With warmer weather headed our way, you’ll be inundated with appointments and clients looking to get ready for prom, spring break, or just for fun. Not to mention, selling loads of gift cards, products, and memberships to keep those clients coming back after the event is over.

While you’re thinking of ways to help get visitors through the door, don’t forget to spend some time thinking of how to keep them coming back. Make it easy for clients to do business with you. Ease of business heavily involves how they can pay for services at the salon or spa. Here are three payments features you should make sure your business is ready to provide this spring:

ACTIVATE YOUR DIGITAL STRATEGY 

E-commerce has long taken over the brick-and-mortar method of shopping for retail items, but our industry is an exception. No one is getting a virtual haircut or massage. However, National Public Radio found 76% of consumers shop online, so you have to be able to service, not only the clients you have in-store, but those shopping online as well. Utilizing your online webstore and mobile apps is the key to meeting clients in the moment to buy the products and services they want, when they want, and where they want. Whether that’s at your spa or from the comfort of their couch, making it easy to use stored payment information or autofill payment cards into the checkout cart is key to completing the online transactions and increasing your holiday revenue.

SKIP THE LINES WITH AUTOPAYMENT 

We all know the toll of the lines at the checkout counters of any retail outlet and the spas is no different. Help clients skip the line by encouraging and reminding them to set up the autopayment features on your spa app. That way, they can easily add products and services to their appointment and treatment as well as add tips and gratuities at the touch of a button. Most importantly, they skip the lines on the way out. This also gives time back to your employees, allowing them to focus on the personal services they do best, rather than acting as a cashier at a checkout line.

OPTIONS ARE KEY 

The way people like to pay is not a one-size-fits-all proposition. It’s possible to give clients options to pay the way they want to. With the spa technology available today, owners and operators can utilize kiosks and phones, amongst additional auto payment options to provide clients with a variety of ways to pay for their treatment and appointment. The easier we make it for them, the more likely that they’ll come back to see us.

Thinking about payments may not be the most glamorous part of running a business but think about a time when you’ve been to a business that gets it wrong. When you’re stuck in a line that doesn’t seem to be moving or when it takes 10 screens to process your credit card – when you get multiple charges for multiple items or services this negates the great experience the client may have had in the chair or on the table. Make the plan now on how you can provide a seamless end-to-end experience for clients – the end being the payment to you.

Guy Weismantel, Senior Vice President at Zenoti: Weismantel is responsible for building and scaling the global marketing organization at Zenoti, including customer acquisition, branding, product marketing, communications, events, and customer marketing. Before Zenoti, Weismantel was in executive roles with fast growing startups Pushpay and Marchex. He also held senior positions with Microsoft and Expedia earlier in his career. Weismantel is a graduate of the University of Notre Dame, as well as the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University. Outside the office, Weismantel is an avid runner and loves to travel when not shuttling his son to a game or practice around Seattle.