Chances are, you’ve heard about the power of AI. From ChatGPT, marketing chatbots, and beyond, business owners are using artificial intelligence to gain insights about customers and learn from them over time. As a salon owner, you may not have to interact with these tools on a daily basis. But now is the time to start. Up to 35% of companies are already using AI, while 42% expect to use it in the near future. Given the consistent need to keep schedules booked and customers happy, salons are no exception. You can benefit from using AI in your everyday work.
So, what are you waiting for? Start using AI to revolutionize your daily tasks! Read more about how you can use AI to streamline and superpower your salon.
Chat with Customers at Any Time
Your salon’s phone may be ringing off the hook, but your receptionist answering needs to go home after their shift. Chatbots offer the alluring flexibility of 24/7 customer service. Chances are, you’ve interacted with a chatbot yourself. Chatbots use artificial intelligence and natural language processing to simulate and process human conversations with customers. Business owners can program chatbots to answer common questions like your hours of operation and services.
Chatbots are customer service machines. It’s likely that your human employees receive similar questions all day long. It’s a bit bothersome and time-consuming for humans to answer the same customer questions all day. Free up your employees’ time by allowing chatbots to answer the same question from customers over and over. Customers receive an instantaneous answer to their queries too. No matter how busy your salon may get, chatbots are programmed to answer questions quickly and accurately.
Offering chatbots is especially a good idea if your target audience includes Millennials and Gen Z. Up to 60% of Millennials use chatbots and 70% report they had a good experience with them. Instant gratification is an expectation in modern society. So younger people get exactly the customer service they’re expecting when they use chatbots: an instantaneous response. Plus, some of your customers actually prefer not to talk to a human. Up to 48% of young people report that they prefer to use chatbots as opposed to speaking with a real person!
Offering a chatbot is a no-brainer when nearly half of your customers prefer to use it. Plus, it’s a win-win for your current employees. Take some of their repetitive customer service tasks off their plate. Now they can focus on what matters most: providing incredible brow service!
Cultivate Leads
Once your chatbot connects with a customer, the conversation doesn’t have to end there. Some customers may have exploratory questions while they’re in the awareness stage. The chatbot remembers that they asked about your hours, but they never booked an appointment. The customer looks around at other brow salons for a while, but they ultimately come back to your website. Chatbots retain information about customers and can pick up the conversation right where they left off.
Plus, chatbots have the potential to complement all your current marketing efforts. It’s likely that users will provide their name, email address, or phone number to the chatbot while speaking to it. Integrate the AI with your email marketing system for enhanced lead segmentation. The chatbot has integral information as to where your lead is at in their buyer journey.
As the customer finally books their appointment, the relationship with AI and your new lead continues! AI software is a great avenue to cultivate loyalty among your existing customers. By connecting with your booking service, AI software analyzes and gets to know your new customers. Program your AI to reach out to customers based on their preferences. Offer a coupon for a similar service to those who haven’t booked in 6 months.
Personalize your Marketing Efforts
You likely spend a lot of time trying to put yourself in your customer’s shoes. Trying out new marketing efforts requires analytics analysis and A/B testing. But now it can involve AI. AI software like chatbots retains previous conversations with users. Once this information is integrated with your booking service, you have a myriad of information about your customers such as their service preferences and questions about your salon. You even have an idea of their communication style based on how they spoke with the chatbot. From there, the segmentation possibilities are endless!
Based on how your website is set up, your AI chatbot might ask predefined questions like, “Do you prefer eyebrow threading or waxing?” The user’s preference can instantly show them your offerings based on the eyebrow shaping method they prefer. Once the chatbot learns what service the user likes, they can recommend new offerings to them the next time they visit your website.
Hyper-personalization can get granular thanks to chatbots, too. Some clothing companies use chatbots to act as personal stylists. As they get to know what a user prefers and purchased in the past, they make recommendations. Salons can use this chatbot model to make their own personalized recommendations for eyebrow products, services, and more!
Streamline Your Schedule
So much of your salon’s livelihood relies on a packed schedule. When your staff has massive gaps in their schedule, time and money are wasted. It’s almost as if you need an assistant to reach out to previous customers to get them to come in and fill in the gaps. Cue the power of AI! Many salons are using artificial intelligence to analyze their current schedule and fill in any gaps.
Take for example AI scheduling software like Reach AI. Reach AI scans your schedule and texts customers when they identify open appointments. It works alongside your existing online booking software. The technology makes data-driven decisions when reaching out to your clients. It has an idea as to what services they typically book and at what time. Past customers that are likely to book at a particular time get push notifications from Reach AI letting them know that you’re open. Effortlessly fill your open seats and offer a convenient scheduling option for your customers!
