The increasing competition in different departments requires quick service delivery to their clients. In case of delay from the organization or the client is costly for both the parties. Thus, it is important to utilize the time efficiently so that no inconvenience happens on both the ends. This paper highlights the case of hairdressing chain ‘Cut Short'. The report indicates that the chain required the clients to wait for 15 minutes to process their preferences. This waste the valuable time of clients as well as the salon as they have a large pool of clients coming in the salon. This requires to increase the efficiency of the timely deal with every client and a quick response to the client’s queries. The recommendation considered is to develop a pre-booking system so that the client will select their date and time online. This will ultimately save time and increase profits as well. However, they also need other strategies to improve their service and provide proper client care.
Outlining the Business Operation
The business operations consist of day to day interaction with their clients. there is a high tendency of competition in the salon industry and clients immediately decide to move from one to other if small inconvenience happens. Thus, it required the team to efficiently entertain every client coming into the salon and give them full attention. People today are much conscious about the latest trends and which style will suit them better. Thus, it requires high professional staff to guide them with proper support and decisions. The Cut Short has focused on pre-booking appointments that allow the clients to select online services. However, there is a high discrepancy between choosing of particular style without knowing what would exactly look like. Thus, it is very necessary that the clients gain proper knowledge before taking any decision so that it will not blame the authorities later.
Also, the clients were required to pay the amount 24 hours to their arrival that does not justify the issue. Many clients would lately be not able to avail the services and their credit will not be refundable. That actually results in loss of credibility of the salon. Also, when the clients do not arrive on time, they have to face a surcharge which results in high cost for the clients. Thus, collectively, the strategies related to pre-booking system may be suitable to those people who are very punctual and take their appointments seriously. But it may not suit the working people as they do not exactly know by what time they will get free. Also, a client who does not show up in 24 hours may result in the cancellation of their appointment. Thus, collectively the strategies were largely in favor of increasing profitability of the salon instead of client satisfaction. There is also a high threat of the clients divert to other salons that required ‘Cut Short' to improve their strategies and make them more friendly and responsive towards their clients.
Recommendations
Cut Short need to improve the service delivery of their staff to provide maximum customer satisfaction. The online pre-booking may increase the efficiency of the booking system but it did not affect the functioning of the staff members to quickly respond to customers. In an online system when the time is allocated to clients on pre-booking, it cannot be given to someone's else. This often results in losses for the salon when the clients do not show up. Also, in online booking when the client chooses a particular style, they may not have the exact idea of how it will look like and later blame it on the staff. Thus, Cut Short needs to focus on strategies that could improve the system on the spot. The need to make quick computerized bookings on the spot instead of the manual bookings. This will discourage the cancellation of the bookings. There should be proper staff allocated that will only look into the bookings. So as the clients arrive, they are immediately directed towards the required services ADDIN ZOTERO_ITEM CSL_CITATION {"citationID":"CbsQrM7U","properties":{"formattedCitation":"(Konishi, 2017)","plainCitation":"(Konishi, 2017)","noteIndex":0},"citationItems":[{"id":72,"uris":["http://zotero.org/users/local/ZeEdB6mD/items/PEQF8MKL"],"uri":["http://zotero.org/users/local/ZeEdB6mD/items/PEQF8MKL"],"itemData":{"id":72,"type":"report","title":"On the Role of Skill, Quality, and Environmental Factors on Customer Behavior of the Beauty Industry","publisher":"Research Institute of Economy, Trade and Industry (RIETI)","author":[{"family":"Konishi","given":"Yoko"}],"issued":{"date-parts":[["2017"]]}}}],"schema":"https://github.com/citation-style-language/schema/raw/master/csl-citation.json"} (Konishi, 2017). They need to recruit staff who can book appointments on phone with the least allocated time may be one hour so it will have fewer chances of cancellation. They will also arrange the required staff for the desired services that will help the clients to quickly avail the services without wasting their time. The focus should be towards efficient service delivery to make the clients loyal to the salon.
