Silkor is a leading provider of laser hair removal, laser medico-aesthetic and skin care services in the Middle East and North African regions. Silkor's core business operates on personalized packages that include a custom set of services and in being able to manage custom payment plans. With 25 locations spread over 8 countries, Silkor requires operational excellence to maintain high quality standards and financial control over their brand. Zenoti spoke to Amal Rashkidi, Operations Head at Silkor, to discuss key challenges and how Zenoti has impacted their business.
Improving A Labor Intensive Process
Before partnering with Zenoti, Silkor tried several software systems, all of which they quickly abandoned either due to incomplete capabilities, low usability or poor reporting. Prior to Zenoti, they settled on using a simple Point of Sale software, internal tools, strict SOPs (standard operating procedures), and trusted managers to support their business. Amal explains “We had a labor intensive process, where managers at each branch tracked the day's appointment, financial transactions, customer package balances and so on - it was 15 spreadsheets in all.
"A manager would spend around 3 hours in a day just with book keeping."
A manager would spend around 3 hours in a day just with book keeping. And the problem wasn't just the time. Whenever you copy data from one table to another, it increases the possibility for errors. Since the financial data is sensitive, we had teams of auditors to verify the data. All that time the managers are sitting at the desk meant they were not focusing on the client or working to grow the business.”
Zenoti's Automation Is The Key
Zenoti's fully integrated solution means that Amal's team now spends minimal time on administrative tasks and has fewer disruptions to the business. As Amal states, “Zenoti straight away took out more than 3 hours of a manager's work every day. Every month, each branch saves 75 hours of management time. And that's time that our managers are now able to spend on growing the business.”
"It's all data driven, we're able to plan the week, plan our marketing; we're able to grow business in a strategic way."
Earlier, the head office couldn't see any reports from each of the centers until the branch manager sent the daily or monthly reports. On top of that, if a manager was sick then it would throw everything off. Now, we're no longer dependent on the manager and there are no delays or errors. We have access to see each branch's performance whenever we want. This makes a big difference in how we operate. We'll see if they're hitting targets or compare performance to the previous quarter or year's performance, then we'll take action,” says Amal. “It's all data driven, we're able to plan the week, plan our marketing; we're able to grow the business in a strategic way.“
Our Clients See The Benefits Too
“It's typical for us to sell packages with services that are redeemed over many visits. This makes it essential to track partial payments and client balances. What happens though is the client often changes her mind midway through the package. She may not want to continue with the package, she may not pay the rest of the balance, she may want the balance transferred for another set of services or even transferred to someone else. This was very tedious to track manually, but with Zenoti, the system manages the partial payments and session balances for us. Clients are happy we're able to support their requests for package transfers, payment plans and so on easily. And sometimes it's the simple things that make a big difference, things like when a client asks for their balance, our staff can immediately look up the history and outstanding balances.
Silkor Sees A Significant Increase In New Client Acquisition
Zenoti is so comprehensive, that we've addressed many processes within our operations and are already seeing improvements. For example, before Zenoti we were tracking inquiries that we got through the website or phone as well as people that came in for a consultation without purchasing. We used a spreadsheet that tracked details about these prospective clients and would follow-up on them.
But, every month, we'd start a new spreadsheet, this kept things manageable for us. This meant that most people got one call, but if they didn't convert to a customer that month, then we didn't follow-up with them again. If they asked us to call back in 3 months, that potential client would be lost. As you can imagine, we were losing many new clients. Zenoti makes the whole process manageable for us.
The system captures every potential client for us as an 'opportunity'. A potential client could be someone that sent in an inquiry, in which case we follow-up to get them in for a consultation. The potential client can also be someone who came in for a consultation, but didn't purchase anything. And the last category of potential clients is an existing client who expressed an interest in a different type of service.
The system assigns every opportunity, an owner who is responsible for a follow-up call and assigns a date when the call should be made. We're also able to track notes; so if the client asks you to call back in a week, it's there in the history and the follow-up date makes sure that our manager knows that's an action item on that day. Managers come in the morning and have the list of everyone she has to call, even if the potential client came in for a consultation 3 months ago.
They update the status and the next follow-up date and the system keeps this process moving in a very systematic way. With Zenoti we're seeing better traction and conversion, and we're able to assign conversion targets for staff as well. Earlier, we couldn't capture how much business we were losing because of poor follow-up. But, the impact to the business is huge.
Zenoti makes it possible to see which therapists' consultations have the best conversions, which helps us improve our process. And, since our branches are spread over 8 countries, the system also lets me monitor the other branches, to make sure they are following up consistently. They all follow the same strict processes in order to meet their goals.”
Next Steps
There's more in Zenoti than we use, and that we have yet to implement. The loyalty program is a dream. Before Zenoti it was impossible with spreadsheets. This will be a big change for us. It's something that clients have been asking of us for the last 10 years,” says Amal. “I'm also excited about implementing the in-store and customer loyalty mobile apps, and using the digital forms, which will save us so much more time. We've already met some of our biggest objectives and it's really exciting to think about what else we can achieve.” To learn more about what Zenoti can do for your business, request a demo.
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