<\/p>\n <\/p>\n The Hands that Mold the Ageless Beauty<\/strong><\/p>\n Behind the science of beauty is the careful and smart B2B operation. To the salon world, iiaa is a wholesale product distributor.\u00a0 They supply the triune secret of advanced biological technology in the form of supplements, skincare products, and make up, and they train skincare professionals and new therapists from Beauty College. They are renowned for the quality of their products. Salons and customers alike are eager to be supplied with their award-winning formula for beauty.<\/p>\n Iiaa\u2019s goal is to educate those who stock their product but they wanted to be educated themselves as well, to learn about the people who love and benefit from their products. Because they have traditionally been distributors only, they have little face-to-face with their end users. This year\u2019s exhibition afforded iiaa a unique opportunity to learn more about their customers and begin their journey as a retailer.<\/p>\n Adopting Tools to Support their Education Strategies<\/strong><\/p>\n Whereas they have been lively participants in Professional Beauty tradeshows for years, this is the first year in which they leveraged retail software that allowed them to do much more than just accept payments and dole out change.<\/p>\n iiaa took on the purely mobile, modular retail management platform, Retail Pro Prism<\/a>, running on several HP Elite pads, to replace their old POS system\u2014\u201cThe Big Calculator. I don\u2019t know what else to call it!,\u201d Louisa Collins, iiaa\u2019s Purchasing Coordinator and IT Support, quipped in our interview. What they saw as critical in Retail Pro Prism\u2019s offer is \u201cthe simplicity of the tender screen, its functionality, and the reports.\u201d<\/p>\n Retail Pro Business Partner, Datascan<\/a>, completed the Prism deployment long before the exhibition, but on the day of the event, Louisa realized she didn\u2019t know how to connect Prism to the server. \u201cDave, one of the tech guys from Datascan drove four hours to help me at the exhibition, and he stayed to help in case anything else came up. He was on-call with us the whole time,\u201d Louisa remembers. \u201cAt one point, we were so busy, we even had him run transactions for us!\u201d Retail Pro service was unlike any other.<\/p>\n That level of dedicated support is what Retail Pro is known for in its channel support network. \u201cTheir support was fantastic. I haven\u2019t dealt with a company that put so much effort into making sure the customer was taken care of. We thought we were just a small company taking on their till.\u201d<\/p>\n Conveying Their Brand at All Customer Touch Points<\/strong><\/p>\n In choosing a retail management software, image was a critical factor to iiaa. One of the things that caught their eye with Retail Pro Prism was its modern look. \u201cPrism matched what our brand looks like: clinical, sleek!\u201d Louisa said. iiaa customized Prism\u2019s user interface with their logo and have customized their printed documents as well.<\/p>\n With their previous POS, receipts consisted of a slip of paper with just the date and the amount of product sold. The receipts they are printing with Retail Pro Prism are completely branded and detailed. \u201cOur customers told us, \u2018It\u2019s such a professional look now!\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n Increasing Efficiency in the Field<\/strong><\/p>\n Louisa loves Retail Pro Prism\u2019s scanning and touchscreen capabilities. \u201cIt\u2019s so efficient\u2026just brilliant!\u201d she said. Her colleagues feel just as strongly: \u201cOh my god, this is a dream!\u201d The touch screen buttons on the interface give quick access to products, so transaction times decrease, and Prism\u2019s flexible design allows them to customize the interface to be as simple or detailed as they need.<\/p>\n Voiding transactions is simple as well. \u201cWe used to have to print a receipt and write void on it,\u201d Louisa remembers, \u201cbut now we can just void it without any trouble. And we can put through products that we couldn\u2019t before for a new client deposit or opening order.\u201d This is especially important at large events like the Professional Beauty exhibition, where there is a chaos of customers trying to visit as many stands as possible to take advantage of all the goods available.<\/p>\n Adding E-Commerce to their Strategy to Increase Customer Engagement<\/strong><\/p>\n iiaa took advantage of Prism\u2019s mobility to engage their customers at the beauty exhibition. As they expand their strategy to include an online channel in addition to their brick and mortar store\u2014where they focus primarily on treatment\u2014 they plan to use Retail Pro Prism in their clienteling process to attract, engage, and keep customers, and link people to their local salons.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019d eventually like to collect their details\u2014emails, products they liked or purchased\u2014so we can contact them on a more personal level.\u201d Considering they provide their skin analysis at a variety of locations in Britain and as a complimentary service, iiaa will certainly benefit from Retail Pro Prism\u2019s capacity in Customer Management.<\/p>\n Tracking What Customers Use and Love <\/strong><\/p>\n iiaa used Retail Pro Prism\u2019s native analytics features to track all of the product they sold at the exhibition and see what customers actually use.<\/p>\n With their old POS system, \u201cwe had no idea how much was sold for each brand. We would just have to hope that our colleagues put the money in the right till for the right product.\u201d Now, because Prism is recording what inventory is going home with a customer and documenting it with the professional receipts they are printing or sending via email, iiaa can see precisely what product is in demand.<\/p>\n At the exhibition, iiaa tracked sales per brand, per product, per employee\u2014the tracking possibilities are endless. In two days, they ran 3,000 transactions and sold \u00a385,000 worth of product.<\/p>\n As they prepare for their next exhibition in May, Louisa muses, \u201cWe\u2019ll have to sit down and discuss how we can use this functionality.\u201d iiaa is so new to Retail Pro\u2014they had only been using the retail management software for five months at the time of this interview and there is still so much more to explore and leverage in Retail Pro\u2014but Louisa is excited. The future looks bright.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Learn more about iiaa at\u00a0www.iiaa.eu<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" 34,000 salon and spa owners, beauty press, students and investors\u2014from the simplistic beauty minimalists to naturalists to eclectic colourists with flawless skin, and ultra-modern divergents of Mondrian-esque hues embodied in tiny masterpieces on each perfectly polished nail. In the … Continue reading ![\"iiaa_logo\"](\"https:\/\/www.retailpro.com\/News\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/04\/iiaa_logo-300x179.jpg\"){kind=logo}
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