Having access to data is crucial for business success today. Data tells you what's working and what's not, and helps guide firm, confident decision-making. While it's tempting to coast if your guests and staff seem happy, you have to monitor the health of your business to stay profitable and retool strategies that aren't working.
Why track performance data?
The importance of data stood out in a recent Zenoti webinar on how salons and spas can achieve greatness in 2023.
Webinar host Sarah Simonelli, Zenoti director of customer success, and former director of operations for Chicago-based Tricoci Salon & Spa, said, "One of the biggest tools in your management toolkit is data and how you're tracking performance – of your service providers, of your business – and using data to make decisions, to drive results and contribute to your bottom line of profitability."
Webinar guest and former Massage Envy CEO David Crisalli credited a "metric-intelligent culture" with helping him build and scale a 1,200-location enterprise that redefined the massage and franchise space in the United States.
"We had a KPI [key performance indicator] culture at Massage Envy revolving around 'you cannot change what you're not aware of.'"
Which KPIs should you track?
A KPI measures business performance in a single area. A business's larger strategy will determine which KPIs to track over time.
Twenty-nine percent of webinar poll respondents said they don't measure metrics regularly. If you can relate, here's a place to start: seven KPIs every business should track.
- Per-location revenue
- Guest spend per visit /average ticket size
- Monthly revenue per service provider
- Monthly tips per service provider
- Staff utilization rate
- Repeat guest rate (At Zenoti, we define this as percent of appointments with customers who visit 4+ times per year.)
- No-show rate
The above KPIs will help you gauge business health across revenue, provider utilization, and guest satisfaction.
How to get started with online dashboards
Salon management software and spa management software should be able to track business data through quick-view dashboards, like those built into Zenoti software for business management.
You'll want your dashboard to display the information most relevant to your business, available at a glance each day – yes, a daily check of your business performance can help you guide that day and week toward greater profitability.
If you have access to a data dashboard, at the very least, start measuring things like sales and purchase trends for services you offer.
Zenoti customers can get even more from their data with a service called Analytics Express: a set of online dashboards that offer a deeper dive into specific areas of business health, guest satisfaction, provider utilization, self-service booking, and retail performance.
Glance through this list of Analytics Express dashboards for typical insights available from each.
Business Health: How are collections trending month over month and year over year? How does guest traffic compare across centers?
Guest Satisfaction: How are customers rating my business? Which service providers are most requested by guests?
Provider Utilization: How busy are my service providers? What is their utilization? Which days of the week have the highest utilization? The lowest?
Self-Service Booking: What percentage of appointments came from online booking? How sticky is my online booking: how many guests use it to rebook?
Retail Performance: How do my centers compare for retail sales? Which of my staff are upsell stars? Which staff need coaching?
Additional preconfigured dashboards in Zenoti Analytics Express track Marketing Effectiveness and Provider Performance.
Use data to change business behaviors
Performance dashboards provide real-time access to valuable information about your business. But it's not enough to identify KPIs, track them, and call it a day.
As David says in the webinar, "It's the execution against the knowledge to grow the business that really matters most."
Two examples illustrate how a business could alter its behavior in response to a dashboard finding.
Guest Satisfaction example
Finding: The average guest rating is 3.5 stars.
Google requires a four-star rating or higher to help searchers looking for the "best salon" or "best spa" near them. How can you boost review ratings? Automate feedback requests to collect glowing reviews from happy guests right after checkout, and find ways to elevate the guest experience to maximize positive feedback for your business.
Retail Performance example
Finding: Retail sales are down 25% year over year.
Retail is a key component of your profitability with quite significant margins, according to Sarah Simonelli, so how can you improve product sales? Personalize marketing to your customers based on their visit and purchase history – create offers they'll really care about. Use mobile POS to facilitate in-store upsells and help service providers work product suggestions into guest care.
Where to start with data
"You don't want to measure a thousand things," David Crisalli said. "The trick is to really focus on the needle-moving metrics.
"How do you drive the LTV (lifetime value) of the consumer? Generally speaking, you can retain the vast sum of your consumers if you're focused on leading indicators around trial, conversion, and, ultimately, retention."
For salon, spa, and medspa owners, Zenoti dashboards and reports, provide a comprehensive view of leading business indicators. The software platform also includes tools and features to help you act on dashboard insights and transform your business into a thriving presence in the communities you serve.
