For example, once a spa appointment is booked, it’s listed in the bedroom reservation, enabling the PMS to charge the treatment directly. In addition, expenses for incidentals – such as retail products – are charged separately.

Integration also ensures that if a guest cancels a room reservation, their spa appointment can be automatically cancelled mitigating lost revenue from a no-show.

What new functionality are you working on?
Mobile solutions are the way forward and we have a strong track record of harnessing the latest technologies for client engagement. The ability to engage clients through mobile technology creates an endless array of possibilities enabling multi-channel marketing and service provision to a single device. Email, diary, SMS and web browsing capabilities can be paired with scanning and payment technologies or interactive apps to create a cohesive and easily synchronised personal device.

What types of spas are your products targeted at?
Agilysys’ target clients are hotels operating a spa where the service offering includes both residential stays as part of a package or alternatively hotels providing day spa treatments.

What’s the price range?
Agilysys operates a flexible and competitive pricing model which reflects a modular system design where only those functions that are used are licensed and charged for.

In addition, Agilysys offers an alternative to the traditional CapEx (capital expenditure) investment with a SaaS (Software as a Service) model where the costs are spread over a fixed term and are treated as an OpEx (operating expense) investment.

What’s your vision? 
Our aim is to be a leader in transforming the guest service experience by providing innovative technology-enabled solutions. We want to assist our clients in winning the guest recruitment battle against their competitors by engaging with their guests at every stage: pre-arrival, in the moment and post-departure.

What tech trends do you see in the industry and how are you responding to them?
At Agilysys, we’re harnessing and embracing all forms of mobile technology. Smartphone adoption, 3G and 4G penetration with unlimited data plans have all deepened the integration of mobile devices into everyday life.

As the mobile ecosystem continues to develop – including progress in mobile advertising and commerce – we believe that mobile is destined to become a vitally important platform for digital marketers and service providers across all industries.

M-commerce allows customers to pay with their phone, eliminating the need to carry credit cards. SalonPOS will integrate with mobile, so users can accept payment via smart phones.

What’s your vision? 
SalonPOS has elements of a traditional POS system, but at the same time, we’re finding new ways to make our software relevant. We’re providing a platform for spas to stay connected with customers via Facebook and Twitter and other social media and tech services, which are indispensable tools businesses need to reach customers.

What’s new and exciting?
We’re focusing on providing affordability and flexibility. Here at SalonPOS we realise that one size really does not fit all. You can’t expect a day spa owner to pay the same price as a mobile therapist. The needs of each vary. Some focus on appointments, employee tips and commission, others on marketing. We strive to cover them all and to provide the functionality each needs at a price they can afford.

What types of spas do you target?
Our software can be used by any type of spa or beauty business. Whether day spa or mobile operation.

What makes it different or better?
It’s user-friendly and portable and has easy to use features that allow spas to manage clients, employees and schedules anytime, anywhere. We chose to make it for the iPad, which means operators can take their businesses with them wherever they go. 

What’s the price range?
The price starts from US$49.99 (€38, £32) and goes up depending on need. There are no monthly or upgrade fees. This is a one-time payment, with the exception of payment plans. A spa – with, let’s say, 10 employees – will pay around US$1,850 (€1,390, £1,170). Again, the bottom line is that one size does not fit all. We personalise the software to each company’s need. Spa operators can try our software by downloading the free trial from the Apple app store. 

Managers can view the results on an online dashboard, respond to customers (75 per cent are recovered), publish the best comments on their website and recruit fans on Facebook. The module is delivered in partnership with a company specialising in online satisfaction surveys.

Questioning clients about their expectations is the best way to ensure continuous and sustainable improvements to services.

What makes Nymphea different or better?
Nymphea manages all spa activity: appointment scheduling, online booking, CRM, gift vouchers, membership, loyalty programmes, invoicing, pricing, point of sale, inventory and reporting. But its best feature is its booking engine which automatically optimises scheduling and the allocation of resources: it’s an essential asset.

What types of spas is your software targeted at?
Any type and size, from urban and hotel spas to thalassotherapy and thermal spas and from independent to multi-location, high-volume.

What’s the price range?
Nymphea starts at £100 a month (US$158, €119), including software, support and regular updates by our team of specialists and trainers seven days a week.

What’s your vision? 
Spas will take a more prominent role in resort and hotel businesses and be increasingly viewed as assets which give a competitive advantage.

Technology will have a role to play in reducing recurring management tasks, so staff can dedicate more time to clients.

Do you have other news to share?
By working really closely with spa managers, we’ve created a reporting module. The module provides visibility and a thorough understanding of their customer data and their operating results through dashboards and statistics. The advantage is that they receive, and can process the results, directly in Excel.

What trends are you responding to?
Cloud computing, mobile and tablet. They offer flexibility and availability via online and mobile. Resort managers need a single tool that integrates management, sales, marketing and reporting: this is what we intend to do.

The new trend is collaboration. Spas will work together far more to solve the challenges of the economic crisis. In anticipation of this, we’re starting a new technology platform to serve global needs. It will launch on 26 September during the ISWKC event at Thermae2OOO. The aim is to revolutionise the way spas do business.