Secondly, the staff required training and capacity building workshops so that they will be able to incorporate better strategies to deal with the clients. This refers to the psychological aspect of the clients to target their week points about founding their selves beautiful. For example, if the staff is busy, they can make the client sit in the haircut room to see how the process is done and whether they want the same or different. In the meanwhile, they can be kept busy in talking and given information about keeping good care of their hairs or skin. Clients get impressed with knowledge about beauty secrets and like to know about salon expertise. Thus, it requires the staff to how well they can engage the clients in productive discussions while doing their work ADDIN ZOTERO_ITEM CSL_CITATION {"citationID":"ugtgCjy1","properties":{"formattedCitation":"(Agredo, Mu, & Vella, 2017)","plainCitation":"(Agredo, Mu, & Vella, 2017)","noteIndex":0},"citationItems":[{"id":74,"uris":["http://zotero.org/users/local/ZeEdB6mD/items/DZJWNHLV"],"uri":["http://zotero.org/users/local/ZeEdB6mD/items/DZJWNHLV"],"itemData":{"id":74,"type":"article-journal","title":"EVALUATION OF CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIP MANAGEMENT (CRM) SYSTEMS FOR SMALL SERVICE BUSINESSES","container-title":"International Journal of the Analytic Hierarchy Process","volume":"9","issue":"1","author":[{"family":"Agredo","given":"Shannon"},{"family":"Mu","given":"Enrique"},{"family":"Vella","given":"Catherine"}],"issued":{"date-parts":[["2017"]]}}}],"schema":"https://github.com/citation-style-language/schema/raw/master/csl-citation.json"} (Agredo, Mu, & Vella, 2017). Most of the time the clients want to feel good about their appearance and style and this is the ultimate responsibility of a stylist to make their clients feel good about themselves. The housekeeper should make good use of their time. Do not try to make all the changes at once but try to bring a culture where the clients could feel comfortable.
Furthermore, time management is very important for the staff members of the support to utilize most of their schedule. For instance, if the allocated time for one haircut is one hour, it should be noticed that the compulsory styling and setting is included in the allocated time. You need to do it as fast as in 45 minutes to get the next client seated. Mostly the stylist gets extra time in styling and final touching and keeps the clients waiting unnecessarily. Thus, it is required of the staff that how they manage their time efficiently and quickly gets done with the hair cut as well as the styling. They should maintain a proper balance of how much clients can they manage in a single day. There are high discrepancies in the staff members as some are quick enough in doing haircuts while some take more time. They should know their capacity and give appointments accordingly. One report suggested that these adjustments could add $23,000 per stylist to the salon income. The strategy is known as Time Management in business terms where the employees are required to make a proper timetable of their daily routine and manage the time according ADDIN ZOTERO_ITEM CSL_CITATION {"citationID":"6D2H6xBx","properties":{"formattedCitation":"(Johnson, 2018)","plainCitation":"(Johnson, 2018)","noteIndex":0},"citationItems":[{"id":75,"uris":["http://zotero.org/users/local/ZeEdB6mD/items/VFAICTBZ"],"uri":["http://zotero.org/users/local/ZeEdB6mD/items/VFAICTBZ"],"itemData":{"id":75,"type":"article-journal","title":"Strategies Small Business Salon Owners Use to Survive Longer Than 5 Years","author":[{"family":"Johnson","given":"Delita Netrice"}],"issued":{"date-parts":[["2018"]]}}}],"schema":"https://github.com/citation-style-language/schema/raw/master/csl-citation.json"} (Johnson, 2018). The salon business is very formal to take these business strategies so seriously but with the increasing competition, they are required to adopt strategies that better reflect the objectives of their business.
