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When you’re a spa guest, it’s easy to go with the flow of the atmosphere and just relax. But spa management is probably not as calm as you’d like it to be. You need to keep on top of staff matters and scheduling, appointment volume, marketing, inventory, rooms, equipment, financials... it can be overwhelming.
We’d like to help make it easier. In this comprehensive spa management guide, we explore how the right strategies and technologies can set your spa up for success that includes revenue growth.
As for any business, goal setting is imperative for effective spa management, so let’s start there. A tried-and-tested method is to make your goals SMART, meaning: Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-Bound. This is a great practice to ensure goals are easier to stick to. Now, outline exactly what you’re looking to accomplish and how you’ll know when you’ve achieved your goal.
Read on for best practices and insights on how to manage a spa.
Managing a spa encompasses the responsibility of supervising every facet of the establishment to guarantee seamless operations and deliver an exceptional experience. This entails duties such as coordinating and structuring the workforce, as well as supervising staff training to ensure clarity regarding their respective responsibilities.
An all-in-one cloud spa software solution keeps your appointments, financials, operations, marketing, and inventory in one place. This not only helps you save time but can also save you money compared to paying for multiple systems.
With all-in-one cloud spa software, guest interactions are recorded in every relevant part of the system – no switching between apps required. For example, when a guest pays for something, it is immediately included in your financial history and forecasts, the commissions structure for the provider who served them, and your marketing tool for promoting similar services in the future.
The right spa management solution will help you:
To avoid crowding at the front desk, it’s worth investing in a system that works across all devices, giving each staff member system access from the palm of their hand.
Running a spa comes with its unique set of challenges. One of the primary obstacles is managing appointment schedules efficiently. Overbooking or double-booking can lead to dissatisfied customers, while underbooking can result in lost revenue. Balancing staff schedules to meet client demand without causing burnout is another significant challenge.
Inventory management is also crucial yet difficult. Keeping track of products, preventing stockouts, and managing suppliers require meticulous attention to detail. Financial management presents yet another hurdle, as spa owners must keep a close eye on expenses and revenue streams to ensure profitability.
Marketing is another area where many spa owners struggle. With increasing competition, attracting and retaining clients through effective marketing strategies is vital but often overwhelming. Additionally, maintaining high standards of hygiene and compliance with health regulations adds to the complexity of running a spa. These challenges of spa management can be daunting, but they are not insurmountable.
As a spa owner, how do you measure success? Total revenue? Number of guests through the door? Year-end balance sheets?
You’ll often find that improving one area of your spa business will have a positive effect on other metrics too. More five-star reviews can attract more new guests, which can, in turn, increase your revenue. In addition, a greater volume of reviews can have a positive effect on your search result ranking. As you create your top-level goals, keep this correlative relationship in mind.
To get you started, consider these five key goals for successful spa management. They are essential for the current spa environment, improving your guest experience, and the back-end operations of your organization:
Consider every step of your guest journey – which often starts days or even weeks before someone enters your business. Your spa management software is the key to ensuring an easy, appealing experience from appointment scheduling and the visit itself to rebooking online and aftercare communications.
An online booking system acts as your 24/7 digital receptionist, giving guests the option to book services from any smartphone, tablet, or PC. The best spa management software should offer the right online booking functionality: staying flexible while minimizing the risk of errors.
Given customer demand for online booking, it should come as no surprise that spas with online booking tend to earn more revenue. In fact, membership spas in the top 10th percentile for revenue have an online booking rate of 35%, and more than half of all appointments are booked online at top-earning non-membership spas, according to the latest Zenoti beauty and wellness benchmark report.
See how PURE Medical Spa gives clients a better experience with a beautifully branded mobile app.
Watch the video.
A clunky booking process can interrupt a guest from scheduling a visit, resulting in fewer conversions – and dissatisfied guests. Online booking should be simple and intuitive, and support booking multiple guests and treatments easily. Your online booking system should also offer intelligent upselling opportunities for guests to explore, driving a higher average ticket and additional review.
