These features make life easier for your staff and your customers

When it comes to medical spa appointment booking, convenience is king. Medical spa appointment software has made the booking process easier than ever for clients, ending the era of the phone call and ushering in a brave, new, and very online world. 67% of patients prefer online booking to any other method, and 40% of those bookings are made outside of business hours. That’s a lot of revenue waiting to be captured through medical spa online scheduling that allows clients to book for themselves, whatever the time of day. It’s also a compelling case for integrating your booking system with your website, as it’s the easiest place to maintain such a system.

Whether you’re looking to implement medical spa appointment software for the first time or trying to upgrade your current setup, these are the five must-have features for success.

Native payment processing

Integrating payment processing into your booking process makes purchasing a service as smooth as possible for clients because there’s no extra logging into some other a la carte payment solution. It also streamlines the process for your business, reducing the number of vendors involved in any individual transaction. As an added benefit, native payment processing ensures your branding stays consistent throughout the checkout processes, building the customer’s relationship with your brand. Finally, integrated payment makes it easier to lock in down payments or other financial incentives that can both decrease no-shows and capture value even when customers have to bail.

Mobile-friendly design

You already know this, but it bears repeating: Customers all but live on their phones. It’s the main way they interact with the internet, and, true to form, data shows 82% of clients use their mobile devices to book appointments. Also telling: 54% of appointments made during working hours are made on the go. Social media is how 41% of booking services are found, and social media is primarily used on mobile phones — particularly among Millennials and Gen Z. Your medical spa scheduling software can’t be chained to a desktop-only view. It needs to be able to meet clients wherever they are, and that means on mobile.

Calendar automation

When a client books an appointment through your scheduling software, that booking should automatically populate to whatever shared calendar your medical spa management software provides. This frees up you and your employees to spend less time juggling appointment times and more time servicing clients, maintaining your storefront, or doing any of the other myriad tasks running your business requires. It also allows you to present future clients with a real-time list of available appointments. That’s particularly important in an age where 38% of spa and salon bookings are made the day of the appointment. Integrated calendar automation in your medical spa appointment software makes sure you lock in those last-minute clients.

Multiple-service booking

Your medical spa likely offers customers a wide range of services to ensure that no matter their needs on any given day, you’ve got them covered. Some of those customers will hit your booking platform thinking they only need one of those services, but with some careful cross-selling you can interest them in adding a few more to their figurative cart. Cross-selling has proven a remarkably effective revenue generator for businesses like Amazon, which has said its cross-selling efforts achieve a roughly 35% success rate.

Upselling is also important, encouraging customers to add additional goods and services to their existing appointments to make their MedSpa experience even more excellent. Bottom line: If you’re going to implement it in your business, you’ll need a booking service that can handle customers booking more than one of your offerings at a time.

Branding that fits your business

Service may be the omega of the MedSpa business, but branding is its alpha. MedSpa customers need to know if they can trust you to take care of them, and your branding is your first chance to signal, “Yes, of course, and by the way, your skin looks amazing.” It puts customers at ease, it draws them in, and over time it builds a relationship with them. You need to ensure that whatever medical spa appointment software you use, it remains true to your brand identity. If your business is sleek and professional, warm and reassuring, or something else entirely, you need a booking service that maintains that experience for customers. That way, you can manage the entire customer journey, ensuring the perfect outcome every time.

For more medspa operations best practices, check out our guide: The Ultimate Guide to Medical Spa Management Software.