Data is everywhere, but what does it mean for your business? If you own a salon, spa, medspa, or fitness center, or other similar operation, you might think you can get by on passion and common sense alone. While both are vital to success, they’ll only take you so far.

So how do you gain insight into what’s working for your business and what isn’t? The answer is data. Having a data-informed approach will help you make the right decisions for your business. Moreover, businesses of all sizes in varied industries are embracing data to stay relevant and competitive.

Does the prospect of using analytics for your business sound daunting? It needn’t be. Let’s take a look at the myths that may be holding you and your business back – and address them one by one.

Myth 1: Analytics tools are only for online businesses or large tech companies.

It’s natural to think the only businesses that need analytics are in the e-commerce or tech space. However, more companies across all industries are discovering that data holds the key to understanding their business better and making decisions to improve it. Without analytics it’s like playing a ball game, but never knowing the score.

‍Reality: No matter the size or type of organization, tapping into the power of analytics can drive business growth. With insights from data, you’ll have a more accurate read on customer behavior and purchasing patterns.

You can also take corrective measures based on warning signs in the data. Here’s an example: If the data for a salon chain shows an exodus of customers (warning sign), management can check into the reasons – like customers following a departing stylist – and activate promotions to retain them (corrective measure).

All types of beauty and wellness businesses can benefit from using analytics to understand their growth and day-to-day operations. Those that take this approach manage to stay ahead of the competition.

Myth 2: Analytics reports require complex or large sets of data.

When you think of analytics, you may imagine enormous amounts of data.  However, you can apply analytics to smaller data sets as well – even if you’re measuring performance metrics for a single salon or spa location. It is not the quantity but rather the quality of data that determines the kind of business insights to help improve decision-making.

‍Reality: You can extract meaningful data analytics from modest amounts of data. For example, if you sold a few hundred services over a fixed time period (weeks, months, or quarters), you can still generate an analytics report to look for patterns: 

• Are we delivering a good service experience? What are guests happy or unhappy about? 
• How well are memberships performing? Can we identify the right guests for a membership upsell based on their use of services?
• How are self-service bookings contributing to my business?

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‍Stats: Curious what your industry peers are doing with analytics? Organizations using Zenoti are looking at their performance dashboards with greater frequency. In fact, three out of four single-center businesses using the Zenoti platform are leveraging its analytics capabilities. The total number of dashboard views is growing by 11-12 percent every month for the same accounts. The increase in views signals a growing reliance on analytics insights for daily or weekly operations.

Beauty and wellness businesses have the potential to generate a lot of data. For instance, every guest visit, star rating, and retail sale is a piece of data, with aggregates (collections of data points) serving as the basis for analytics insights. All that’s left is to find an analytics solution to help businesses make effective use of the data.

Myth 3: To use analytics, you need to hire a person with specialized skills, like a data analyst.

The very mention of “data” or “analytics” causes stress for some business owners. They feel ill-equipped to deal with what’s involved, thinking they’ll need to hire a specialist, like a data analyst or technical specialist, to do the work.

‍Reality: Anyone who can navigate the most basic software can use an analytics dashboard. It’s important, however, to choose an analytics solution with dashboards built to track the right metrics and serve the needs of your business.

Even just a few years ago, it took a skilled data analyst or technical specialist to build an analytics dashboard. It’s a different story today. Zenoti provides each business predesigned dashboards that are easy to navigate. Some businesses choose to build their own. More than 90 percent of businesses using the Zenoti platform have opted for predesigned dashboards. It comes down to two options:

• Analytics Express: A set of predesigned dashboards for insight into top-line revenue drivers, guest satisfaction, provider performance, and other operational areas 
• Analytics Plus: A custom solution for brands to create their own analytics dashboards. Zenoti helps configure alternate dashboards to highlight crucial organizational metrics.  

With Zenoti, you can leave the dashboard building to us and focus instead on gathering insights.

“Zenoti offers a level of detail when looking at your business in terms of KPIs and analytics that I haven’t seen from other software providers.”

- Dominic Blake
Managing Director, Blushes Hair and Beauty, UK, six locations

Myth 4: Data analytics is expensive.

This is a common belief, given the game-changing capabilities of analytics. If great things are possible with data, the analytics solution must be costly, right? Not always. The expense depends on the type of solution you choose.

‍Reality: When it comes to spending on software for your business, it helps to think holistically. While it’s possible to optimize for cost by going with different software vendors for each aspect of your business – such as appointment booking, CRM, inventory management, and analytics – choosing a solution that does it all can lead to time savings and efficiency gains for your staff.

By selecting a modern cloud-based software solution like Zenoti, beauty and wellness businesses get a complete platform that serves all their needs, including analytics. Managing all business activity with Zenoti makes the platform’s analytics capabilities more powerful.

‍Why invest in data analytics for your beauty or wellness business?‍

Data analytics help deliver insights into what is working well for your business and what needs changing. With data-driven decision-making, you’re likely to see higher yields and better ROI. If you’re a small- or medium-size business owner with plans for growth, or an enterprise operation looking to streamline, you can benefit from adding data analytics. And if you’re already using analytics software, it’s worth examining if your current solution is working well for your business.

“Analytics is probably the single most important thing for us as a leadership team. I know what my conversion rates are. I know what my average selling price is. I know what clients are coming in. How many are new versus repeat. I can understand what time of day is busiest, so I understand scheduling of the team.”

- Denise Keeler
COO, OrangeTwist, USA, fifteen locations

Finally, data underpins a crucial differentiator for your business: guest customization. Analytics can help you customize the experience for spa, medspa, and salon guests, or fitness center members. Here’s an example to illustrate: Say you want to reward guests who come in for five massages with a complimentary add-on service or retail giveaway at their next visit. A platform like Zenoti can track visits by guest (analytics) and send them the promotion you choose at the right time.

When you use data to serve up offers tailored to your customers, they are more likely to respond and keep coming back for more. Loyalty means repeat business, a necessity for a healthy bottom line.

‍What’s the takeaway?‍

Analytics puts your finger on the pulse of your business by giving you a data-backed view of all aspects of business operations. With the Zenoti platform's analytics capabilities, businesses can use data to identify and pursue opportunities to drive revenue. They can also detect and solve operational issues in real-time. Whether it’s boosting retail sales through targeted marketing or identifying training needs for service providers, analytics can shine the light on the best choices to make for your business.

‍Does your beauty or wellness business need help with analytics? Check into a flexible all-in-one solution.