To truly optimize the online booking experience, add another personalization with a system that remembers each guest’s preferences and booking history. When they return to book again, the online experience is customized and quicker.
Read more: Protect against revenue loss with these 4 online booking tactics for salons and spas
If your spa needs to collect information about your guests before offering treatments – skin type, health issues, any required signatures – forms are essential. But pen-and-paper forms slow down the check-in process, aren’t easily accessible, and result in piles of paper.
Instead, spa management software should streamline the process by sending digital forms to guests prior to their visit. They receive an email or text message with a link. They can respond on their time, from the comfort of their own home, and your providers will be fully prepared when their guests arrive.
See how Hand & Stone Massage and Facial Spa uses digital forms to reduce work for staff and improve the guest experience. Watch the video.
Organized, secure handling of personal data is essential to maintain trust with your guests. Storing your spa data in the cloud keeps it accessible from every location and safe from computer crashes, theft, flood, and fire. See more reasons why cloud software is necessary for salon and spa success.
One key aspect of a smooth, comfortable guest experience is enabling guests to check themselves in. With spa management software doing the work, you can offer a kiosk setting by way of a digital tablet near your entrance. Even better, a mobile app can automatically prompt guests to check in online when they arrive at your spa.
When technology takes care of guest check-ins, your front desk staff can focus on helping guests feel welcome and driving additional revenue. Here are six more ways in which spa software can elevate the guest experience.
It’s nearly impossible to deliver a personalized guest experience if you don’t know about your guests. Your spa management software must maintain comprehensive details about your guests – securely – including their service history and preferences. Your staff, especially providers, should have quick access to everything from a guest’s preferred name and how they like their coffee, to past medical history, such as an injury that might affect a massage or procedure.
Brazilian Beauty wanted an AI-powered, mobile-friendly spa management system for their 20-plus locations. They have implemented a touchless check-out process directly from the treatment room, creating an easy experience for providers and their guests. Watch this video to find out more.
Reaching more potential guests helps keep your appointment book full and increase your revenue. With a complete software solution, you can implement strategies specifically designed to bring more business to your door.
A personal recommendation – from one trusted source to another – is the most effective form of marketing, in terms of both effort and cost. Your guests choose your spa brand because they love what you do; turn them into your most ardent advocates by creating a referral program that incentivizes them to bring others along.
With the right spa management software, you can create a digital referral scheme. Your staff and your clients can manage the program steps via smartphone, and automated reminders help you capitalize on every referral opportunity, such as after a positive review.
Not only does a digital referral program reduce paper waste and errors, but it also helps your spa stay front-of-mind with your biggest fans, your incentive program always available in their pockets.
How and when should you ask a guest for a referral? Check out Salon and spa referral marketing 101. See how to turn happy clients into a growing customer base.
Nine out of 10 customers will not consider a spa with a rating less than 4/5 stars, according to a 2023 Zenoti survey, so ensure your five-star ratings are plentiful and visible. Use your spa management software system to automatically send review requests after every visit. With regular, automated requests, you’ll position your brand to capture as much guest feedback as possible – and gather more online reviews in the process.
This can help your spa in three ways: 1. Positive online reviews are one of the most influential aspects of online search, telling prospective guests about your business. 2. You can make your standout reviews part of your brand by highlighting them on your website and social media pages. 3. Guest feedback is a valuable resource of information. You’ll get useful insights into how your spa and providers are performing – and which areas of your business could use some improvement.
As The Great Resignation taught us in 2021 and 2022, it’s important for businesses of any size to create a rewarding, enriching workplace for staff. Attrition can be expensive and carries with it the risk of clients following departed service providers to their new job. For your spa, retaining staff comes down to three basic elements: empowering your providers to do what they love – and earn more money doing it; and simplifying the administrative and work processes for all.
Spa management software should enable all of that for your teams, with transparent insight into their performance, information to help them satisfy guests (and earn more tips), and simple ways to manage and optimize their schedules.
