Businesses operating in the beauty and wellness industry often find themselves faced with multiple challenges. At one end they face the industry wide stiff competition, which compels them to constantly improve operational efficiencies, and on the other they have to consistently deliver excellent client experience, failing which they risk losing both the client and the revenue from future visits. Over the last decade, one of the ways salons and spas addressed the challenge was by leveraging technology such as POS (point of sale) systems, salon booking software to run their daily operations. Whilst this solution was great and improved operational efficiencies, it didn’t provide a completely seamless client experience. Thus, there was a need for an integrated system to meet the ever evolving client expectations, and an integrated payment system is one such solution. In this blog, we help you comprehend how integrated payment systems for salons and spas simplifies transactions and improves client experience.
Omni channel Payment Options
One of the primary ways and integrated payment solution improves client experience is by offering them the choice to use payment channel that they’re familiar with. It works by upgrading your POS system to accept payments through other modes such as mobile payments, wallets, redemption of gift cards and cashing of loyalty points. Essentially, the system allows the clients to be in control of the payment procedure and allows them to use methodology that is familiar to them. As a result, clients feel more satisfied and are willing to spend more.
Never Worry about Compliance or Security
Unlike traditional POS systems, an integrated payment system offers better security against data breach and hacking. In the former set up, you and your business become responsible for ensuring that your IT infrastructure is robust enough to prevent any hacks whereas in the latter, it becomes the job of the host solution provider, as an integrated payment solution is often an integral part of a larger technological solution. For instance, Zenoti Payments the integrated payment solution is a part of the Zenoti Salon & Spa Management software. It is a fully PCI compliant solution, which offers advanced security features such as tokenization, EMV , 2 factor authorization and equips you to offer guests with as many payment choices as possible. It comes with a transparent flat fee pricing structure and doesn’t bind you with minimum contract value etc.
Seamless Guest Experience
We circle back to the beginning, where we spoke about delighting clients with seamless experiences. For salons and spas, an integrated payment system is a crucial step in making that a reality for their guests. As these systems are fully integrated with other vital business operations they offer guests the convenience of settling payments anytime and from anywhere. No longer do they have to wait at the front desk or deal with a standalone self-help kiosk. The payment solution, automatically fetches the data from the CRM and sales modules to compute membership discounts, and offer clients the choice of redeeming loyalty rewards, if any. As such, clients can accomplish everything through their hand held devices and in just a few taps whilst being in the comfort of their homes or sitting at the salon chair.
Streamlined Operations
Integrated payment solutions do much more than just processing payments. As the system is built to exchange data through multiple processes, it eliminates the need go back and forth to reconcile the data to ensure that revenue is matching with orders, or that accounting has been done correctly. The Some integrated payment solutions such as Zenoti Payments also offer seamless integration with third party accounting software such as Quickbooks and Xero and share data for real time accounting entries.
Improve Profits
Odd as it may sound, an integrated payment system can actually help in improving your revenue and consequently your profits. Multiple studies have indicated that clients spend more, when they find the process of spending to be as easy as a cake walk. As integrated payment systems work in tandem with the retail portal and the POS system, it allows you to offer guests the option to upgrade services and buy products in a jiffy and without having to worry about how are they going to pay for it. In other words, the system removes all barriers between the commercial processes between you and your clients, thus help in giving a boost to your revenue and profitability.
Today’s competitive world requires that our systems be as intuitive as us and do not work in siloed form. An integrated payment system is an intuitive solution. By aligning itself with bookings, invoicing, and accounting processes it creates seamless set up where data is exchanged freely in this closed eco-system. As a result, businesses no longer have to spend time in doing repetitive work such and clients get a seamless experience.
