Your salon’s software is the hub of your business. It’s where clients book, stylists track their KPIs, managers order inventory — and so much more.

Without it, your efficiency and profitability would plummet, and retaining staff and clients would be difficult. However, we all know technology can be frustrating — especially when you’re learning something new.

But users of Meevo 2 have found there’s always someone there to guide them through tricky situations — and often that person is John Harms, founder and CEO of Millennium Systems International, creator of the award-winning Meevo 2 salon and spa software.

“Our mission hasn’t changed in 30 years — we have to be a trustworthy source to our customers,” he says. “And that comes with full transparency. I answer about 80 percent of the posts on our community board and have never deleted a post.”

A Trusted Source

Patrick Heaney, owner of three Mango Salons in the Richmond, Virginia, area says he felt confident he wasn’t just gaining new software when he teamed up with Millennium Systems International and Meevo 2, but also an entire IT department.

“We were opening three salons over a 12-18 month period and we knew cloud-based software was the future,” he says. “John and his team helped us make the transition smoothly — they’re a business and technology partner for us.”

Steven Swanson, Strategies coach and owner of Taylor Stevens Salon & Spa in Algonquin, Illinois, says, “We wanted software that was simple to use, but super sophisticated. And that was Meevo.”

And when the pandemic hit, Harms and his team had already implemented many of the tools that salon owners were about to become dependent upon.

“It was a godsend to have a fully integrated POS cashless system before the pandemic happened,” Heaney says. “We will never go back to the world of handling cash. We’re in a new, remote world, and the continuation of that is important. If we didn’t have a close relationship with Meevo, we may not have made it. Having a partner in the battle with us helps.”

Swanson says, “We converted to Meevo 2 the day we came back from pandemic and had no anxiety about it. The day we came back, we were using it, and the ability for clients to text us easily has been key.”

In March 2021, a year into the pandemic, Meevo 2 released more tools for owners. “We listened to our customers and added what they needed—COVID fees for their guests, self-pay through a client’s phone, and COVID release forms,” Harms says.

Digital Support: Next Level

As a multi-location salon owner, Heaney says Meevo 2’s reservation center tools have been advantageous in the way he does business. “Call volume has been declining, but texting has been going up,” he says. “We track number of calls and texts that come in with Textel and tools from Meevo—that gives us a competitive advantage.”

Heaney also utilizes Meevo Marketing, Meevo 2’s built-in marketing suite, which includes Email Marketing powered by Emma and an Online Presence Management platform. “We used Emma to send out a gift card promo at Valentine’s day and sold $70k,” he says.

Delivering results is what Meevo 2 is all about, allowing salon owners to calculate numbers however they want — retail to total sales, percentage of clients booking, client retention, and so much more. “The data is customizable and provides us an opportunity to coach on behavior,” Swanson says.

Meevo 2’s dashboards (Smart Centers) are also fully customizable and easy to read. “You can customize dashboards for service providers, one for managers and more,” says Harms. “You can even customize what KPIs come up first when stylists open Meevo 2 on their phones.”

This is why most stylists using Meevo 2 know their average ticket sales — they see it throughout the day when they glance at their phones.

“There are more than 200 reports in Meevo 2,” Harms says. “Stylists aren’t going to dig into that—but they’ll look at 10 tiles for a snapshot of where they’re at.”

Heaney adds, “The beauty of the Smart Center tiles is that they’re in real time, versus a hard copy report.”

Looking Ahead

What’s better than real-time information? Future data.

“We track future sales by looking at prebooking numbers and KPIs,” says Swanson.

These numbers provide insight on how the business is doing and projections for future profit. Owners can take this data and plan accordingly, whether it’s adjusting stylist KPIs, changing marketing plans or even altering an inventory order.

As Meevo 2 continues to evolve, Harms sees the future in data sharing. “We want to offer anonymous data so owners can study similar demographics to themselves. The more data we can offer, the easier it is for owners to make informed decisions — data is the new gold standard.”