Retail can contribute to a significant part of your hotel or resort spa’s revenue, with contributions ranging from an estimated 5% to 30%. Here’s how software improves retail sales. 

Software can play a crucial role in ensuring the success of retail strategies and the efficiency of processes in several ways. Integrating advanced software solutions can transform how spas and hotels manage their operations, customer experiences, and revenue streams. Here’s how:

Retail sales can contribute to a significant part of your hotel or resort spa’s revenue, with contributions ranging from an estimated 5% to 30%. This significant variability indicates substantial growth opportunity, particularly for those at the lower end of this spectrum. Achieving higher retail sales starts with a well-trained team that is both knowledgeable about the products and personally convinced of their benefits – the effectiveness of a sales strategy is profoundly influenced by the enthusiasm of the sales team for the products they’re selling. Employees who have had the chance to try the products themselves and have fallen in love with them are far more likely to convey a genuine enthusiasm to customers, making the sales process both more authentic and more successful. Do not be afraid to reach out to vendors and ask for samples so that your team can try out the products. They are going to be a vendor’s biggest advocate and your biggest sales people just by making simple post-treatment recommendations.

The implementation of a sophisticated spa and ancillary revenue software system is another crucial step towards enhancing retail sales. Software can drastically improve operations, customer engagement, and revenue generation. By streamlining processes, facilitating better inventory management, and offering detailed insights into customer behavior, software solutions help businesses create more effective strategies, significantly boost sales, and increase overall revenue. 

How software improves retail sales

Data Analytics and Reporting

Start with the fundamentals; run retail reports and see which lines and items are selling the best and where the areas of opportunity are. From there you will be able to get a better understanding of how your retail business is operating and why. 

For example, if you notice one serum from a particular line is doing really well, audit your selection and see if you are carrying the entire line from that vendor. When a guest is in love with a single item, they will probably be interested in the entire line. This could boost your sales from a 100 dollar serum to upwards of 500 dollars when you factor in a cleanser, toner and moisturizer as well. 

Advanced analytics, like those found on Book4Time’s reporting dashboards, provide insights into sales trends, customer preferences, and operational efficiency. This data is crucial for making informed decisions about retail strategy and process improvements. Understanding broader market trends and customer preferences through data analysis helps you tailor retail strategies to meet changing demand. Software can also predict inventory needs by analyzing sales data, and automate restocking orders, ensuring that inventory levels are optimized for demand.

Inventory Management

Staying on top of your inventory is crucial! Software can automate the tracking of available retail products, reducing the risk of stockouts or overstocking. The most popular products are always in stock and you won’t overstock items that aren’t selling. Nobody wants to hear that a product they’ve fallen in love with is unavailable when they want it. 

Book4Time software automatically deducts stock from your physical count when an item is purchased through our POS system. The software also allows you to create and receive purchase orders and process intercompany transfers, so you can ship products from one hotel to another and always know what you have on hand and when it’s time to place an order.

Customer Relationship Management (CRM)

There is nothing like a warm buyer who has already had a great experience with you, and software helps you build and maintain the best customer relationships. Stay in touch with customers and remind them when it’s time to refill. Keeping notes about purchase history and behavior allows you to create personalized promotions and recommendations to enhance the guest experience and increase retail sales – if you know what someone enjoys and what they bought last time, it’s easy to follow up with recommendations. Book4Time’s note taking function is for staff to keep records of everything customer related and notes can be shared across multiple properties so staff is ready, no matter where they are. Customer segmentation can help improve your retail marketing by grouping people based on their preferences and purchase history, allowing you to create targeted marketing campaigns. Collecting and analyzing customer feedback through the software helps you refine retail offerings and improve service quality. 

Ask your vendors if you can promote a gift with purchase, like a deluxe item from their line or a treatment add-on.

Loyalty Programs

Loyalty programs are a gold mine for retail. These programs can offer points or rewards for purchasing retail products, which significantly increase retail sales by encouraging guests to buy products they might otherwise overlook. Providing loyalty members with early access to new products, special editions, or members-only merchandise can also boost sales and enhance the perceived value of the loyalty program – We got this new body oil in! Try it! – Book4Time manages your loyalty programs to reward repeat customers by offering customizable rewards and incentives, enabling businesses to create personalized experiences that resonate with their unique customer base, ultimately fostering long-lasting brand loyalty and customer satisfaction.

Sales & Revenue Management

Software that supports dynamic pricing for both services and retail products can maximize revenue by adjusting prices based on demand, seasonality, and customer behavior. Software can also identify opportunities for cross-selling and upselling retail products during the booking process or throughout the guest’s stay, increasing per-customer revenue.

Digital Marketing Integration

Integrating software with digital marketing tools can enhance online visibility and drive both bookings and retail sales through social media, email marketing, and SEO. Book4Time boasts the most integrations in the business, working in tandem with more than 100 systems, including marketing automation systems like Revinate, Clairvoyix, and Demandforce. 

When it comes to indecisive guests, Book4Time’s Shopping Cart feature allows you to put a hold on a retail item a guest is potentially interested in purchasing. This allows the guest to finish looking around or deciding if they want to make the purchase, without adding it to their ticket. You can also save a pending sale, allowing guests to come back and close out their ticket at a later time.

