing your peak times, it’s a good idea to consider events (weddings, festivals), holidays, and competition. Analyse all the factors that can influence your demand. When you forecast your demand, you can plan your inventory accordingly.
- Effortless Online Booking
Clients today desire convenience everywhere they go and in everything they do. It can be quite frustrating for a manager if clients call repeatedly during peak hours. In order to reduce the need for phone calls and manual scheduling, a salon booking system allows clients to book online 24/7. Even during peak hours, clients can view availability in real-time and choose their preferred slot. At the same time, dashboards also provide salon staff to see their new bookings. To reduce any risks of no-shows and cancellations, the software even sends automated reminders.
- Double-up Bookings
Peak hours don’t mean that you can service only one client at a time. A fool-proof way to optimise your salon scheduling is by double-booking wherever possible. This is intentional double booking. For example, you can double up your revenue by servicing another client during a hair colour treatment. However, make sure the other client you take up is for a quick service and not a lengthy procedure. For example, during a colour service, you can even slide in a haircut or waxing appointment. You can even start another client’s root touch-up. It all boils down to how well your staff can manage their time during peak hours. If you’re sensible about it, you can make the situation profitable.
- Wait List Management
Another way salon scheduling software can help you optimise peak hours is by helping with time slot management. Every salon should consider having a waitlist. Should a cancellation occur, you can immediately fill the slot rather than losing out on revenue. A cancellation during a peak hour can hurt your business revenue significantly. The software automatically intimates the next person in line to book that spot. Software that has a waitlist feature helps you optimise your schedule. It helps you capitalise on the best booking times.
Final Words
Optimising peak hours is important to help your beauty business succeed. Salon360App can streamline your booking process, and ensure efficient scheduling. The best way to reduce operational stress on the salon floor is by investing in salon booking software. It helps you manage user demand and ensures you cater to your loyal clientele proactively.
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