How have iPads changed the face of the salon business as a powerful management tool? Explore the components that made this entertainment technology an entrepreneur’s best friend.
A full decade after they were introduced, one of the digital century’s favorite leisure devices has found its way to the professional heart of the modern salon. Since it first went on sale in April 2010, the iPad has evolved from a couch-sized mobile video screen to a number-crunching point of sales systems hub.
It seems the multimedia spectacle of the iPad has been largely lost in its professional conversion, however, as most salons that employ the mobile device see it as an all-in-one platform for inventory and other bookkeeping tasks. This all-work-and-no-play approach greatly undervalues the communication, customer engagement, and online potential of a salon point of sale for iPad.
While it has become a powerful business management tool, maximizing the impact of an iPad in a salon environment means going back to the sleek tablet’s mobile entertainment roots and impressing clients with:
- A customer-facing display
- Digital communications
- Mobile convenience
- Online connections
- A better salon environment
An iPad-powered point of sales system can become the perfect blend of work and play if the little device at its core is pushed to its limits.
For managers who spend their working lives on their feet, the mobile convenience of salon point of sale for iPad puts everything from the day’s purchase orders through to organizing next month’s staff roster at their always active fingertips.
The result is a business tool that has proved its serious side at the expense of its more dynamic and playful origins. When iPads were released, they were as much about digital pleasure as they were evolved calculators. Unleashing a little of that multimedia potential can create the kind of unique customer experience that leads to repeat visits.
1. Customer-facing display
Part of the reason the iPad became the world’s first commercially successful tablet was its visual dynamics. The look and size of the device remain impressive today and can be used to heighten the digital experience of any salon visit. At its most basic an iPad can provide a clear visual aid to the final payment, but it can really shine as a hand-held infotainment hub seated client can use to explore a salon’s services and story, or to just pass their personal time away with all the multimedia potential of the entire web.
Despite their ability to link the business side of matters, iPads remain entertainers at heart.
2. Digital communications
Every professional interaction in a modern salon can be captured and performed digitally. From initial booking to end-of-service rebooking it’s possible to make smoother, more convenient, and more impactful customer engagements with an iPad point of sale.
- Invoices can be delivered with the graphics, messaging, and accessibility of a text or email.
- Hair and makeup styles can be demonstrated through immersive videos.
- Large-scale events can be thoroughly planned out with interactive designs and rapid-fire budgeting.
- Every client preference and choice can be captured in personalized customer loyalty programs that make it easier to forge lasting relationships.
Embracing an iPad’s digital abilities makes it more rewarding to visit the salon.
3. Mobile convenience
An iPad-enabled salon runs on its feet. The mobile nature of the devices ironically means customers don’t have to move while enjoying their regular revitalization or getting ready for their big event. Salon point of sale for iPad systems come complete with a range of secured payment devices that can be matched to customer preference, from tap-n-go card reads to digital wallet capacity and emailed invoices.
The iPad’s mobility also provides salon staff and managers with 24/7 accessibility to their Cloud-based digital business tools from any internet-connected device—work can now be carried out whenever and wherever it best suits the workers.
4. Online connections
Salons are only loved when they are accessible. The professional and social demands made on customers make finding time for personal attention as important as the pampering itself. An iPad point of sale system makes it easier to get together by placing an entire team’s worth of availability and information on a touch-screen simple online reservation system.
This highly visual system of consultant availability and specializations gives clients the room to add as much detail as they can to a booking so that the salon is ready and waiting to meet their needs.
5. A better salon environment
Perhaps the iPad’s most important gift to the salon industry is its low profile. Converting to a salon point of sale for iPad means doing away with heavy cash register eyesores and desk-bound payment systems that detract from the salon environment. Instead, the entire in-store space can be used to create a tranquil, soothing ambiance that better suits salon services.
Using hand-held, sleek tablets as a mobile point of sale places people at the heart of a salon and lets the technology fade into the background.
As with all the advantages listed above, embracing the iPad’s intended use as a mobile multimedia platform can create a more engaging salon experience.
Salon point of sale for iPad can be practically impressive
Earning a place on the business side of a working salon seems to have cost the iPad its right to impress with its exuberant mobility, multimedia display, and touch-screen simplicity. The right kind of point of sales system will, however, go beyond the device’s inventory and accounting potential and make use of its more playful side to win the loyalty of customers.
iPads were created to impress. They can still do that within a professional workplace. The POS solutions offered by talech make use of the full potential of an iPad-powered business.
Learn how our point of sale technology, talech, allows you to utilize the full potential of the iPad.
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