A streamlined POS system

All of these tips should help you get more out of your software to improve your retail sales. Plus, you can save time and improve guest experience with Book4Time’s built-in Point of Sale system. Our streamlined POS system is easy to use and allows you to process multiple payment options, offer a quicker checkout, and share receipts via email. Clients use our POS software for retail boutiques, golf retail shops, spa and salon products and much more. Guests can make purchases via cash, room charge, loyalty points, membership accounts, or on a credit or debit card. Chances are we seamlessly integrate with your current payment processor.

Spa Executive is published by Book4Time, the leader in guest management, revenue and mobile solutions for the most exclusive spas, hotels, and resorts around the globe. Learn more at book4time.com.

Image by pvproductions on Freepik

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Now that we’ve been living with the changes we’ve had to make for some time, we’re adapting to a new way of being and realizing that some of them will be permanent, or at least long lived.

By Roger Sholanki,
CEO, Book4Time

As we look into the new year, I see good developments on the horizon. There will be a trend towards adopting more digital technologies to simplify processes, enhance the guest experience, save time and money, and facilitate sustainability initiatives.

Sustainability is one of the biggest trends we’ll see in 2022. A lot of efforts related to sustainability were put on hold over the past two years because of the pandemic and the sudden ubiquity of disposable masks, hand sanitizer bottles, and individually packaged items. Now that we’ve been living with the changes we’ve had to make for some time, we’re adapting to a new way of being and realizing that some of them will be permanent, or at least long lived.

This means reinstating some of the elements that were put on hold. In her Spotlight interview this month, Amanda Frasier, Forbes Travel Guide’s (FTG) Executive Vice President of Standards & Ratings, talked about the fact that FTG removed the requirement for a hotel or spa to offer a buffet service during the pandemic as a concession to health and safety concerns. Now, she says, FTG is bringing that requirement back because it’s an enhancement to the guest experience, but is rewriting it with some modifications that better suit how people now think about communal buffets.

Similarly, sustainability initiatives may look different in a year or two than they do now, and we don’t yet know what this might mean. We do know, however, that some of the practices that were introduced out of necessity will remain in place, and that these serve to enhance both health and safety and sustainability. Virtual intake forms, online booking, and contactless check-in, check-out, and payments, for example, help reduce shared touchpoints and paper waste.

Going paperless will soon be considered a standard best practice, and this will also include QR codes and digital menus. The entire contactless experience that we’ve been talking about will have a life of its own and new meaning in terms of consumer experience. Guests will choose their services, book online, and fill out forms before they even set foot in the spa, and when they physically arrive, they will check in on their devices and the devices will advise them where to go and what procedures to follow.

Digital technology will continue to drive more efficiencies, and the way that spas interact with customers will evolve. This has the added bonus of alleviating some of the stress spas are experiencing these days from being limited on staff. Existing staff will be more able to focus more on high value services and less on tasks that require being behind the computer.

Digital tech will also facilitate cancellation policies and allow spas to collect customer credit card information in a secure fashion online, without having to provide this over the phone, which can have an element of risk.

It’s exciting that we have these technologies available to help us create life changing guest experiences and ease the pressure on our teams and ourselves. People taking full advantage of the things that can make life easier and better is one trend I hope to see a lot more of.  

We’ve released a list of the spa & wellness trends we’ll be watching next year. Click here to download the Handbook: Seven wellness trends for 2022

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The benefits of fully integrated payment solutions for your spa business. 

Integrated solutions make business operations easier and more efficient. Integrated payment solutions are just one example. 

By Ali Mroueh,
Director of Partnerships at Book4Time

What are integrated solutions?

At the highest level, an integrated solution is where two technologies share and exchange data. This exchange can take place inconspicuously in the background or can present itself in the form of a module or a number of embedded fields within the user interface (UI). Here are a few examples of an integrated solution:

1. Point-of-Sale software shares end-of-day sales data with financial software. Financial software is able to ingest the sales data and populate financial reports and statements.

2. CRM software with a marketing automation module powered by a partnered solution. CRM software is able to create and run marketing campaigns using the CRM data within their platform.

3. Online Booking System captures and bills customer credit cards during the booking process. The online booking system integrates with the payment processing or billing solution to provide a seamless customer experience. 

For more on integrations, see How integrations can improve your hospitality business

Benefits of fully integrated solutions; payment solutions

As consumers, we use our credit cards to pay for goods and services daily. These experiences take place online and in-store; whether it’s buying a pair of shoes on your phone while watching a show or running to the grocery store to buy milk. Whether we know it or not, we are users of integrated payment solutions. We, as consumers, benefit from these integrations through the form of convenience. You can purchase goods and services online within the comfort of your home and without being redirected to a number of webpages. You can tap your card at the grocery checkout without having to physically enter your PIN. Thank you, payment solutions.

Businesses also benefit from integrated payment solutions. A retailer can experience revenue growth by selling and accepting payments online. A health club can improve operational efficiency by capturing member credit cards and automating membership billing. To expand on these benefits, let’s take a look at how Book4Time leverages integrated payments.

