Assignment 2: Cut Short Booking System

Question 1

Preface

Cut short is a popular hairdressing chain. Cut short is going to develop an online
booking application to the customers so that customers do not have wait long to get
service. Customer can book an appointment and select their services. The website will
provide information about the company, photos, pricing, schedule appointment and
promotion of products. The main purpose of the development of the application is to
utilize the time in a proper manner. Time is wasted by common situations like waiting for
your turn or explaining the services they require. Various online booking has introduced.
Due to lack of proper implementation, it has created confusion. Moreover, cut short is
very concerned and encouraging customers to use application. Therefore, they are
giving 10% discount on online booking, an option of selecting services, online payment,
order product online and schedule time for pickup of product.

Business Operation

To have a successful business, the customer plays a vital role. Upgrading and updating
customer needs are important to run a business. It is difficult to attack a new customer.
Having said that 60% of customers don’t come back for the second time to get services.
It is very important for a business to attack new customer and maintain an existing
customer. One of the best way to get new customer easily at the door by providing fast
and better services to the people. Customer is always attracted to easy services. To
improve the services, Cut Short is developing an application. Customer may use both
mobile application and website. Customer who doesn’t like to download application may
use the website to book an appointment, purchase hair product, select styling and pay.

The application focuses on booking an appointment. Cut Short is facing difficulty to

manage customer flow. A customer has to wait for 15 minutes to check in and explain
their styling. In order to reduce the time of waiting and explaining required services, the
application is developed to schedule an appointment and select their services like trim,
re-style, hair straitening, curl etc. This will handle the queue effectively and deliver
better services. People who are not using an application may use a website to book an
appointment. The customer can book an appointment by selecting the available date
and time. The client can view the detail description of services and select multiple
services. Client arriving late have to pay extra charges. For encouraging the pre-
booking, Cut Short is giving a 10% discount for their customer. This will increase the
number of online booking. Therefore, Cut Short is emphasizing on customer satisfaction
as well as saving the time of both customer and stylish.

Nowadays, few people only carry cash on a regular basis. To make the payment easy,
Cut Short has the option of paying through debit or credit card which help customers to
pay easily for their services. After the completion of the booking, the customer may
checkout by using payment gateway. Customer can pay by debit/credit card or PayPal
and receipts will send to the client's email. Those customers who have done the
booking and haven’t paid for services will get a notification for payment before 24 hours.
If the client doesn’t pay 24 hours before the scheduled date the booking will be
canceled. Canceled booking will again open for clients. Whoever book the appointment
before one day of scheduled date has to pay at the time of booking. Otherwise, the
booking is not valid.

For delivering better service, Cut Short sell hair products to its customer. Customer can
purchase the product online. There will be the product picture, description, price, review
and rating in the application. Customer can add a product to the cart and check out and
check out or keep in the wish list. To check out, they can use credit/debit or PayPal to
pay for the product. A client has to schedule pick up time and date. At that time, they
can visit the store and get their product. Hence, Cut Short is implementing every
possible service they can deliver to the people.
The recommendation that will guide Cut Short to improve business operation.

Business Intelligence

Business intelligence is a combination of data gathering, storing and knowledge

management. It is a key strategic planning process that helps to analysis, gather and
access data to make a decision (Negash & Gray, 2008). To take the business next
level, understanding the customer choices and what they are attracted from is
important. Business intelligence will be one of the best options to know the market place
and better know their marketing strategies are working or not. It will give an analysis of
the flow of the customer, how much customer is spending on the services, product
demand, driving factor towards the Cut Short and track customer referrals. It is
important for Cut Short to know the driving factor of the customer and make
improvements according to it. Implementing a new strategy is always required for
competitive advantage. To know the effectiveness of the implemented strategy, Cut
Short has to use business intelligence. Generally, this will support to manage customer
profile, market research, product profitability, statistical analysis, inventory, distribution
analysis and customer support. More than 62% of the business don’t know about
whether their system performance is good or not, customers are satisfied with the
system or not. To all these aspects of the business, Cut Short should use business
intelligence to the right decisions. Moreover, it uses a large database stored in a data
warehouse as a source of information and the basis for analysis. It analyses from
reporting to answering queries, real-time analysis, and prediction of the business. Cut
Short must use this system to make business flexible, transparent and cost-effective
(Cook, Neely, Ziolkowski, 2012).
Starting Membership Programs

Nowadays, saloon membership is common. They provide a client flat rate so that they
visit multiple times. Selling membership is much easier than selling a service.
Implementing a membership program, Cut Short can increase the frequency of the
client visit, sell of product and flow of cash. There are three types of membership
system available. They are client loyalty system, client service discount system and
unlimited membership system. Client loyalty system involves the client paying a fixed
monthly amount where they receive a generous discount on services and products. The
client joins membership for one year and pays a monthly amount (for example $29.99 or
39.99) and receives 25% off on all services and product. Another type of member that is
client service discount system where the client pays a set of the monthly amount and
receives a package of services included in the membership. In this type of membership,
client joins for one year plan, pays a monthly set price (for example $99.99) and
receives packages which include services like one single process hair color, one haircut
per month and two blowouts. The unused services will not carry over. The last type of
membership is unlimited membership system that involves client paying a monthly set
amount for an unlimited amount of services included with the membership. The client
joins membership for one year, pays a monthly fixed price (for example $159.99) and
receives unlimited blowouts, haircut and hair colorings. This type of membership is also
called a gold standard of membership. Basically, these type of membership drive
frequent visit of customers towards saloon and each month payments are automatically
debited from the customers’ bank account or credit card. The penalties will be applied if
the customer leaves the membership before the end of the contract. Due to the
membership, the client will not be able to move to another salon. Membership forces
them to stay and take services from the saloon. Cut Short should introduce a
membership program to maintain customer and flow of cash (Kerr & Slocum Jr, 2005).
Integration and interactions through Social media