Related reading: The key to happier spa staff: How spa software improves staff performance and retention
Spa management software gives providers convenient access to their schedules via their smartphones or tablets. In just moments, they can see a quick overview of their schedule for the day or week in the MyZen app from Zenoti before they arrive at the spa. The software also offers each provider a streamlined workflow by ensuring that guest check-ins, details, and preferences land in their handheld devices. Every provider can be perfectly prepared for each new guest.
A common staff complaint is that big gaps in the day mean missing out on potential earnings. Tools such as the Zenoti AI-powered booking system can boost utilization by working intelligently to fill any gaps when new bookings come in. More providers benefit from an efficiently filled schedule throughout their day.
Keeping your providers motivated, and recognizing their hard work, are important for retention and overall business performance. To help staff reach their goals, set and track KPIs (key performance indicators) directly in your spa business software – and let providers track their progress. This level of transparency can be an incentive on its own, as providers strive to reach goals with their peers.
See how Sky Salon and Gene Juarez Salons & Spas use technology to keep their team and stylists motivated. Watch the video.
With the Zenoti platform, providers can access their performance progress via the MyZen app on their own smartphones. When establishing provider KPIs, pick metrics that are most important for your business performance – for example a provider’s average star rating, average invoice, or retail commission. Then, set each as a SMART goal.
Read more about securing a motivated and engaged spa team.
Did you know that 94% of employees say they would stay at a company longer if it invested in their education? Whether it’s junior staff looking to grow within the industry, or seasoned providers who want to perfect their craft, everyone can benefit from training. Staff will feel nurtured and supported and deliver a better experience to guests; as a result, your spa gets more rebookings and higher review ratings.
Spas on the Zenoti platform can take advantage of Zenoti University, our dedicated resource to help beauty and wellness professionals improve their skills, and further their careers and their businesses. It offers more than 100 courses on everything from improving the guest experience to social media marketing.
When you have an ambitious spa business plan, it’s essential that you streamline operations to facilitate growth. Avoid business disruptions by ensuring all operations are easily scalable and transferable to new locations.
If your spa brand spans across multiple locations, you can use technology to manage them all from one central dashboard. Modern spa management software gives you a bird’s-eye view of every location and simplifies communication between centers. It centralizes guest databases, operations, financials, inventory, and marketing, so you can maintain overall control —whether you manage three or 300 locations.
A centralized system also makes it easy to add new locations as you grow. Simply install the system in any new spa, and you can quickly plug into databases, service menus, and marketing for the entire brand.
Spa chains and franchises can offer a consistent experience to give guests the same great service at every appointment, regardless of which location they visit. But as your spa business grows, maintaining consistency across centers becomes a challenge.
A centralized spa software solution helps with this by keeping all guest data in one place, so regardless of which location a guest steps into, staff will have all their information and preferences on hand.
Here are five reasons growing medspas upgrade their software.
Updated technology solutions help businesses automate tasks that used to take hours of manual work, freeing up your front desk and providers to focus on delivering a great spa experience.
How much time does your front desk staff spend chasing no-shows and filling last-minute gaps? Let them get back to focusing on guests by automating routine communications to increase spa efficiency. Use your cloud spa software to send out messages such as appointment reminders, follow up, and regular promotions. Guests who forget to complete their online bookings get automatic reminders helping them easily schedule spa appointments they were eyeing but didn’t act on.
The Zenoti platform can even anticipate gaps in your appointment book and send out automated offers to fill them, delivering a welcome boost to your revenue. Read How to use automation to fill salon and spa appointment books for more ideas.
Delight your guests by letting them bypass the front desk entirely. With the Zenoti mobile app, geofencing technology senses when a guest approaches your spa and prompts them to self-check-in on their smartphones. Providers are automatically notified of the client’s arrival, giving them the opportunity to go and welcome them personally.
You can maintain this simplicity even after the appointment. Encourage guests to pay through the app and simply walk out without needing to wait at the front desk.
Modern spa POS systems are designed to solve many of the pain points that come with running a busy spa. They can simplify and streamline day-to-day tasks, such as appointment scheduling, sales, employee management, running reports, and engaging with guests. The best cloud spa software solutions improve operational efficiencies so you can spend more time in the spa and less behind a computer screen. They free up your front desk from repetitive admin tasks and let them shift their focus to delighting every guest and nurturing relationships.
Whether you are a seasoned spa owner or thinking of opening a spa, having the right spa POS system will save you time and drive revenue. Find out more in our ultimate guide to selecting the best POS system for salon and spa businesses in 2024.
Many of your business goals will be governed by numbers: sales, revenue, returning guests, and so on. Your spa management software is the perfect place to keep track of these and make sure you are getting ROI (return on investment) from your efforts.
To improve spa profitability, start by setting your SMART goals, then use the reporting and analytics features to track your progress. Regularly share data with your providers to engage them in your business goals and let them know their contribution matters.
Discover the 3 keys to regular revenue growth for every salon and spa and choose business management software with features designed to help your business grow.
The right spa software will help you simplify the booking process, reduce cancellations, effortlessly keep in touch with your guests, effectively manage your operations, and maximize per-hour earnings. It’s your invisible business partner that works in the background to increase your revenue, reduce your costs, and set you up for spa success. Keep reading for six critical steps in choosing your next spa software.
See how to avoid the 4 biggest software pains for salon and spa staff.
Here are some key ways spa POS systems can support your spa business plan:
Cloud spa software makes appointment booking effortless for both your staff and your guests. At the front end, it empowers your guests to book, rebook, and reschedule appointments at their convenience. While at the back end, it applies clever AI to optimize your schedule for maximum efficiency, while seamlessly accounting for room, staff, and equipment allocation.
Cash and card aren’t the only payment methods guests use anymore. Modern spa POS systems should also provide mobile convenience with in-app payments, touchless payments, and Google and Apple Pay. Speed up the checkout process and free up your front desk further by opting for a system that allows you to store and automatically update card details and send guests emails with payment links so they can skip the front desk on the way out.
Software that includes reporting and analytics gives you real-time data insights, so you always know how your spa business is performing. From sales, to marketing, to your top performing providers, spa management software offers both quick snapshots and comprehensive historical reports — allowing spa owners and managers to make business decisions with confidence and identify areas of opportunity to improve spa profitability.
Your spa is gathering guest data every day — from age and gender, through to preferred providers and favorite retail products. Technology gives you the spa marketing tools to turn this data into segmented campaigns that target guests at the right time with the offers and promotions most relevant to them.
It's a common source of friction for providers to have to return to the front desk to keep track of their day. Use spa business software to give them quick access to everything they need on their mobile device instead, including guest details, appointments, invoices, and more.
The best spa business software will allow you to segment the system depending on job roles, so each provider gets a view of the business tailored to their requirements.
Choose a high-quality cloud-based solution that is reliable and secure to avoid the costs, hassles, issues, and inconsistencies of on-premise software. This means your spa’s business data is held and managed by your spa software company and can be securely accessed via the internet. A cloud-based POS system makes spa management a breeze as you can access your data anytime, anywhere. It allows you to keep on top of your operations and make strategic decisions for growth whether you’re at home, in the office, or travelling.
This type of setup is often more cost-efficient, as most cloud spa software is optimized to use across tablets and smartphones and negates the need for bulky desktop setups. Updates and backups are managed remotely, so you don’t have to worry about downtime holding back your daily operations.
Cloud spa software is especially useful for multi-location spa brands. It enables all centers to connect to one central platform to unify pricing, services, guest profiles and more. Your head office will be able to lead the way and deliver a consistent brand strategy across centers, while your guests can trust that they will receive the same great service at every location.