Book4Time is a business management solution that enables customers to manage online bookings and facility operations. The integrated payment solution, Book4Time Pay, presents benefits to both the spa and spa guests. Here’s how it works:

1. The guest visits the spa website to book their treatment

2. Book4Time Pay captures the guest’s card details during the booking process

• the card details are securely saved to the guest’s profile
• the spa confirms appointment and can accept booking guarantees 

3. The guest visits the spa, finishes their treatment and proceeds to checkout

4. Checkout:

• the spa can bill the credit card on file (same one used to book the appointment) 
• the guest can use a different card to check out
• the guest can skip the front desk and checkout on their mobile device through an express checkout (using card on file or a different card)

The benefits of Book4Time Pay for the guest are convenience and a seamless guest experience. The guest was able to enter their credit card information once online and had the option to checkout without physical contact or waiting around. 

The benefits of Book4Time Pay for the spa are improved operational efficiency, enhanced guest experience and potential revenue growth:

• Improved operational efficiency
  • the spa captures the guest’s card information once as opposed to every visit
  • the guest’s card is saved to their profile meaning less manual entry by the spa staff
  • reduced human error now that the spa staff are not required to enter a card number or tender value
• Enhanced guest experience
  • the guest can book online and enter their card details once
  • the guest is given options to check out as convenient as possible
• Revenue growth
  • the spa can accept booking guarantees for all guest bookings
  • the spa can sell gift cards and upsell guest’s online
  • greater efficiency can translate to a greater fill ratio 

For more information or to learn more about Book4Time Pay, visit book4time.com/book4time-pay/

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Marketing is an important part of your spa business. Here’s how software can help market your spa.

Marketing can be a struggle for spas. Many don’t have the resources for a dedicated marketing team, and even for those that do, marketing can be hit and miss and a lot of work. A marketing solution that integrates with your spa management software system can help you reach larger audiences, maintain existing customers, and increase revenue while saving you both time and effort.

Demandforce is one such solution. Using the examples of Book4Time spa management software and Demandforce, these two systems integrate and sync with each other every hour, meaning that information put into each is automatically shared with the other and does not require separate manual input so you can manage your marketing communications all in one central space. 

Taking charge of your spa’s marketing with an integration like Demandforce and Book4Time allows you to do the following, and more:

Take charge of your client communications

A good, cloud-based, marketing integration tool is accessible from anywhere and allows you and your team to send communications from wherever they are. You don’t have to be at your front desk or even at the spa. With the Demandforce app, for example, team members can respond to client messages from anywhere on or off the property, even from their home office. With an app, you can receive pop up notifications whenever there is a communication from a client and respond in a timely manner. In today’s world, it makes little sense to set restrictive parameters to the timing of client communications. A great customer experience means being there to respond and answer questions – even when you’re not in front of a computer. People don’t want to wait and, if they have to, you risk losing their business.

Automate and segment your messaging

Reaching out to clients spas haven’t seen in a while to let them know they are missed has been an integral part of COVID recovery. While many hotel, resort, and destination spas are struggling to attract travellers, a marketing integration allows you to connect with customer segments of people living in your community, so you can reach out to  local guests and invite them to return to your spa. Demandforce syncs with Book4Time to see who has not visited in some time and makes those contacts for you. Two-way texting also allows your front desk staff to have a conversation with the client after the message is sent from within the integrated solution, and respond to any replies.

Manage your online reputation

Reviews are one of your most powerful marketing tools as they have the benefit of being user generated. People will only give so much credence to your own assessment of your own products and services. A third party take is another, more reliable, story. Reviews are incredibly important when it comes to building a spa’s brand and reputation and research shows that a vast majority of people look at online reviews before making a purchase decision. A marketing integration, like Demandforce, can ask clients to leave reviews and broadcast those reviews to relevant search engines.

It’s also important to engage with online reviews. If you receive a negative review, there’s an opportunity to step in and perhaps turn it around with a well thought out response and attempt to understand and make reparations. And a good review should receive a heartfelt “thank you for taking the time to write these kind words.” A marketing integration can notify you when you do get a new review and facilitate replying.

Manage your email campaigns

Email is another integral element of marketing and still one of the top strategies, but don’t just blast off mass messages that say the same thing to everyone. That’s called SPAMMING, and everyone hates it. An email marketing platform can make your life much easier, customizing your communications to specific audience segments, and optimizing for mobile. Optimizing for mobile is a must these days, as a majority of people now read email on their mobile devices. Your software integration can pull your existing customer information from your software system to help you send mobile-optimized email campaigns customized to specific audiences.

Increase average tickets and retail sales with customized recommendations

If a guest has tried one of your services but not another, a marketing integration can pull this information from your software and reach out to those people to offer them the opportunity to try another service, increasing your ticket size. Similarly, your software integration can send refill reminders when someone should be about to run out of a product (say, three months after purchase), and promote retail products to specific customers and increase your upsells.

Is a beloved service provider away on maternity leave? Let their devoted customers know about the other wonderful providers they can see in the meantime.

Book4Time works in partnership with Demandforce to bring these marketing strategies to life for you. This is the power of integrated solutions.

Is finding and retaining talent a challenge at your spa? Get insights from industry leaders, including Nigel Franklyn, Lynne McNees, Verena Lasvigne-Fox, and Daisy Tepper when you download our report: What will it take to fix the spa industry’s staffing shortage? .

Spa Executive is published by Book4Time, the leader in guest management, revenue and mobile solutions for the most exclusive spas, hotels, and resorts around the globe. Learn more at book4time.com.

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If you’re managing a spa, you’re pulled in a millions different directions at once. Spa management software can make your life a lot easier. 

Running a spa means juggling a lot to keep things running smoothly. There’s so much to do, from booking appointments and looking after guests, to managing and supporting your staff, day-to-day administration, tracking KPIs, and keeping stakeholders happy – often while understaffed. There are ways to make this life easier with spa management software.

Software is an incredible tool that can help you streamline operations, track data, understand your business operations, take care of admin work, maintain guest relationships, and more.

Here’s how spa management software makes your life easier.

Integrations are easy with spa management software

If you’re using other systems, like a property management system, point of sale system, or access control system, you want to integrate all your systems for a seamless guest experience, to save time, and to make everything more efficient. In software, an integration is where two solutions exchange data.

Say Company A is a retail POS solution and Company B is an eCommerce solution. A retail business that uses Company A’s solution for instore purchases and Company B’s solution for online purchases without an integration has to manually track stock levels every time a sale is made online or in store, to ensure they don’t sell something they don’t have. This is a tedious and time-consuming task that leaves plenty of room for error.

An integration allows Company B to share transaction information with Company A and vice versa, and inventory levels are adjusted automatically. Easy.

This is just one example of how software integrations make life easy. Integrations allow businesses to save time, improve customer experience, run smoothly and do things they would never be able to do otherwise.

Understanding your business operations is easy

A comprehensive reporting suite is the key to understanding what’s happening in your business, so you can see what’s working and what isn’t, optimize operations and set realistic projections for the future based on real-time data.

Tracking your KPIs manually is a time-consuming nightmare and there is no excuse for doing it anymore. Data is king and you must be able to access and understand your own data if you want to be competitive in today’s market. Real-time intelligence and dashboards provide you with reports on occupancy, operational efficiency, sales performance, and other KPIs (service specific reports, for example, allow you to conduct analyses of the success/failure of special promotions) and are easy to export to Excel. All of this puts the power to improve your business into your own hands.

Administrative tasks are easy

The right software takes care of administrative tasks so that you can focus on the guest experience. For example, you can save hours of time with automated end-of-day reports and financial summaries, and calculation of pay rates and commissions earned on products and services sold. The information you need is easily extracted, making payroll the information you need to run payroll.

Shane Bird, Director of Spa Operations at Turning Stone Resort Casino told us that using Book4Time’s booking and payment systems allowed Turning Stone to reduce time spent on payroll from 6-7 hours a week to about 15 minutes. This is a 95% reduction in time spent or 350 hours saved per year.

Bird also said, “It was taking another 5-6 hours every day for someone in finance to sit and audit the transactions. Book4Time has eliminated all of that. We estimate that our time spent on administrative tasks overall was reduced by about 92%, which is monstrous.”

Software will also automatically track loyalty points and update balances on customer accounts. It easily integrates with a hotel PMS, processes room charges in real-time, and can transfer all spa revenue to your hotel system. Plus, inventory management is a breeze when you can centrally track and view balances  across all of your locations in real time with a central, cloud-based online tool. Track purchase order progress in real time over the cloud, automatically update on-hand counts, easily record received products, and more.

Personalizing the guest experience is easy

Centrally managed notes, guest profiling, and automatic alerts allow you to log all of your guest information, build customer profiles, and give your staff quick access to that information, across multiple locations. This makes it easy to personalize guest experience, no matter which of your spas they’re visiting.

Build relationships and make emotional connections. Be ready before the guest arrives at your spa. Access purchase history, preferences, and more, collected across multiple points of contact. Keep notes of customers’ important dates, like birthdays and anniversaries, and records of conversation topics, so staff and therapists can pick up where they left off and ask about that recent trip to Europe or family member’s graduation.

This level of personalization makes people feel seen and appreciated and there is no stronger relationship builder than making someone feel seen and appreciated.

Justifying your needs is easy

Hotel and resort spa directors may have to go through several layers of approval before being able to upgrade or make any changes. Spa and wellness has traditionally had a difficult time justifying costs and is often regarded as an afterthought. Stakeholders want to see that their investment will be returned, which is hard to demonstrate without evidence of past success. Comprehensive reporting dashboards are the answer. With these, it’s easy to pull up the numbers to show exactly how well your spa is doing, how it could be doing better, and exactly what you need to make that happen. The proof is at your fingertips.

Daisy Tepper, Spa Director at The Post Oak Hotel at Uptown Houston, a Forbes Five Star hotel and spa, is a great example. She used Book4Time’s reports to justify the cost of a new treatment room. She said, “The treatment room utilization shows us how much money our rooms are pulling in and what we can do better regarding occupancy. This report actually allowed me to justify the cost of a new treatment room for the spa. The owner of the Post Oak is all about performance and he needs to see justification before he can decide if he’s going to expand the spa and how. I ran the report and he could immediately see the benefit, so he gave me the money to build another one. I’m happy to report that we’re getting a beautiful new couples suite with a fireplace!”

Are you ready to make your life easier?

There are a number of different spa management software solutions on the market. One of the top platforms for hotels and spas today is Book4Time, which offers more than 200 reports and has the widest scope of integrations in the industry. There are many things our customers love about our software, but we think the one thing we hear most often is that they love how easy it is to use.  

Daisy Tepper, who we mentioned above, Spa Director at the Post Oak Hotel, said, “When you hire someone, the easier the system is for them to learn, the better for us. [Book4Time is] very user-friendly. That’s what I was looking for, and that’s what I got.”

Vivian Villamizar, Spa Director at The Palms AVEDA Spa, Miami Beach, also told Spa Executive that Book4Time is “very user friendly.” She said, “I have therapists who didn’t even dare to use our system before, They now feel very confident about using the software system.”

And Jane Fellows, Spa Manager at The Willow Stream Spa at the Fairmont Sonoma Mission Inn & Spa, said, “I think the thing that I hear from most of the team is that they like the ease of actually reading the diary and the interface itself. If you’ve got a busy day, it’s easy to look at the screen and you can see the provider, the guest, the treatment, the room that will be used. It’s very straightforward. They don’t have to dig into anything to find any information.

“It’s very simple and easy to read. I run a report and it’s got what I need.”

Are you ready to make your life easier? Contact Book4Time to find out how.

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Software is a tool that can be used for the most basic functions or employed with deeper purpose. Here’s how technology can add a personal touch in your spa.

When it comes to talking about technology in the spa, wellness, and hospitality industries, a frequently expressed concern is that its use will remove the “personal touch” from the guest experience.  

But technology doesn’t have to create distance. Its impact depends entirely on how it’s used.

Software, for example, is a tool. And, like any other tool, it can be used for the most basic functions or employed with deeper purpose. The most basic function of a shovel is to dig holes. A greater function may be planting trees to benefit natural resources, improve wildlife habitats and provide oxygen. Similarly, software can just be used to book your appointments and track KPIs, or it can also be used to build meaningful relationships with your guests.

Here are four relationship building techniques and how software can help.

Listen actively

Software allows your team to log all of your guest information in one place and to access that information when needed. Centrally managed notes and document tracking help therapists build customer profiles and make personal connections. The note taking function allows you to keep track of more than just customer preferences and purchase history. Never forget a conversation topic! If a guest mentions going on vacation, buying a house, or a sister giving birth, take down that information and your team members can later follow up on it during the next visit – “How was your trip to Cancun?” “How’s the house? Are you settled in?” “How is your sister’s baby?” – which demonstrates that you are paying attention. People enjoy feeling that someone is listening when they talk and paying attention to what they are saying.

Remember the little things

Central guest profiling and automatic alerts give your staff quick access to all of your customer information, across multiple locations. Access purchase history, preferences, and more, collected at various points of contact. This makes it easy to personalize guest experience across all of your locations. Know your guests’ wants and needs before they even arrive at your spa, and greet them with something you know they will love. Keep notes of customers’ important dates, like birthdays and anniversaries, so you can acknowledge and celebrate these by offering special gifts. Again, it’s about demonstrating that you are paying attention. This level of personalization makes people feel seen and appreciated. There may be no stronger relationship builder than making someone feel seen and appreciated.

Ask for feedback

After a guest leaves a spa appointment, it’s a good idea to send out a customer satisfaction or NPS (net promoter score) survey and ask if they are happy with their experience. It’s said that most people who are dissatisfied with an experience with a company won’t complain, they just won’t come back. If you ask, however, they may be more likely to tell you. If you want to know whether a customer is happy or not, you have to ask. Send a customer satisfaction survey and find out. If the guest is happy, now may be a good time to ask for a review or a referral. If the guest is not happy, now is the time to find out why and see what you can do to change that, perhaps by offering an apology, a free service, a discount, or a gift, before the guest leaves a bad review online.

Stay in touch

Now that you have gathered all that guest information, use it to stay in touch. You know when they last purchased a skincare product, so you can follow up two months later, when it would likely be about to run out, and ask if they would like to replenish. You know when their birthday and anniversary is; email a birthday greeting with a discount code or offer of a free gift or service. Stay in touch. That’s what friends do.

Technology can create distance or it can enhance relationships and bring people closer together. Which one it does is up to you.

Is finding and retaining talent a challenge at your spa? Get insights from industry leaders, including Nigel Franklyn, Lynne McNees, Verena Lasvigne-Fox, and Daisy Tepper when you download our report: What will it take to fix the spa industry’s staffing shortage? .

Spa Executive is published by Book4Time, the leader in guest management, revenue and mobile solutions for the most exclusive spas, hotels, and resorts around the globe. Learn more at book4time.com.

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Your occupancy is one of your most important KPIs. Here’s how to use software to increase spa occupancy and boost revenue.

Occupancy is one of your most important KPIs. Your spa occupancy tells you how close you are to operating at full capacity and can include measurements from your total treatment beds, treatment rooms, and amenities (more on this from Trent Munday here). Obviously, your occupancy is directly correlated to your revenue and ensuring that you’re operating at optimal occupancy is essential. Software can help.

Here are six ways to use software to increase spa occupancy.