Suggestions to Improve Business Service/Operation
In the increasing completion for the best salon, it is necessary to keep yourself updated with the latest technologies. The Salon business needs to recruit specialize staff that could deal with the customers. Mostly salon has adopted to develop the mobile app system that provides them not only with booking but with the general knowledge about different haircuts. This helps the clients to have prior information about the details of different styling. Thus, by their arrival, they are sure what exactly they want. This saves the time of the staff as well as the customers. The clients can also rate the specific stylist though the app that helps other people to know which stylist is the best in the specific salon. The app also provides the number of visits to specific clients and provide them with loyalty cards and deals, thus making them permanent clients of your salon. The loyalty cards help the clients to get the services at discounted rates that increase the proximity of increasing the salon’s customers too ADDIN ZOTERO_ITEM CSL_CITATION {"citationID":"joyPZe5K","properties":{"formattedCitation":"(Kaiser, 2018)","plainCitation":"(Kaiser, 2018)","noteIndex":0},"citationItems":[{"id":76,"uris":["http://zotero.org/users/local/ZeEdB6mD/items/DS7EKRED"],"uri":["http://zotero.org/users/local/ZeEdB6mD/items/DS7EKRED"],"itemData":{"id":76,"type":"book","title":"System and method for internet-based customer check-in","publisher":"Google Patents","author":[{"family":"Kaiser","given":"Peter M."}],"issued":{"date-parts":[["2018"]]}}}],"schema":"https://github.com/citation-style-language/schema/raw/master/csl-citation.json"} (Kaiser, 2018). Earlier only big firm would make their own apps to attract customers but now the strategy is easily available for small businesses as well. Their outcomes are great and people find the deals offered by the salon interesting. It also increases the popularity of the salon as well as help the customers to easily browse their desired style. The apps also help in identifying recent trends and provide services accordingly. Some salons also encourage payment through the app that also saves their time in a transaction with each client separately.
The salon needs to set goals for every one of their employees separately, they should identify the potential of their daily workload and how much they can achieve. They should be able to perform urgent tasks and also perform the duties of other team members when they are absent. All of this requires customer service training that requires the staff to know about the customers need effectively. The major strategy is to prioritize what is more important. The staff members of the salon need to learn the differentiation between urgent concerns. Building friendly relationships with the clients are also very important to give importance to loyal customers as well and make them feel special. The staff members need to develop a culture of welcoming their clients and provide them with the best services. The team members need to divide the time and help each other in performing the tasks. For example, if one person is doing the haircut, the other should do the styling and the setting of the hairstyle. This will help them to save their time and entertain maximum clients. The use of innovative machines and technology also helps in utilizing the time efficiently. The salon requires to regularly improve their systems in order to update their selves as well as maintain updated technologies. The internal culture of a salon matters greatly in keeping their employees loyal to the salon, they need to provide a friendly environment to their customers where they can interact with the staff and utilize their time in productive discussions.
Conclusion
Time management is an important factor in businesses success. It will benefit you in terms of making loyal customers, as well as the salon, will be able to gain maximum profit by the inflow of maximum clients. The biggest challenge for the salon is to make every client feel equally special and restricts from keeping them waiting. People get little time from their work which they decided to spend on some personal beautification. Thus, it is very important to quickly respond to clients need and provide them with proper appointments to discourage any gaps. Time cannot be controlled but it can be managed. Thus, the team required to cooperate collectively in dealing with their clients and to achieve maximum success for the salon.
References
ADDIN ZOTERO_BIBL {"uncited":[],"omitted":[],"custom":[]} CSL_BIBLIOGRAPHY Agredo, S., Mu, E., & Vella, C. (2017). EVALUATION OF CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIP MANAGEMENT (CRM) SYSTEMS FOR SMALL SERVICE BUSINESSES. International Journal of the Analytic Hierarchy Process, 9(1).
Johnson, D. N. (2018). Strategies Small Business Salon Owners Use to Survive Longer Than 5 Years.
Kaiser, P. M. (2018). System and method for internet-based customer check-in. Google Patents.
Konishi, Y. (2017). On the Role of Skill, Quality, and Environmental Factors on Customer Behavior of the Beauty Industry. Research Institute of Economy, Trade, and Industry (RIETI).
