Why Is Your Salon’s Client Database Important?

Your salon database is the key to organising appointments, setting up the client journey, creating marketing materials and more. When starting your salon making sure the salon’s client database is set up well is crucial. This article will highlight the key uses of a salon database.

Once you have set it up, your salon’s client database will be used to record information that can then be accessed by your salon software and the stylists, and used to streamline your business. Your salon database can be used in all aspects of your salon management, booking appointments, recording skin tests, which treatments has the client previously used, ect. This data can then be used by your salon software to send clients automated messages and emails, giving your stylists more time to focus on their clients rather than arranging the minutiae.

Having well maintained records of past treatments and client information well organised within the database can help ensure your salon’s success. If your salon database is poor you may end up double booking, forgetting appointments, using the incorrect hair dye for a client or any number of other issues

Consistency

When visiting a salon or beauty salon clients put their trust in their salon to provide a consistently good service. When cutting or dying a client’s hair it is crucial to maintain consistency in how your client journey (the interactions clients have with your salon, that make up your service) and treatments are handled. When you set up the client journey, from start to finish make sure that the quality of the experience received with each visit remains the same.

Having customer information recorded in your database is key to ensure your digital marketing campaigns are effective. Maintaining consistent branding is also important to make sure your salon gains traction. Past marketing materials such as email templates and vouchers can be saved to your salon database. This ensures that each time an email is sent to your clients the colours and brand logo remain the same.

Organising Appointments

Your salon database is an important tool in organising your appointments. Each stylist in the salon should have an online schedule with appointments logged into the system as soon as they are booked. If the salon database is inaccurately updated or has other issues your appointment bookings may end up with inaccuracies or mistakes. For example:

• Double booking (having two clients booked at the same time and with the same stylist) can be a real problem if the database system isn’t maintained. This issue can leave clients upset and will lose your salon business.
• Disappearing appointments, where an appointment doesn’t show up on the system and so when the client arrives at the salon they aren’t prepared for the appointment.
• Appointments are booked into the system in the wrong place, meaning a stylist may have an empty space that could have been taken by another client.

Salon Software

Your salon software will require data from your salon database in order to function correctly. Even if you set up email reminders of hair care appointments, it will be ineffective if you do not collect all your clients email addresses. Recording your clients email preferences is also important. Many clients may ask not to be contacted outside of appointment confirmations or to be exclusively contacted through SMS, making sure this data is recorded will ensure your clients are properly taken care of.

• Client Journey

The client journey is often mapped out by the salon owner and the different stages placed on a board. Many salons send an initial confirmation email for a booking as well as other digital messages. For this system to work, it requires that the salon collect information from each client, including an email address and phone number. Having a pre-booking form to fill in for appointments and a list of questions for new clients booking an appointment to be recorded in the database will make the client journey much smoother.

• Email

Email marketing is a popular way to gain new clients. Collecting email addresses using online competitions and incentives such as a salon raffle, will allow you to create a database of local email addresses of prospective clients that may be interested in your salon. This process needs to also capture and record marketing permissions to use in order to comply with data privacy regulations. See GDPR regulations.

• SMS

Collecting clients’ phone numbers for your database is crucial to make sure appointments run smoothly. If you need to contact a client quickly for whatever reason, SMS messages are the quickest way to get in touch.

• Birthday wishes

Asking clients for their birthday for your database means that you can send out birthday wishes with treats such as extra points on their loyalty card.  Asking your clients specific age can be a little rude, so adding only a day and month of birth section on the form for new clients will be a discreet way to get the information for your database.

• Skin Tests

Skin tests for hair dye are used to ensure that clients will not have an adverse reaction to the hair dye you are using. Usually you should have a small amount of dye on your skin left for 48 hours before your appointment to check that you will be safe during the treatment.  Your salon database can be used to help you organise your skin tests and to ensure you and your clients are protected from a severe allergic reaction.

• Client Surveys

Salon surveys generate feedback about your services: What are customers pleased with and in what areas could they improve? There are so many ways to use survey information and your database can help you track the feedback you gain. Using your salon database to collect and organise information gained from salon surveys, can enable you utilise your clients’ feedback to improve your service.

Previous treatments

It is important to record each treatment you perform in your salon’s client database, including the dyes used and any preferences in cut. This means that your stylists can quickly check each client against the database and see what they are likely to need for the appointment.

Other little details such as how they like their tea, what did you discuss the last time they visited and if they have any family members that regularly visit the salon can be very important to help build a strong connection between your stylists and the client.

Here at SalonIQ we create software that is designed specifically with salon businesses in mind. Our Salon database software will help you to utilise your database to its fullest extent. If you are interested in SalonIQ database software, please contact us here. Our staff will be happy to explain how you can use our software to ensure your salon grows.

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