Train Employees
Training is a monumental task for new hires. Naturally, as humans learn new rules, skills, and processes in a workplace, it takes time to get it right. While trial and error are human experiences, AI learns fast through programming. Smart salon owners are leveraging the formulaic way in which AI learns and using it to their advantage.
AI provides milestones and formulas to streamline the training process. New hires get in front of programs like SalonScripts.AI and can practice. As they work through a script, the AI software assigns new hires an objective score based on their performance. Salon employees feel at ease knowing they’re being judged on objective criteria and receive immediate feedback.
For example, say you’re training a new employee on how to sell products. You explain to the employee that they must first educate the employee on the value of using products like brow soap. From there, they should explain how the product works. If they appear interested, the employee should apply a sample of the product during service and wrap up the sale.
The new employee understands the steps but struggles to communicate it without appearing pushy. Here comes AI. AI software gives the new salon employee a space to practice. After several tries, they nail the script down and receive a passing score from the software. In real life, the salon employee feels like they’ve given this demonstration a million times. They make the sale the first time they try it in real life.
Gain Valuable Sales Insights
Sorting through sales data is time-consuming and sometimes confusing. If you’re trying to overhaul your sales strategy, a consultant or data analyst can help with a hefty hourly rate. But AI software can help by constantly running in the background. Use AI to link up with your accounting platform. By doing so, you gain essential insights into what products and services are selling and which aren’t.
In the current economy, it’s more important than ever to get accurate sales forecasting. AI can help you forecast your sales goals. But it can also factor in external conditions like market changes. The consideration of the market allows you to consider different sales scenarios for the year. AI also provides a more reliable and realistic sales goal that’s relevant to the outside world.
Using AI software to create sales forecasting scenarios is good risk management for your salon as well. As a business owner, you likely have a gut feeling as to how your year can go based on your experience. Instead of making business decisions solely on emotion, AI helps you create a more accurate forecast for the year. Consider market fluctuations and whatever else may come your way using AI.
Simplify Manufacturing Issues
If your salon carries products, you know how complicated logistics can get. From supply chain issues to manufacturing delays, there are a lot of moving parts. Customers become accustomed to purchasing certain products and likely want to know the status of the manufacturer. Some salons have had success with creating AI software to help alleviate these manufacturing questions and concerns.
A manufacturing chatbot uses AI to answer preprogrammed technical questions about products. Your customers have questions about the products they use. Although salon staff are trained in how to use the products, they may not have all the answers as to how the products work or when they’re coming in. The manufacturer works directly with the chatbot, so salon staff isn’t inundated with product questions they can’t answer.
As this technology advances, salons can work with manufacturers seamlessly. Hairdreams USA built a chatbot to answer questions about the hair extensions they purchased from a manufacturer. It is their hope that this technology will integrate the manufacturer with salons in the future. The chatbot may be able to make hair extension sales by recommending local salons customers can purchase from.
Upsell Products with Ease
Selling is an invaluable skill. But not all humans possess the same natural charm. This is where AI comes in. As customers book their next brow wax through your AI software, you can program chatbots to automatically recommend an additional service. AI learns about these customers over time, so the upselling suggestions become highly personalized and relevant to them. Even better: AI software allows the customer to upgrade right in the platform. No one from the salon needs to intervene.
You may have some top performers with upselling. Other employees might struggle especially when they’re new. A great human seller requires both background knowledge and a compelling script. Using AI to make upsells allows you to control the script as you program it. Using natural language processing, AI can nail the sale each and every time. Plus, AI can provide that touch of personalization based on exactly the past services the client prefers.
If you’re in need of brow products to upsell in your salon, look no further than Eyebrowz Designs. Our products are customizable with your salon’s logo. Get started here to provide your customers with quality eyebrow products in your salon.
Future-proof your Salon
Artificial intelligence is going to become an essential aspect of salon ownership in the near future. By implementing AI now, you position your salon as a pioneer in automation. Consider the fact that 87% of organizations consider their use of AI to give them a competitive edge over their rivals. It may take time for the salon industry to catch up to the power of AI. By adopting AI early, you will become a technological leader among your main local competitors.
With AI-generated schedules, well-trained employees, and meticulous sales forecasting, it’s no secret that AI puts you ahead of the pack. AI is predicted to grow by 38% just this year. So, there’s no need to panic about robots taking over. Using AI alongside your current processes will take your salon to the next level.