One of the best ways to communicate mass at a time is social media. Social media has
increased communication and customer service. Cut Short can join a site like Twitter,
Facebook, Google+, YouTube, blogs to promote a product and can interact with the
customer. Potential customers are more likely to interact through Facebook and instant
messaging application like messenger, Viber, line, WhatsApp, etc. The social
networkers will have the ability to book appointments, view product, hairstyle pictures
and videos within the online platform. Cut Short can also advertise special deals and
offers in their social pages. Customer who doesn’t want to use application may use
Facebook or messaging application to book appointment and know offers and
packages. Clients having a query can message directly through the application and get
answers. New offers and packages will be notified to the customer through messages,
email and social network platform. Those customers who book an appointment through
Facebook and messaging application should have the option of payment following few
steps Cut Short can facilitate the client by accepting payment online and send receipt
straight to client inboxes. This will provide a fast and reliable payment method. Cut
Short should start writing blogs. Writing quality content for their product and services is
a way of marketing. This will help them in the long run. Moreover, integration of the
social platform and messaging application will provide flexibility for the customer to
receive services and helps to promote business efficiently and effectively (Bajoai,
Pandey & Shriwas, 2012).
 Question 2

The suggestions to improve business services are:-

Sell gift cards or certificates

A gift card is a great way to encourage sales. It helps to bring new customers as well as
an existing customer to store. Nowadays it is widely used to expand customer base.
Allowing existing customers to purchase gift cards or gift certificates for friends and
family will not only bring new customer but also it helps to increase sales. Cut Short can
increase the customer by selling gift cards which will eventually help in the growth of the
business. Some new customer may be satisfied with the provided service and may seek
services again and again. Promotion of the gift card or certificates in store windows, on
the website, mobile application, notifying through email will make the customer aware of
the services. The purchase of the gift cards must be easy for the people. Allowing
purchase of gift cards directly from the saloon, saloon website and application will be
another better idea to increase sales. Moreover, it will help to promote business and
drive more sales during the holidays throughout the year. There should be a driving
factor for people to come back. People may come for multiple times to use gift cards.
Offers should be provided to the customer every time they visit the saloon. Offer like
10% Discount on the card of $100 may attract customer to buy cards. Attracting
customer offering discount card so that they can get free services after collecting certain
points. Every time they visit the saloon client can scan their discount card and collect
points. This strategy will help Cut Short to increase customer and sales (Magatef &
Tomalieh, 2015).

Choosing hairstylist and style libraries

Cut Short delivers the feature of choosing stylist while booking an appointment. There
will the description of every hairstylist and experiences in the field of styling which helps
customer to select stylist easily. Customer can view the comments and ratings given by
the other. Customer can analyze and select their stylist with their own preferences.
Customer who is satisfied with the services from the previous visit may prefer to book
the same stylist whereas they can select other stylists if they were unsatisfied with the
services. This will give a customer an option to stylist as per their preferences and less
chance of losing a customer. Most of the time customers prefer to copy celebrity look.
Whenever they spot their favorite celebrity with a new haircut, they try to get that
hairstyle from the saloon. So, there will be a style library that helps customer to select
hairstyle and stylist to know the customer preferences. This will be an exciting feature in
a website that will drag the customer to a saloon. Uploading celebrity picture, displaying
numerous trendy hairstyle, describing the details and type of style inspire people to try
different haircuts. Offering hairstyle tips according to their face cuts will provide
assistance to a client. Posting haircut of the week with a hashtag in social media and
website will attract more customer to come and try haircuts and styling. Hence, this
feature would help Cut Short to drive a customer to a saloon.

References

Bajpai, V., Pandey, S., & Shriwas, S. (2012). Social media marketing: Strategies & its
impact. International Journal of Social Science & Interdisciplinary Research, 1(7), 214-
223.

Cook, J. S., Neely, M. P., & Ziolkowski, M. F. (2012). Managing Data and Information
Quality in Outbound Transportation Systems: A Systematic Approach. International
Journal of Business Intelligence Research (IJBIR), 3(1), 30-54.

Kerr, J., & Slocum Jr, J. W. (2005). Managing corporate culture through reward
systems. Academy of Management Perspectives, 19(4), 130-138.

Magatef, S. G., & Tomalieh, E. F. (2015). The impact of customer loyalty programs on
customer retention. International Journal of Business and Social Science, 6(8), 78-93.

Negash, S., & Gray, P. (2008). Business intelligence. In Handbook on decision support
systems 2 (pp. 175-193). Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg.