To ensure its success, your business depends on several key components: technology, personnel and equipment are a few of the most crucial that, when you think about it, are also quite interrelated. This strong dependency is enough to give any salon and spa operator the motivation to always have an overall maintenance plan in place.
To start, your tanning and spa-related equipment are most likely controlled by a salon management program and a timer system. Not only is your equipment operated via these technologies, but your point-of-sale and back office systems are likely to include an equipment maintenance function.
As a result, it’s imperative that as part of your IT-related preventative maintenance, your operating systems and software are up-to-date and running supported versions, and that you’ve installed anti-virus programs. Your data is the lifeblood of your business – make sure that you have backups running regularly on a rotation schedule and housed offsite. It’s also a good idea to have items like an extra workstation or peripherals such as a timer manager pre-configured and on standby at all times; should one of these items fail, you can easily swap out hardware with little, if any, impact on your operations.
Do yourself, your staff and your equipment a favor and deploy the necessary resources to efficiently manage and maintain it!
Documenting maintenance electronically will not only aid in efficiency but also extend the life of your equipment. Being informed of the work completed on a unit will allow you to easily schedule future maintenance and essentially result in avoiding unnecessary future repairs.
Having a point-of-sale system that is unified with your equipment maintenance system will enable staff to submit maintenance requests and easily communicate details of the issue by selecting from a list of pre-configured and customized options. Additionally, those details can be noted, and the equipment can also be temporarily inactivated based on the severity of the issue.
Implementing these types of measures will not only give you an overall picture of your equipment’s health, but also encourage your staff to take as much pride in the condition of your tanning and spa units as you do.
Speaking of staff, as a salon is heavily dependent upon technology and equipment, it is worth considering employing someone to assist with your IT needs from a hardware and software perspective, as well as someone to assist with your equipment needs.
An efficient maintenance module will automatically assign a ticket to the person responsible for completing the work based on the type of issue selected, and can essentially include maintenance on everything from equipment and IT to general facility upkeep. If you have multiple locations, this will also aid the technician in scheduling and knowing what parts are needed at each salon; saving time and of course, money.
An equipment maintenance system will allow your staff to log their activities on the tickets assigned to them and update the status of the issues throughout, so that you are well informed of the progress – perhaps they are waiting to receive a part or will need the assistance of another employee. The technician can check the item off their to-do list by marking the ticket “resolved” when the maintenance is completed.
Utilizing such tools will not only keep you regularly informed on the status of some of your most substantial business assets, but these detailed records will help increase the resale value of your equipment which will be especially helpful should you be looking to refresh your equipment mix.
Equipment maintenance is crucial to providing the best service and superior results to your customers. Do yourself, your staff and your equipment a favor and deploy the necessary resources to efficiently manage and maintain it!
