When I repair and upgrade customers computers, occasionally I become familiar with specialized software and databases they might need reinstallation or backing up before doing work. I recently worked on a system for a small independent hair salon in midtown Tucson that ran the business part of the operation on her laptop computer. This allowed her to have more time with creative work with clients hair as well as marketing her business.
She used a software from a company called Neill Technologies which is part of the Neill Corporation, one of the largest Aveda distributors in the United States. What surprised me about the software SalonBiz Light was that it was a free program she downloaded from the SalonBiz website. Usually when a person or company tells me they downloaded a free software program from the internet, red flags are raised and I begin to get concerned for my customer. This was not the case after looking at the reputation of Neill Technologies and the products they market. According to the Director of Sales for Neill Technologies Jill Gentry, they decided to offer the SalonBiz Light for the salons that may be running 4 stations or less that need to have an organized system for charting appointments, job tickets and keeping track of inventory.
The software even for being a Light version, is rather full featured. There are certainly good reasons for upgrading or subscribing to the Full version however for the start-up or non-computerized, this is a great way to get ramped up. The full version offers marketing features such as emailing customers to remind them on appointments or sending out announcements of specials. Full Support and webinars are available with at your own speed online training as well. Online appointments can be made by the Salon or Spa professionals appointments with a WebBiz 2.0 product that plugs seamlessly into your website.
If this is your business or you know somebody that works as a salon professional, have them take a look at http://www.techtalkradio.com/software/salonbiz.html. I interviewed Jill Gentry from Neill Technologies who shared with me some of the finer points of the SalonBiz Light program as well as new technology including an iPAD application for the full users of SalonBiz. Be sure to check out the website for the company at http://www.salonbiz.com and the Blog at http://salonspabestpractices.com
If your business uses a special software program geared at your operation, we would love to know about it and possibly feature it in one of our segments on Industry Software.
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