Tell us about your new features and functionality?
I know this will sound weird, but our goal is not to create exciting functionality, our goal is to expand our solution only with features which help our customers achieve a good return on investment.

In the past we focused on cost reductions, automating all the operational and financial flows. Since the beginning of the recession our focus has moved to the generation of sales and marketing for customers, as well as social media integration, loyalty systems and database marketing – to name just a few.

What types of spas are your products targeted at?
xPlan has been designed for large spas and companies with multi-properties. We have a cloud-based version too for smaller spas.

What makes it different or better?
I’m personally convinced that respectable solution providers shouldn’t try to compete with others, but should analyse real market needs – in doing so you won’t be influenced by others.

xPlan is built to be as ‘real-life’ as possible, that makes the solution flexible, strong and reliable. Are we better than others? We prefer that you ask this question of our customers. One thing is sure: xPlan is solid, fast and reliable.

What’s the price?
Our price strategy is based on return on investment (ROI), we want our customers to achieve their ROI as quick as possible, but we need them to be involved enough to be willing to achieve it. As we want to be fair to all, our prices grow and shrink proportionally with the energy a customer invests in the project. The price is completely customised to the real needs of the customer. Bankless financing is possible if needed.

What’s your vision for xPlan?
Seven years ago, xPlan started as an underdog. Now we love this position so much we don’t want to shout everywhere that we intend to monopolise the spa world. Ninety-five per cent of our new business comes from word-of-mouth referrals, this is our best publicity.

How are you responding to tech trends?
Everybody knows that a strong online presence is a must: smartphone apps, online booking engines, websites... we do it all and have done for years. We’ve proven that it helps reduce the operational costs drastically, if done well.

Do you have other perspectives to share?
I think that we have one of the widest fully integrated solutions in the market. It automates the management of nearly every aspect of a big spas’ operation, up to those serving a couple of thousands of guests a day. Many of our features are unique, and can be found on our website. At the end I would give the reader one single tip: never believe what we say – call or visit some references to check if the reality matches the stories.

This tool lets spas post positive reviews from confirmed clients, straight onto Facebook. Our main goal is to help spas get more new clients, to retain them, get them coming back, spending more and referring their friends.

What’s new and exciting?
We have new features and some enhancements coming soon. The global clients functionality will improve a spa’s operations where a client visits more than one venue of a multi-location business, while the loyalty and membership features are being enhanced. There’s also an online client information card to relieve congestion in the reception area.

What types of spas is your software targeted at?
There are versions for any size of business, from the single operator to multi-location chains, and also functionality for different types of spa. We cater for differing operating hours via our 24/7 helpdesk.

What makes it different or better?
As well as the core software, Shortcuts has developed a range of cloud-based products that can be added to enhance the system. This is called the SMART System and allows spa owners to do a number of things: monitor and manage automated marketing campaigns; manage online reputation by checking client feedback; compare the business against industry benchmarks; monitor online booking; maintain listings on mylocalsalon.co.uk and; allow remote access to the appointment book.

There’s one log-in and everything is accessed through a central place, making it easy to navigate.

What’s the price range?
The core software starts from less than £100 (US$158, €119) a month. The SMART System is an additional £50 (US$79, €60) per month. We monitor the return on investment spas make from the software and notify them of this to show how much the system is doing for their business.

What’s your vision for your business? 
To constantly develop useful and easy-to-use solutions that benefit spas in every area of their business –such as our iPad functionality – especially picking up on trends such as mobile, social and the cloud.

This new feature directs spa owners to pinpoint problem areas in their company, meaning they don’t need to sift through pages of reports in order to get an holistic view of their business. It means any money spent or actions taken will have the best results.

What types of spas are your products targeted at?
We focus on all types and sizes as our system is modular. Our product also has third party PMS integration and multi-site integration which makes it suitable for groups.

What makes it different or better?
What makes our system unique is its comprehensiveness. From bookings to balance sheets and everything in-between, we focus on covering as many of the spa business processes as possible.
Also, our hybrid combination of desktop and cloud capabilities means that spas can work offline or online, which in some countries is a real need due to internet connectivity being unstable.

What’s the price range?
Our model offers upfront purchases, rental and Software as a Service. Rentals start at US$50 (€38, £32) a month; upfront purchases at US$300 (€226, £190) and US$1,500 (€1,128, £948) per licence. Ultimately it depends on the needs of the user.

What’s your vision for your business? 
Having the right product is only a part of the equation: working with the right company is just as important.

Software partners need to be integral to your business, because the closer the relationship the better the results. Software isn’t like an electronic appliance you turn on, use, and turn off again, it depends on input from users and they have very different needs which change over time. It’s a journey that evolves. This is why we’re called an Evolutionary Service Provider (ESP): we help evolve your business. 

How are you responding to tech trends?
Our plan is to leverage the opportunities provided by the cloud, but do it with a difference rather than just tick off the fact that we have a specific feature. We offer custom development and our policy is that whatever development takes place will be provided to all our clients, so everyone benefits.