Artificial intelligence has made life easier and improved operations for many industries. It’s not only changing the world around us but also the way that businesses function. Most business leaders in the US believe they can only achieve business growth by embracing AI technology.
Things have not been any different in the beauty sector. Today, in addition to adding more amenities and experienced stylists, salons are integrating AI into their business operations with the goal of scaling. But how does AI help to scale your salon business? The short answer is to make business operations easier, faster, and more convenient for everyone.
Let’s look at some AI strategies that you can implement to scale up your salon business.
6 Strategies for Harnessing the Power of AI in Scaling Your Salon Business
Scaling your business can be daunting, especially when you rely on human efforts and input. Aspects like speed, efficiency, and accuracy are likely to be compromised. The following are sound strategies you can use to grow your salon business:
1. Introducing Virtual Try-Ons and AR Technology
Today, customers like to try out new hairstyles in virtual reality before making appointments. Virtual try-on technology delivers product information similar to that obtained from direct product examination. Customers can find their ideal haircut, styles, and shades and make selections from the comfort of their homes. Once the finalized virtual image is sent to the salon, it’s up to the stylist to give the customer the desired look.
Virtual try-on technology saves time spent negotiating, recommending, and trying products on the day of service – they come in knowing what you offer and what they want. Therefore, introducing virtual try-on tech in your salon business will be a game changer.
2. AI-Driven Marketing Campaigns
Big and small businesses rely on social media as a marketing strategy. Social media is a powerful marketing tool integrating machine learning to provide users with relevant information.
With AI in social media platforms, you can create more effective social campaigns and track your statistics and online engagements. On the other hand, your customers and prospects will get updates based on their searches.
Maintaining a well-curated social media presence requires high skills in planning and organizing to yield results. You must have a plan, some goals, and a clear direction. AI can help you know how your campaigns are performing, allowing you to adjust accordingly.
Increasing brand awareness should be your first priority if you’re new to the salon business. For example, having a beautifully curated Facebook or Instagram account with clear and engaging photos can go a long way in getting views and impressing potential clients.
3. Tap the Power of Customer Management Tools
In the early stages of your salon business, it’s possible to monitor and manage its growth and other aspects without technical help. However, as the business grows, you will need a complete picture of its progress and performance. At this stage, you’ll need to introduce better customer management strategies.
Customer management software helps to create lifelong customers for your salon services and products. Choose a customer relationship management solution that gives you a 360-degree view of each customer relationship with your business. You also need a solution that automatically captures data at each customer touchpoint, processes it, and presents the results accurately.
4. Use a Knowledge Management System
Knowledge management systems (KMS) enable capturing, storing, and sharing of information. A solid knowledge management system will streamline your salon’s ability to track and reuse useful data and other knowledge assets.
Introducing KMS in your salon business empowers your customers and workers to deal with repetitive tasks on their own. For example, there will be fewer calls to management to clarify certain business processes if you have a system with this information that enables retrieval and sharing.
A knowledge management system will do the following for your business:
- Improve organizational agility.
- Enhance innovation among your team
- Increases productivity of your stylists
- Support better communication
- Provide quick solutions to problems
- Improve your business processes
- Improve overall customer experience
5. Adopt Virtual Reality Courses
Virtual reality ( VR) education training is an alternative affordable course you can undertake remotely. It’s a course that salon managers should take advantage of when teaching their staff as well as improving their skills. They can learn from your facility just by entering a virtual room for a lesson. This way, you will cut the cost of in-person training significantly and prevent absences caused by skill improvement programs. All you need is a VR headset.
6. Use Front Desk AI to Boost Appointments
The use of front desk AI has proved to be effective in the current world of online business engagements. In a salon environment, stylists and other staff can get busy to the point of not picking up calls or skipping some critical customer appointments.
Alternatively, customers may stream in all at once, each seeking personalized attention that is sometimes impossible. It’s at this point a conversational artificial intelligence assistant comes in handy. These include chatbots and virtual agents that streamline interactions between your business and clients.
A conversational AI automatically links to popular booking programs and client services and engages customers over chat in real-time. It can answer client questions, collect payment information, book appointments and send reminders without human input. Millennials, in particular, prefer online bookings and text message reminders for their appointments.
7. Leverage AI To Maximize Community Outreach
Whether you’re trying to reach your first-ever customer or a salon with stable businesses for all of your stylists – Experts can agree on one thing – social media is probably one of your most powerful assets.
Whether it’s the viral tik tok trends, captivating Instagram images, or your run-of-the-mill Facebook marketing, the question is, how far can AI take you?
The first step to any social media campaign is understanding your audience. By getting a deeper insight into customer behaviors, and preferences, you’ll be able to target campaigns better, focusing on the best times of day, the best days of the week, and of course, delivering content in a manner they appreciate.
This, combined with the ability to use AI-focused social media tools, can help you develop engaging, unique, and informative content for potential customers in a fraction of the time. Chat GPT is a prime example of a powerful asset to use in combination with your various outreach strategies.
Bottom Line
Businesses tend to be comfortable with consistently effective technology, but it’s good to be flexible. Change is inevitable, and staying ahead and moving with the world is good. AI is beginning to revolutionize business, and the beauty industry is not left behind – you should not be left behind. Although it’s no surefire way to scale your salon business, AI provides an incredible solution that, when combined with the human touch, the results are unmatched. As a salon business owner, leverage AI to automate your business processes and be open to testing new methods that AI throws your way. It’s advisable to train if the need arises to avoid unnecessary frustrations. All in all, be patient with technology. It sometimes takes time to see results.