 1. Get savvy with yield management

Yield management is one of the most effective systems used in hospitality to maximize occupancy and revenue and it will help you increase spa occupancy. Yield management is a dynamic pricing strategy used with limited resources like seats on an airplane or hotel rooms – or spa treatments and amenities. The system is based on understanding, anticipating, and influencing consumer behavior which is itself influenced by factors like seasons, time of day, holidays, etc. When demand is high, prices go up, when demand is low, prices go down. A good software system can maximize peak period utilization and drive traffic during slower periods.

2. Focus on repeat customers

It’s more expensive to attract a new customer than it is to retain an existing one. It’s said that increasing customer retention just five percent can increase a company’s profitability by an average of 75%, and that 80% of future profits come from 20% of current customers. Once a guest has visited your business, take the time to nurture that relationship. Log customer information and preferences, analyze customer purchase trends, collect feedback, and share it all with your team so they can create one-of-a-kind personalized experiences and bring them back into your space. A software’s guest experience & CRM functionalities, like Central Guest Profiling, makes it all simple and intuitive.

3. Identify your customers

Another application for guest experience & CRM functionalities like Central Guest Profiling. Knowing who is coming to your spa will help you focus your marketing on these people, speak directly to them, and offer what they want. Your market is not everyone, it is a specific group of people. Look at the guest information collected by your spa management software system, like demographics and purchase history, and ask yourself: who are my customers? How do they want to be communicated with and through which channels? What do they want and how can I give it to them? Then focus your marketing efforts accordingly.

4. Use gift cards

Gift cards are among your greatest tools for attracting new clients. One survey found that 40% of respondents said that receiving a gift card prompted them to visit a store they would not otherwise have visited for the first time (“they wouldn’t even have visited if they hadn’t received the card”). Once they make that initial visit you have the chance to turn them into returning customers. Remember: getting people in the door the first time is more difficult and more expensive than bringing them back. More than half of respondents also said receiving a gift card prompted them to visit a store more frequently. Gift cards marketed to your existing customer base can also encourage referrals. Software solutions like Book4Time allow you to create and sell your own gift cards to increase brand recognition and market penetration and manage your gift card program across all locations with a central system.

5. Create friends & family packages and promotions

Why stop at couples massages? Encourage your guests to bring someone with them by promoting a mother daughter offering, family time, group package, or something different. This can be particularly enticing in areas where physical distancing is still in effect, because people can have areas of the spa all to themselves. Software functionalities allow you to encourage return visits with loyalty points, client referral discounts, and promotions. Build your own incentive program and customize it to your brand.

6. Consider a membership program

Memberships are the norm in fitness, and now more spas and wellness businesses are seeing the value of membership programs. Wellness memberships can include access to amenities, like pools and saunas, but can also go towards services like facials, body treatments, and massage. Instead of charging per service, a set rate per month or year buys a certain number of services and/or access to amenities. Memberships are a great way to encourage repeat visits and nurture relationships, and can also create a steady revenue stream in slower times. A centralized membership program helps increase guest retention through member discounts, exclusive services, or monthly credits that can be redeemed at your facility.

Book4Time’s cloud-based system can help manage your yield management, guest experience and CRM, packages, promotions, loyalty and membership programs, and more to increase spa occupancy. Learn more at Book4Time.com or schedule a demo.

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When choosing a spa or hospitality software, one of the first considerations should be ease of use. Here’s why.

When choosing a software for your hospitality spa business, one of the most important things to consider is how easy it is to use, also known as “ease of use.”

You want both you and your team to feel comfortable using your software. So, you need a system that’s easy to navigate, easy to use, and to learn and manage with little training. And your guests should be able to get through the online or mobile booking process seamlessly and easily. 

Here is a more in-depth look at why ease of use matters in a software.

Time is money

A good, easy to use software saves time. You want it to be intuitive and for your team members to feel comfortable. It’s been noted more than once in our interviews with industry leaders that spa and wellness might be a little behind some other industries when it comes to technology adoption. If your employees are less technologically inclined, it’s going to be very important that your software is fast and simple to learn and use. The more time it takes to learn, the more it costs you in labor hours and in time that would be better spent focusing on your employee and guest experiences.

At Book4Time, a dedicated trainer and customer success manager will walk you through the simple steps to get you on the road to taking full control of your booking experience. Book4Time also has a library of available resources to make onboarding and adoption a lot easier.

Empowering team members means less work for managers

There are spa software systems out there that employees are downright afraid to use, lest they make a mistake and throw the whole system out of whack (this is what we’ve been told at Book4Time and Spa Executive by managers who are frustrated with their existing software system and looking for a new one). This can create tension and cause problems. Your team should feel confident and be able to access all the information they need in a few seconds – from their own schedules to their treatment bookings to the customer information and beyond. This sense of autonomy empowers employees to make decisions on how to create the best experience possible, which allows for seamless business operations and guest experience.

Vivian Villamizar, Spa Director at The Palms AVEDA Spa, Miami Beach, told Spa Executive that ease of use was a top consideration and that Book4Time is “very user friendly.” She said, “I have therapists who didn’t even dare to use our system before, They now feel very confident about using the software system.”