To discover even more benefits of cloud software, read Why the cloud?: The Benefits of an All-in-One System for Your Salon or Spa.
A great spa marketing strategy will grow your business by increasing guest loyalty, return rates, and spends. When you’re using an all-in-one business management system with integrated marketing tools, it uses your guest and appointment data to create marketing campaigns that are equally professional and effective.
Below are four ways your spa business software can support your spa marketing strategy. For a complete guide to driving revenue with effective spa marketing, take a look at these 5 Essential medspa marketing ideas.
Marketing is most effective when guests receive promotions that are personalized and relevant to them, rather than every offer being sent to your entire database. Spa management software allows you to segment guests based on age, gender, preferred providers, the date of their latest visit, or their favorite treatments, and maximize campaign success and ROI.
Create an automated email to win back lapsed customers with minimal effort. It’s simple: create a tempting offer and set up a rule which sends it to any guest who hasn’t visited in a specific time period. Let your cloud spa software do all the legwork and send out the email automatically any time a guest meets your chosen criteria.
See how Boss Gal Beauty Bar recovered 200+ customers post-COVID, with 41% of recovered guests booking follow-up visits. Read the case study.
Consider any regular emails you might want to send out. For example, congratulating a guest on their birthday, or requesting a review after an appointment. Save your front desk or dedicated marketing person hours by automating the process. With Zenoti, you can set up the email once and let the system work in the background to ensure no birthday or milestone gets missed.
Nearly half of U.S. consumers buy gift cards because they are convenient, with 54% using them as holiday gifts. Spas are in a great position to capitalize on these trends and secure additional revenue. As an example, at membership-based spas, online sales of gift cards was up 33% in 2023. Non-membership spas saw a 17% increase in online gift card sales, according to Zenoti beauty and wellness benchmark data.
As data shows 25% of all beauty and wellness gift cards are redeemed by first-time customers, gift cards are a great low-cost tool for spas to acquire new lifetime clients. Offer digital gift cards for quick and easy gift giving for Christmas, birthdays, and other celebrations.
Inspired? Read 5 Must-have marketing strategies for salons & spas
Related reading: The 4 key spa trendsdriving revenue growth in 2024
Luxury spa brand DePasquale The Spa utilized their pandemic downtime to upgrade to Zenoti. Using their new marketing and bookings tools, this single-location spa achieved nearly 5,000 bookings for their post-COVID reopening, with a 53% mobile and online booking rate.
The right all-in-one spa software makes business management a breeze while helping you grow your brand with data-driven marketing, insightful reports, and revenue-boosting sales tools.
It brings your appointment book, POS, guest profiles, marketing, inventory, and financials all into one central dashboard to increase spa efficiency and productivity. Taking care of your back-end admin reduces pressure on the front desk and empowers staff to spend more time doing what they love.
The system collects vital business data in real time and gives you access to clear and comprehensive reports from the palm of your hand. It can tell you about your sales, appointments, and provider performance at a glance, allowing for quick, strategic decisions on the go.
The best spa business software is designed to support some of the most common goals of growing spa brands. We’ll cover each in more detail below:
Guests expect you to deliver a beautiful and relaxing experience at every touchpoint. This includes not only the spa, but also digital channels such as your website, online bookings, SMS, social media, and emails. Your spa business software can help you:
Massage Heights used Zenoti to give their guests a better experience. They improved guest communications, while predicting guest behavior to delight them at every opportunity. Watch the full story:
Massage Heights Testimonial Video US
Spa software systems give you actionable insights based on your business data in real-time to equip you with:
Businesses on Zenoti have access to their performance data within the platform. All Zenoti customers get Analytics Express with handy dashboards like Snapshot of Business Health, Marketing Effectiveness, Guest Satisfaction, Provider Utilization, and revenue KPIs. Businesses with more advanced analytics needs can opt for Zenoti Analytics Plus or Zenoti Analytics Dedicated Redshift.
Read The 2024 Beauty and Wellness Benchmark Report for data, trends, and insights defining the industry. Download your free copy.
