Fantastic Sams elevates franchise operations

Jaine Cantu operates Fantastic Sams locations as an independently owned franchisee, managing 13 salons in San Antonio, two in Katy, Texas, and serving as regional developer for San Antonio and Austin. With multiple locations to oversee, she found her previous POS system made it difficult to monitor her business consistently. She needed a solution that could generate reports across all locations and help her focus on key performance indicators.

When she evaluated Zenoti, the ability to view everything in one place through targets and reporting was a major factor in her decision. She implemented Zenoti across all locations simultaneously in tiers, which presented significant challenges. Once she shifted her approach to focus on her core KPIs and how she wanted to run her business, the Zenoti team showed her how to access the same information through their system.

Having previously used Super Salon and SalonUltimate, Cantu found Zenoti's onboarding process notably stronger than her past experiences. Her previous onboarding consisted of a brief five-minute call explaining basic functions, whereas Zenoti provided regular updates. She also values Zenoti University, which allows new employees to complete training before their first day, ensuring they arrive already familiar with the system.

Cantu highlights three primary benefits of Zenoti. First, stylists can download the app to view their services and schedules from their phones, track their earnings, monitor their progress toward goals, and stay motivated to grow their business. Second, the web-based platform allows her to access everything remotely—she can log in to book customers, handle phone calls, and assist her management team without disrupting stylists at work. Third, the reporting and target-setting features enable her to set monthly gross revenue targets for each location and track metrics like retail sales and rebooking percentages.

Zenoti has helped unify her salons by standardizing pricing, service names, and processes across all locations. Adding new products to all locations simultaneously, rather than entering them individually, has saved considerable time. The platform has transformed her business by empowering stylists to understand their services and projected earnings better. Stylists can now monitor their schedules throughout the month and proactively call clients to fill openings, creating daily engagement with the business. The system supports them consistently, which has proven highly impactful.

On the administrative side, district managers can now handle tasks like attendance management for multiple locations from anywhere, significantly easing their workload. Payroll has become dramatically simpler, with reports readily available. The system's improved client information storage has encouraged stylists to collect data more consistently—Cantu now tracks increases in email addresses and phone numbers compared to previous rates.

The daily visibility into goals has been transformative for stylists. District managers meet weekly with stylists to discuss personal goals like purchasing cars or homes, then translate these into numbers that can be tracked in Zenoti rather than on paper. Stylists have learned to run reports themselves and set their own targets, often aiming higher than management suggests because they can visualize their progress and feel motivated by it.

Zenoti has increased efficiency across multiple areas. The customer-facing app now allows clients to purchase gift cards directly via QR codes, eliminating the need for stylists to locate physical cards and process them manually. Customers can check themselves in using iPads at the front, enabling those who prefer minimal interaction to complete their visits seamlessly.

By reducing administrative burden, district managers now spend more time on the salon floor with stylists, focusing on business growth, education, ticket-building strategies, brand development, and product knowledge. The focus has shifted from administrative management to operational excellence and employee development.

Cantu's goal is to empower her stylists to become Fantastic Sams owners themselves. She sees Zenoti as essential to this vision, as it handles the administrative complexities that stylists prefer not to manage, allowing them to focus on client relationships and hair services. This partnership will be invaluable as she develops stylists into owners who can build their businesses while Zenoti manages marketing, campaigns, the app, and rebooking.

With San Antonio being one of the fastest-growing cities in the United States, Cantu aims to open 30 additional locations within five years. She believes Zenoti makes franchise ownership more accessible because the administrative side is straightforward—owners don't need to master complex systems, as Zenoti handles marketing, campaigns, the app, and rebooking automatically. This allows franchisees to concentrate on understanding the business and growing operations.

Cantu advises others to clearly understand their business objectives before implementing Zenoti. Rather than worrying about technical details, business owners should identify their core focus and three to five key KPIs, whether that's opening more locations or reaching specific revenue goals. She expresses confidence that Zenoti can deliver on these objectives, as it has done for her business.