Which owner doesn't want to increase profits by saving on expensive equipment, repairs, furniture or software? Everyone wants it!
But has anyone ever seriously thought about the results of such savings? Buying “no name” equipment, you risk losing your investment in full very soon, while by investing more, you can resell it in a second-hand state to another beauty salon even after a long time. And having reported a little more money, you can purchase a completely new one, with a mass of advanced features and technologies, which will allow you to update the price list of beauty salon and spa services. The same specificity is found in the “free” (read “illiterate / inexperienced”) builders performing repair work on the premises, in the case of cheap furniture that unexpectedly radically changes its color and / or texture after the very first disinfection or washing.
And an absolutely similar situation is typical for software in a beauty salon, or as it is also called software (from the English "software" - software). In Ukraine, as well as in neighboring Russia, for about 6 years the main Internet search queries for the theme of software for beauty salons, fitness clubs, spas are requests with the prefix "free download" or "download demo". What are the pros and cons of free software.
The bulk of companies that develop this kind of software can be roughly divided into 3 categories.
The former believe that a program for a beauty salon should cost 100-200 (in the case of fitness clubs, 300-400) US dollars and not more (read "be free"), well, simply because "they will not buy more expensive." Of course, there is a merchant for every product. But a self-respecting business owner, first of all, must understand well what he is paying for. And why do you think these people are willing to sell their "convenient and simple product" so cheaply? Correctly. Cheap can only be what the seller easily got. That is, if you find on the World Wide Web an attractive ad from the category - “Program for a beauty salon. I sell inexpensively ”, then you should know that one of two tricks lies in wait for you:
1. This is a program for "driving" there information and printouts of checks to the client. NO MORE! You shouldn't even dream of any statistics, correct salary calculations, any customer loyalty programs (discounts, promotions, bonuses), or any intelligible report at the exit.
2. This is a program with hidden payments, which can be used, as in the first case, to drive in information and print checks to the client. But the developer, more prudently than in the same first case, took care of the pricing policy and took into account that in the process of work you may sometimes have questions. Only, having bought the program "for free", you will not be able to ask him these questions. For each of your "I do not understand" you will have to pay extra.
The second category of IT-craftsmen are universal programmers based on ready-made platforms like 1C. Here it is a little more interesting, as it may seem to you at first glance, the sentence itself: here is a program for you, you can work in it right now, and if suddenly you want to add something else, then any programmer whom you yourself find, you can do it to do. But bad luck! You seem to have a software product, it seems to be possible to work in it, but it is so difficult to manage that without that magician-programmer who "told" you it is simply impossible to figure it out. And he is a person, this very programmer, and he may get tired of programming, he can quit this occupation forever. And you have a working business, and (which is quite likely) the staff changes, and sometimes new people come to work for you. Here, their old people with the program understood in sweat and tears, but here all this still needs to be conveyed to a new person so that he understands. And the programmer doesn't work anymore ...
Frankly speaking, consider that if you have a "self-written" program, or a program with modifications added for you, and the author of this masterpiece decided to "retire", then you no longer have a program. That is, this kind of program is capable of dying. This is its main drawback. And among other things, there is no one or it is very expensive to support it when you have wishes, and such software for a beauty salon is too overloaded with unnecessary functions, which, as a rule, has a significantly negative impact on the quality of information received from there.
Finally, the third category of developers is brilliant, amazing people with dissertation knowledge. These are always striving to reinvent the wheel. Surprisingly, this is a fact. The very process of programming for these developers is the greatest sacrament, or, if you like, a masterpiece feat. They choose the most complex programming languages like C ++ or Delfi, use rather complex and often cumbersome DBMS (database management systems are used to store information in them). External beauty seems to be an indisputable advantage of the resulting "product" - there both gradient (create the effect of volume) fills in the windows, and pictures on buttons are charm, and not a program, as it seems to people who choose a program for business management for the first time. BUT and BUT again. Each of your new wage systems is capable of confusing geniuses. It takes from months to a year the implementation of the most simple wishes of users. And that's if you're lucky. Because the cases when you are unlucky are also known. In general, as you already understood, this is "glucosoft".
Among other things, all this beauty also works slowly. And this graphics, like a modern operating system, mercilessly consumes RAM. And there is an objective explanation for this, quite simple: despite the staggering growth rates of power and manufacturability of computer technology, unfortunately, the levels of memory resource consumption (for system administrators - "RAM") of operating systems are also growing. For example, the beloved but criticized Windows 7 operating system "eats" 1 GB (Gigabyte) of this same AMU alone. This is twice as much as its predecessor, Windows XP, consumes. And it slows down the rest of the programs on your computer. So it turns out that when we buy a computer in a store, we pay for each Gigabyte of RAM, and one of them then eats up the operating system all its life.
And this is all because you and I - people - like it when it's beautiful, transparent windows, voluminous icons, etc. So unsuspecting "aesthetes" fall for the bait of brilliant programmers, receiving a program that is not only more beautiful than smart, but also incorrigibly slow.
However, this is the bulk. Recently, there are already some development companies focused not only on an attractive price or high-quality support for users and programs, or a beautiful interface (appearance), but on all this in general. And you need to try to find such people, because only they have a real product that:
A) is in an attractive price segment, if you consider how much paid modifications of "free programs" or wasted money for a program that no one ever thought to support, or even periodic additional payments "for a license" (from good developers there are no hidden surcharges);
B) accompanied by high-quality technical support, which includes not only a formal "tick off" or "click on the button" sounded over the phone, but also the possibility of remote support (when the consultant sees the computer screen and can not only tell, but also show how the issue is being resolved), as well as, which is extremely important, the period of free adaptation of the software to the specifics of your particular enterprise (to ensure the invariability of the work process familiar to you and your staff);
C) does not bother, but pleases the user's eye and is intuitive;
D) works quickly;
D) gives you any necessary information in the form of clear statistical samples, reports and (!!!) correct figures that you can really believe.
ISMIe