Great Companies: How did you get your idea or concept for the business?
Neeraj Gupta: I conceptualized the idea for Salonist after a memorable trip to Singapore. So, the story goes like this. In 2015, I went to Singapore and met my friend who owns a salon in Paragon. While reminiscing about the good times during the dinner and discussing business stuff, he brought up the managerial issue he was facing with his salon. The major problems he was facing were inventory management, appointment scheduling, and managing multiple branches. After that, I wanted to explore the situation myself so I visited the other salons in the nearby locations.
With my brief research, I observed that most salons were carrying on their operations manually and this conventional method was getting in their way. I realized that this can be resolved with management software that can streamline their operations. This will leave plenty of time for them to work on expanding their business and work on other strategies.
I came back with the idea to make a salon management software and upon returning I discussed it with my core team. With the hard work and dedication of our team, we launched Salonist in 2017.
Great Companies: What are the various services provided by Salonist
Neeraj Gupta: Salonist is feature-rich software that covers all aspects of salon management and operations. From appointment booking and payment to reporting and staff management, Salonist is capable of offering all the benefits.
The software contains advanced features like point of sale, reports, analytics, staff payroll, customer management, inventory management, and marketing automation. With aid of these tools, one can boost overall productivity and streamline salon operations.
With the online booking and payment system salons can revolutionize their scheduling process and client management. Plus, it allows salons to integrate their booking page with social media handles as well, expanding their reach. Whenever a client comes in touch with the salon services regardless of the platform, they can directly reach the booking page.
For staff management, it has an automated payroll that helps calculate and prepare salaries taking into account attendance, working hours, and commission. It also allows salon managers to get the staff login information and control their access authority.
Apart from the operational features, Salonist also undertakes the reporting task and provides detailed reports about every aspect of the business. This helps keep track of all the development and also to gauge the overall performance.
Another incredible segment of features Slonist offers is the automated marketing functions. These work to improve the salon’s online presence and broaden its reach to be closer to the potential customers. It also assists in maintaining good customer relationships and attracting more customers by automatically reaching out to customers with promotions and offers.
Great Companies: What makes Salonist different from hundreds of other similar service providers?
Neeraj Gupta: Salonist was founded with the motive of providing beauty and wellness businesses with the best tools to increase their productivity and profitability. So far, we have aided over 10,000 salons worldwide with the impressive qualities of our salon management software. With an extensive list of features and quality services, these salons are flourishing in the beauty and wellness industry.
Being a customizable software, Salonist gives salon owners the freedom to completely get it under the skin of their salon. This isn’t the case with a lot of management software out there. Salonist focuses on making the client experience better while giving salon owners the right tools to manage their own operations efficiently.
Moreover, we have an experienced crew working diligently to improve the software experience and add more advanced features. These unique features and a hardworking team are what separate us from the crowd. And we have made salon management easy for varied beauty and wellness businesses in 60 countries.
Great Companies: What were the struggles and challenges you faced and how did you overcome them?
Neeraj Gupta: The service industry is on a steady upsurge and we’re constantly in the process of evolving to help SMEs and salon chains through Salonist.
We observed that most of the management solutions in the market were based on old technologies tracing back to the ’90s. So, our primary focus was on building a reliable cloud-based CRM solution
In the time between 2015, the year this idea was conceived and in 2017, when we launched our salon management software, we incorporated everything. Our energy, knowledge, and experience all came together to build Salonist.
It is an all-inclusive software that offers marketing abilities, streamlines operations, provides analytics & reports, and has a mobile app.
Great Companies: How do you plan to grow in the future? What do 5 years down the line look like for Salonist?
Neeraj Gupta: We have many strategies that we are planning to put into practice to highlight and improve Salonist’s advantages. We are expanding our team, adding more features to our products, and properly optimizing our services. When we look 5 years down the road, Salonist will have a greater and more satisfied customer base.
Great Companies: If you had one piece of advice for someone just starting out, what would it be?
Neeraj Gupta: Keep your customers in mind while making every decision because they made you who you are. Stay updated with the trends and developments in your industry. Lastly, keep working hard to raise the bar despite the problems and hardships.
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