As salon owners, we’re constantly wondering if the service we’re providing is enough. Is my client happy? Will they come back? What if they tell people bad things about my business? The thoughts are endless.
Consistency, sustainability, and accuracy are key; whether you have a new client who is visiting for the first time, or a long-standing regular! We cannot afford to become complacent.
To put it simply, this means that your service shouldn’t start when a client walks through the door for their appointment, it should start far before that! There are lots of things we can do prior to their first appointment; making booking their appointment seamless and enjoyable, SMS confirmations and reminders, up to emails and exclusive offers. A visit to your salon should not only be a great experience, but a journey too!
We want to explore some of Shortcuts’ shiny new features and changes in Shortcuts 8.1 that will make your working life easier, as well as creating the perfect guest experience that will leave your clients coming back for more!
Client Management Dashboard
In Shortcuts 8.1 we’ve streamlined our Client Management Dashboard, meaning clients can be found more easily and much quicker. This means that your client list will only appear once you start searching for a specific client. This can be done immediately by searching their name, phone number or email directly within the search box, helping to reduce admin and booking errors. To keep client search results relevant and precise, it will now only search from the beginning of a client’s name. For e.g., searching “Ann” will return Anna, Ann, Anne, Ann-Marie, but not Joanna or Hannah.
We have also included a range of new visual enhancements, which includes buttons for the client’s profile card as well as their visit history. Perfect!
It doesn’t end there; we’ve also added a range of key icons to identify and highlight important information for the selected client. These include Alerts, No-Shows, Client’s Birthday as well as if they’re a member of your loyalty program. These can all be found quickly in the new Client Management Dashboard, all designed to give a more convenient and streamlined user experience.
Request/Non-Request Pricing
Traditionally, Stylists, Barbers and Therapists will charge different prices dependent on their level of experience and qualifications, with this often being reflected in their dedicated level in Shortcuts.
In Shortcuts 8.1 we’ve introduced a brand-new configurable function for ‘Requested and Non-Requested’ pricing. This simply means that clients can now be charged a Request or Non-request (base) price for their services. A service not marked as ‘Request’ will be charged at the base default price and a service marked as a ‘Request’ will be charged at the employee’s level price instead.
Reduce Duplicate Entries
At Shortcuts, we know how important it is to have a clean and up-to date database, and how this can have a knock-on effect in other areas of your business. For example, you don’t want to accidently send a ‘We Miss You’ campaign to a client that has been visiting regularly!
To reduce these potential mistakes, it means you need to reduce accidental duplicate entries, especially for multi–site salons! The good news is our new checks have been put in place to reduce duplicate clients from being added, and to keep the database clean and efficient.
When entering a new client’s details, Shortcuts will now cross check the entire company to determine if that same client has already visited another location. This includes checking for the same phone number and email address, along with the same first letter of the client’s first name which will cater for any misspellings. If no matches are found, the new client will be added!
Updating New Client Record Cards
In a world where Covid-19 is still very much present, being able to contact and communicate with our clients quickly and efficiently is crucial, and this starts from the initial input of the client’s information.
Traditionally, operators must input at least one contact number to continue with creating an appointment, however we have now taken further preventive measures and have introduced a handy new setting into the ‘New Client Layout’ setup screen. This new setting means that clients must have at least one contact method stored, whether this an email and/or phone number.
If you’d like to find out more about how Shortcuts can help you take your business to the next level, why not book a demo? Or get in touch with our friendly team to learn more!