When a team is empowered and able to find what they need and do what they need to do, they don’t need to constantly go to management with questions. And they’re less likely to mess something up or make a mistake. This means managers spend less time holding hands and putting out fires .

Daisy Tepper, Spa Director of the Forbes Five Star Spa at the Post Oak Hotel, said in an interview, “When you hire someone, the easier the system is for them to learn, the better for us.” She added that Book4Time is “very user-friendly. That’s what I was looking for, and that’s what I got.”

Your guests deserve the best

Your guests want an easy and intuitive booking and checkout experience. A complicated checkout process, website errors, and a site that looks untrustworthy are among the top reasons shoppers abandon their carts – or reasons why someone might abandon the booking process.

A good online and mobile booking functionality should be polished and visually appealing, offering all the information a customer needs to make a decision about booking an appointment. This should include the map location and contact information for your spa, an easy to navigate menu, booking options for individuals and groups, and the ability to make changes to your booking. This user experience should be consistent on a desktop, tablet, and smartphone.

Book4Time’s Online and Mobile Booking Experience offers all of this in an intuitive and attractive package that includes the ability to customize your look and feel with your own images.

You’ll stand out from the competition

What it comes down to is that, if your website and booking experience are slow, confusing, or not intuitive, people are going to leave and look elsewhere — and there is a lot of competition in the spa and hospitality world. Pay attention to ease of use and don’t lose customers because of a bad booking experience. 

Want to learn more about hospitality software? Take a look at the list of considerations when making your decision.

Three things to consider when upgrading your spa software

It’s time to look into our crystal balls and predict the future for the year ahead. Subscribe to our newsletter and download our special report on the trends we’ll be watching: Nine spa and wellness trends for 2021. Download here.

Spa Executive is published by Book4Time, the leader in guest management, revenue and mobile solutions for the most exclusive spas, hotels, and resorts around the globe. Learn more at book4time.com.

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Hit the ground running in 2021 with hospitality software to support your business operations, improve guest experience, drive revenue, and set you on a path to success.

New year, new possibilities. The beginning of a new year is always exciting, but 2021 has an especially jubilant feeling to it. Last year was a struggle for the spa, wellness and hospitality sectors, and we’re all so ready to leave it behind. While we realize that the COVID-19 pandemic is not over, we have had time to rethink, reimagine, and restructure. We’ve come up with innovative and creative ideas for keeping our businesses alive and our customers happy, many with the luxury experiences to which they’ve become accustomed.

And now we want to hit the ground running.

Whether you’re an enterprise company with several resorts or hotels, a boutique operation, or an independent, you could probably use some help. Software can help with that. The right spa management software will deliver what you need to improve guest experience, drive revenue, and set you and your business on a clear path to success.

Here are 4 ways hospitality software can help you hit the ground running in 2021.

Save time on intelligence and reporting

Deep insight into your operations, finances, and KPIs is an imperative part of making smart decisions, and making smart decisions is very important right now (and always). But tracking all this yourself takes time, leaves a lot of room for errors, and is generally tedious. Software can save the day.

A real-time intelligence dashboard makes it easy to centrally report on operational efficiency and sales performance, even across multiple locations. Software can help you easily analyze customer buying trends, preferences, retail purchases, and demographics, and appointment booking software integrates with real-time sales reporting to provide insight into location performance (if you have multiple locations), top sellers, technician productivity, and utilization. Software can automatically calculate employee payroll based on commissions earned, clock time, and track attendance. And revenue forecasting can even predict revenues from advance bookings, referral sources, gift card and membership sales, and marketing initiatives – an invaluable capability when all of this is so seemingly uncertain. When reporting is easy, time is freed up to focus on things that won’t take care of themselves

Clean up your inventory & ramp up retail

As the industry recovers, retail sales are going to play a big role. Retail can do a lot to shore up revenue you may be missing from lower occupancy in your spa, but for that to work, you need great inventory management. Can you afford to run out of popular products right now or to order too much of something that isn’t going to sell? Probably not.

Spa software allows you to manage inventory for all of your locations in one secure spot. Track purchase order progress, automatically update on-hand counts, easily record products received, track inter-company transfers, and view balances for all of your locations in one central place. Software can also maintain vendor records, and improve staff productivity by preparing reusable purchase order templates, allowing you to automatically restock retail products. All you have to do is communicate to your customers that they will love your products as much as you do.

Create lasting relationships

You need to build lasting relationships and turn new customers into returning ones. This will be the difference between success and failure in 2021. According to Outbound Engine:

• Acquiring a new customer can cost 5X more than retaining an existing one
• Increasing customer retention by 5% can increase profits from 25-95%
• The success rate of selling to an existing customer is 60-70%, compared with a 5-20% success rate of selling to a new one.

Creating the ultimate guest experience will help build those connections. Loyalty and membership programs keep people coming back and referral incentives drive them to tell their friends. Your spa management software system can centrally track and allow guests to redeem loyalty points, or apply them at checkout, while automatic updates to customer accounts keeps guests informed about their points in real time. Software can also help you manage guest profiles, purchases, and customer activity, and provide automatic alerts that help staff remember important guest information. Central guest profiling and therapist notes provide quick access to insights gathered through various points of contact, including purchase history and preferences across locations, making it easy to personalize guest experience and improve retention.

