While you are a skin expert and your clients love you, there is more to running a successful esthetician business than simply being a good esthetician. You also need to think about all of the behind the scenes business owner aspects of going solo. Everything from payment processing, setting your salon prices, contracts , and even what esthetician scheduling software to use.
We know it is a lot to think about, but we want to help you make the transition as simple as possible. And to do that, we are going to help walk you through exactly what you need with a booking software for your spa, how to set it up, and how to automate your client schedule so you can truly focus on growing your spa business.
Also in today’s work environment, the best booking software for estheticians will come in an app. Most estheticians will want to be able to manage their business easily on their phone between appointments. If you have to get out the computer, you will miss important notifications.
Setting Appointments as an Esthetician
Setting appointments can seem simple, but at the same time also be a huge stress for business owners. As an esthetician, you are booking people for a wide array of services and will need to make sure you are staying well organized with your booking system.
Many people start out using things like a simple Google calendar, paper planner, or even one of the many free softwares out there for estheticians. The problem is, all of these can actually cause more chaos and confusion. When you are doing it all on your own, it can be hard to manage everything you need to do when it comes to your appointments. It’s important for your booking system to integrate with everything else you use including payments and even automated text reminders.
Here’s an example. Say you are using a paper planner or manual Google calendar. Your client calls you to schedule a one hour appointment. You get them penciled in, then you take their deposit with whatever payment processor you are using. This may be the end of it, but sometimes it isn’t. Say that same client calls back to reschedule. Now you have to go back to your planner, look at your available time, scratch out their name, try to move it somewhere else.
If you are busy, you may not even have time to answer all of your calls. This client wants to book with you or reschedule, but you are busy with another appointment. What happens now? You either call them back and hope they answer, starting a game of phone tag, or you completely miss it all together and now you have lost out on that potential income.
Getting your appointment setting to where it is an automatic process is KEY to success within the esthetician industry. It makes it easy on you, easy on your clients, and everyone wins. So when you are ready to go into your new business, it really is important to have good systems in place.
What Should a Good Esthetician Booking Software Do?
So what should a great esthetician booking software look like? We are going to walk you through some of the most important things you need to have when choosing the best booking platform for your spa business.
Allow Your Clients to Easily Book You Online
First and foremost, you need to be able to have your clients easily book you online. A good software will allow you to make a beautiful custom booking page that you can share with your clients. This will allow them to see when you are available, pick the service and time they want to come in, and book their appointment right there without ever having to play phone tag with you.
They should also be able to go back in and reschedule themselves with your other available times if they need to.
This takes a lot of stress off of you as a business owner and gives you the freedom to really focus on your services.
Accept Credit Cards for Deposits and Automatic Payments
Another important thing that your booking software should do is accept credit cards for automatic deposits and payments.
When clients book with you, you should be able to automatically prompt them to enter their payment information so that you get your deposit upfront. That way, if they happen to cancel last minute or no-call-no-show, you still have something to show for the time you should have been booked for.
Once services are rendered, your booking app should be able to send that full payment invoice to the client and automatically charge their card on file. This is great for you since you will never have those awkward moments of handing your client a bill and asking for payment in person. It makes it easy for you, easy for the client, and again, everyone wins.
Send Confirmations and Notifications Automatically
One of the most, if not the most, important things your esthetician booking software should do is to send out confirmations and notifications to your clients automatically.
Appointment reminders will help make sure that your client always remembers the exact time of their appointment. We have seen that simply by making sure you send automatic appointment reminders, your late clients and no-call-no-shows end up decreasing significantly!
Just think about it, some people are making appointments a month or so in advance. It is highly likely that some of these people will forget to write down their appointments and will then simply forget what day and time they are supposed to arrive for their appointment. Reminders will not only help you make sure your time is not wasted on clients that don’t show up, it will also help your clients remember their own appointments.
While it is possible for you to manually send out these reminder texts and emails, that will start to really dig into your time that would be better spent performing services. That’s why we recommend automatic reminders that you simply set up and let run on their own. You just pick the frequency that the reminders will be sent, and you are good to go!
What Esthetician Booking Software Should I Use?
Now that you know what a great esthetician software should look like, now is the time to decide which one you should use.
If you want everything we mentioned above, and so much more, then PocketSuite may be right for your esthetician business.
PocketSuite has everything you need to run your esthetician business right from your phone. Not only do we offer an esthetician specific version of the app, we also have an amazing customer service team who are ready and willing to help walk you through everything you need to get the most out of your booking software. If you are moving from one platform to PocketSuite, the team will help you transfer everything over so you don’t ever have to worry about missing out on appointments you already had scheduled.
We know how important your time is, and we want to help you save time and make more money. We believe in our app so much that we offer a 30-day risk free trial ( you don’t even have to enter a credit card to get ALL of the benefits). During these 30 days, you can have one-on-one calls with our customer care team and get all of your questions answered, everything transferred over, and have everything set up just the way you want for your unique business.
So what are you waiting for? Give PocketSuite a try for your esthetician business today and see how we can help you grow your business into an empire!