Spa management software gives you the tools to increase guest spend and retention, while reducing overhead with improved operational efficiencies. That boost to your balance sheets can enable you to upgrade your facilities, pay your staff more, and keep growing your business.
Revenue-generating features in Zenoti include:
Source: Zenoti 2024 beauty and wellness benchmark report
Related: How to profit engineer a membership model for your beauty and wellness brand – from the experts
Do you have a trusted, high-quality range of products that your guests love? Asking your providers to champion your retail section can boost your revenue and improve spa profitability with little investment from your end. Simplify inventory management and turn your stock into profits by:
With 16 locations, Skin Renewal used to have little oversight over the group’s inventory, causing backlogs and delays in stock deliveries. By switching to Zenoti, the chain centralized their inventory management, saving over 500 hours per month in the process! Here’s how.
To ensure your new spa business software gets used to its full potential, you need to manage the transition carefully. Start with the basics:
Zenoti offers face-to-face training as well as Zenoti University, an online platform where providers and managers can learn both the software and other useful business skills at their leisure.
When 100+ location chain Massage Green wanted software with centralized management of memberships and operations, they switched to Zenoti. Over the course of a few weeks, we helped them migrate millions of records spanning over several years, as well as train their staff. By enabling online membership and gift card sales, Zenoti contributed to over $438,000 in added revenue in 2021.
The global wellness market is estimated at $1.5 trillion and grows by 5-10 percent each year. Despite the challenges of the pandemic, guests have returned to their beauty routines in force and the industry is bouncing back. Zenoti benchmarking data from more than 5,000 beauty and wellness businesses showed an average 5% increase in monthly revenue between 2022-2023. Growth plateaued after about four years of a steeper trajectory.
During the same time period, spa visits increased by 18.6%, likely driven by guests returning to pre-COVID frequencies for beauty and wellness treatments.
Don’t miss out on this revenue opportunity. Give guests the complete package by introducing upselling opportunities, such as a longer treatment at a discount, or retail offers to complement a service.
The spa market is going from strength to strength as the world recovers, and it’s a great time to be in, or enter, the industry. Make sure you stay on top of trends to keep your spa at the forefront of must-visit destinations:
Individuals are becoming increasingly aware of the devastating environmental impact of climate change, and many are altering their shopping habits to match. In fact, 57% of consumers are willing to change the way they shop if it reduces the negative impact on the environment. At the same time, guests are more conscious of what they put in, and on their bodies, with a poll showing that nearly 50% of women are already using clean beauty products.
Keep reading for five beauty and wellness trends to embrace.
As a spa business, you are perfectly placed not to just look after people’s bodies, but their minds too. Emphasize the mental health benefits of your offerings and see if there are any treatments you could add or tweak to make them more mentally helpful.
Finally, don’t just limit mental wellness to your guests – look after your providers too. Make sure you’re offering a safe environment to discuss feelings and concerns and look for input on how you can reduce stress and friction in their workday.
Related: The ABCs of Gen Z: How to satisfy the Gen Z staff at your salon or spa – from the experts
Running a spa involves creating an oasis of serenity while navigating the choppy waters of business management. No easy task for spa owners and managers faced with inconsistent revenue growth, the constant threat of staff attrition, and the intricacies of guest retention.
State-of-the-art spa software platforms include tools to manage bookings, streamline operations, and track business performance, empowering spas to boost their collections, satisfy clients, and keep their service providers happy. In addition, Zenoti includes booking and AI-driven features designed to continually drive revenue for spas on the platform and address the unique challenges of spa management.
Most importantly, the right software allows spa professionals to focus on what truly matters: offering exceptional service to improve client well-being, be it through therapeutic relaxation or beauty treatments. In the hands of a skilled and contented spa team, wellness becomes a reality that rejuvenates body, mind, and spirit.
Beauty and wellness businesses love Zenoti. 1,000+ reviews and counting.