Integrate your retail sales into your guest experience, loyalty programs, memberships, and promotions to increase revenue and create a holistic business model.

Meet your guests’ changing needs

Your customer’s needs have changed. They don’t have the same comfort levels they once did or the same desire for human interaction. But they do want wellness and support, and to feel that they are caring for themselves and being cared for. There are many ways software can support this. Online and mobile booking, contactless payments, and touchless experiences like mobile check in and check out are clearly the top functionalities here. And let’s not forget your intake forms, which should be filled out virtually to avoid having people hanging around in a waiting room and sharing touchpoints. Software also helps you communicate safety protocols to your guests and gather feedback through NPS surveys. Now, more than ever, you have to gather feedback and show you care what your guests think. Few things will be more important than listening and being receptive to customers’ needs.

We’re optimistic about 2021 and we can’t hide it. The wellness and hospitality industries have a lot of work ahead and you can’t do it alone. Nor should you.

It’s time to look into our crystal balls and predict the future for the year ahead. Subscribe to our newsletter and download our special report on the trends we’ll be watching: Nine spa and wellness trends for 2021. Download here.

Spa Executive is published by Book4Time, the leader in guest management, revenue and mobile solutions for the most exclusive spas, hotels, and resorts around the globe. Learn more at book4time.com.

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Software is a tool that, like any other tool, can be used for the most basic functions or imbued with deeper purpose. Here’s how your spa software should foster community. 

By Cynthia Connelly, Vice President of Customer Success, Book4Time 

The importance of community in the hospitality, spa and wellness industries has been front and centre in recent months. As we move into a new era and way of operating, our communities have become increasingly valuable for navigating a new landscape. ISPA town halls in which industry leaders come together to share ideas and experiences with one another have provided insight and guidance, as well as feelings of comfort and reassurance that we’re all going through the same shared experiences and have each other’s best interests at heart.

Communication and staying connected are key to survival. Fortunately, our industry is one in which even fierce competitors tend towards connection over antagonism. And this is what will keep us vibrant and innovative, even in the hardest of times.

Community building can be fostered in more ways than one and in ways that might not immediately come to mind. For example: by your software partner.

Software is a tool that, like any other tool, can be used for the most basic functions or imbued with deeper purpose. A hammer is used to hit things, and can also be used to build structures that provide living spaces and create communities. Software has been used in more meaningful ways than anyone could ever count.

Here are three levels on which your spa software partner should support and foster community relationships.

Your partner community

A partner should care deeply about your shared relationship and this should be evident in their product and company conduct.

Customer support should be 24/7 and 110% focused on ensuring that any issues are responded to with quality information and follow up. Customer success managers should be dedicated to developing long-term relationships based on business needs and should help you achieve desired outcomes.

Training and onboarding should be comprehensive and thorough, and designed to ensure self-sufficiency, while still guaranteeing availability for support should need arise. Moreover, seamless integrations with existing systems can help harmonious relationships between suppliers and between you and your guests.

This is the core of where your community begins.

Your guest community

From the core you expand into your guest community. Your spa software should make your Customer Relationship Management easy. This is achieved with functionalities that include collecting information through centrally managed notes and document tracking to create a personalized guest experience, an absolute must in today’s world.

Statistics show that: 

• More than two in five consumers (42%) say that if a company doesn’t provide them with a personalized experience, they’re likely to switch brands.
• Even if a product or service disappoints, 72% of consumers say they’ll give the company a second chance if it provides a hyper-personal customer experience.
• More than half (63%) of consumers expect personalization as a standard of service.
• 49% of buyers have made impulse purchases after a more personalized experience.

Creating these experiences makes guests feel valued and appreciated. Should your company have multiple locations, this should continue with sharing of notes across all of them so that your guest feels like a part of your community wherever they are in the world. And this should flow through to your continued communication with guests between treatments, including collecting feedback and maintaining contact. Community doesn’t just happen when you’re in each other’s presence. It’s an understanding that you belong together, even when you’re apart.

Your industry community

Moving out into the whole of the circle, as mentioned, finding support within the whole of our industry is going to be even more important in the future. A software company worth partnering with should always be listening, gathering information, and using that information to make improvements. Any company with a wide customer base that includes hotels, resorts, spas, and casinos, should be tapping into those resources for insight and then creating solutions into which we can all share.

One of the things that we plan to do at Book4Time is develop a series of customer advisory boards. These boards of industry professionals will be grouped by areas like subject matter, special interest, or unique geographical location, and encouraged to share their experience, feedback, and any pain points. We will then take these insights into consideration when developing and improving functionalities. The idea is to bring people together to strategize on how we might do things differently and better.

Don’t underestimate the potential for your software partner to play a big role in your community.

Partners should be in tune with the industry, while professional organizations such as ISPA and the Global Wellness Institute ensure that the community is broad, inclusive and engaged. Whether you work for Accor, Four Seasons, Marriott, Jumeirah, or an independent company, everyone has similar objectives. We will achieve these objectives, and surpass them, more efficiently together, as a community.

Spa Executive is published by Book4Time, the leader in guest management, revenue and mobile solutions for the most exclusive spas, hotels, and resorts around the globe. Learn more at book4time.com.

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