Salon & Barber Waitlist Management

Having too much business is a nice problem to have, but as any salon owner has experienced, too many customers can be a scheduling nightmare. Factor in walk-ins and cancelations and you can quickly be overwhelmed.
October 10, 2022

Salon & Barber Waitlist Management

EFFICIENT SALON WAITLIST MANAGEMENT AND BOOKING MANAGEMENT GENERATES SALES, CREATES SATISFIED GUESTS, AND DRIVES REPEAT BUSINESS, ALL WITH LESS HEADACHES AND LOW OVERHEAD

With so many solutions for salon bookings, it can be difficult to decide which to choose. WAIT'N is a solution for salon and barbershop waitlist management that emphasizes the guest experience while incorporating staff functions that are simple yet powerful.

WAIT'N includes an array of state-of-the-art features designed to reduce overall wait-times, reduce list no-shows, improve the waiting experience and guest satisfaction, and increase guest retention.

WHAT IS A SALON & BARBERSHOP WAITLIST MANAGEMENT APP?

Rather than sticking to a pen-and-paper, salon & barbershop may utilize a digital waitlist to manage their service queue. This digital queue is managed through a waitlist management app, or waitlist app. A waitlist management app standardizes the process of queuing, and makes adding and removing guests simple for the restaurant.

WITH WAIT'N IT'S EASY TO GET THESE GUESTS ONTO A DIGITAL WAITLIST, SO THAT THEY DON'T HAVE TO STAND IN AN INEFFICIENT LINE.  LINES MIGHT CONVEY POPULARITY, BUT THEY ALSO TELL POTENTIAL CUSTOMERS THAT YOU'RE NOT READY TO SERVE THEM.

WHY NOT A PEN & PAPER WAITLIST?

Breaking out the clipboard and taking a list of names is a well-established, low-cost, and relatively simple method for operating a waitlist. It's not a bad solution for venues with very small waitlists and wait-times, especially where a host will easily recognize and inform a party in-person when you're ready for them. Moreover, a paper waitlist can be combined with just about any other system, like electronic pagers, for zero integration costs. The positives of using a paper list get fewer as the wait grows in length.

When the waitlist gets long, managing a paper list can get extremely messy and cumbersome, costing your staff valuable time flipping through pages, finding a pen, or searching for a name. Moreover, if you're combining the paper list with other technologies, the time it takes to move between the two inevitably costs time that can be better spent on seating and customer service.

As your wait gets longer, every second wasted managing the front of the line has exponential costs for the back of the line. When the wait gets too long, or becomes inefficient, guest satisfaction declines, guests renege on their decision to wait for service, and overall guest retention declines. Even though the length of the wait isn't the only thing that influences a customer's decision to renege on waiting for your services, it's easily the most important factor.

Moving away from the paper & pen waitlist and implementing a digital waitlist solution is a smart salon & barbershop waitlist management technique. Combining the waitlist and paging features into one solution eliminates the need to go between two platforms to perform the most common hosting functions. Utilizing SMS messages, rather than expensive electronic pager systems, lowers the cost of managing the wait list while permitting the guest to move further away from the host stand.  Implementing a digital waitlist solution is a low-cost way to ditch the paper waitlist and make your host stand more efficient, enhance customer service, and regain control of waitlist management.

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