The global pandemic has resulted in many sectors, such as food and beverage and tourism, adopting technology to diversify services, enhancing the consumer experience, providing company continuity, and encouraging market development and sales during restrictions on lock-downs. For example, Deliveroo broadens its service by partnering with supermarket retailers Aldi, Morrisons, and Sainsbury’s during the first lockdown to help UK households access vital goods through their takeaway delivery service app providing necessities such as milk, bread, and pasta within 30 minutes. Airbnb was another player in creating a platform that allowed users to book and pay through their system from a wide variety of choices, offering consumers a seamless experience and peace of mind with a single point of contact to fix any problems instead of being diverted from party to party in bureaucratic misery. Similarly, this updated strategy helps them to produce income from a stagnant asset for the owner of the holiday rental property and get comprehensive marketing in the process. However, some corners of the leisure and lifestyle industry have been left by the wayside, whether it be by being too pleased with the new, standard approaches, raw talent and forward thinking or simply not believing that innovation is required – until now they have been successful, so why bother? The truth is that there is a crisis in this corner of the world. Personal care facilities, including hair salons, barbershops and beauticians, have once again been devastated, among other specialist industries, as the third national lockdown has forced firms to close and livelihoods to come to a halt. At such short notice, the effect of lockdown constraints, as well as fluctuating tiered structures, is a huge blow to an industry where more than half of professionals are self-employed (54 percent hairdressing and barbering and 57 percent beauty) and cannot turn to online sales or takeaway services. In addition to these latest surveys and reports, several hair and beauty firms have reported that they are practically financially teetering on the brink.
Tech keeping entire industries alive
The latest figures available (2018) show that over 280,000 people are employed by the UK hair, beauty and barbering industry and generate over £ 8 billion in turnover for the UK economy. However, the influence of the global pandemic has led the industry to be brought to its knees by the lack of creativity in its approach to workers and consumers alike. This in turn has generated inefficiency in sales optimization. There has been some advancement in the personal care industry with booking apps such as Treatwell enabling consumers to book in advance at salons and barbershops, but no innovations have occurred between freelance practitioners and hair and beauty venues at the time of writing. In reality, it has been an industry to this day that has so far relied on having to post on unreliable, expensive and time-consuming classified online communities. In the form of vacant chairs and obsolete forms of selling them directly to professionals who need a place to work, salon business owners find themselves with unused real estate. Similarly, professionals who wish to work on their own schedule are either connected to a long-term, fixed contract or check to see who was renting via general advertising sites and journals. This is where this kind of business can really be helped by the introduction of technology. In keeping firms and even sectors alive, the role of technology has played a vital role. The secret to accepting it is for professionals and organizations because it can open up a whole new range of possibilities, including solving one of the biggest challenges – flexibility.
Flexibility
An increase in the H&B workforce preferring to work more flexibly and have the flexibility to work on their own schedule is one of the phenomena that has come as a result of the global pandemic. The H&B industry is very much a freelance-based industry, but until now, there were few outlets to address their needs on how they worked.
Artificial intelligence
Based on unique requirements, technical systems powered by AI and machine learning can provide recommendations as to which premises could be best for a certain beauty professional. Similarly, shop owners will no longer have to spend on advertisement expenses, but will now have a specialist database where they will automatically pick the best choices for them. When you look at what AirBnB has introduced to the accommodation industry, we will see similar characteristics that are brought into hair and beauty, which is that more individuals open barbershops, salons or studios as an investment and make passive income without handling it by renting chairs.
Payment technology
As other sectors have progressed towards a cashless approach, payments are still very much through cash within the hair and beauty industry and have not adapted to the more digital world yet. As well as freelance professionals, more and more locations will continue to embrace cashless transactions and use systems such as SumUp or Square as a means of protection and accountability.
Loyalty
The loyalty card as a concept is far from fresh, and when it comes to customer retention, it has proven itself time and time again. But the H&B industry has yet to thrive adequately. In the hair and beauty world, loyalty is established with a client most often returning to a barber or a hairdresser as familiarity is something that most customers trust. This has, however, hampered the progression and growth so far of hair and beauty practitioners. Building up a customer base and recruiting new clients has been quite difficult. Professionals will be able to reach out to potential consumers with the advent in technology that might be located out of their patch. Customers will be able to directly contact their barbers and hairdressers, empowering practitioners to be mobile and more efficiently serving their wider client pool. As the popularity that technology will bring to freelancers will encourage more professionals to follow suit and work flexibly, we believe this trend will cause the freelance market to expand exponentially in a snowball effect.
Data
Data will also become more relevant than ever, with more and more technologies being built in space. The data that will be gathered from all areas will allow better efficiencies and better decisions to be made by businesses. Professionals would also benefit from knowing consumer activity and patterns, as well as allowing them the ability to be constructive rather than reactive in making a shift in the industry. For current customers, AI driven systems can even create hyper-personalized interactions, also allowing professionals the ability to ‘surprise and delight’ their customers, all by leveraging the data and knowing what they actually want and need. About 4,500 hairdressers and salons have closed for good since the beginning of the global pandemic, according to The Telegraph. In the first week of February, Prime Minister Boris Johnson was outspoken about the possible review of the restrictions on the beauty industry and the country as a whole, depending on the rollout of vaccinations. The catalyst for transition has been Covid-19. In the hair and makeup industry, all parties involved; consumers, beauty professionals and business owners would want a simpler and more successful way to do business. To provide organizations with longevity, technology will be at the forefront. They will need to welcome the transition that is coming in order to stay on top.
