Phil Fennell, a renowned speaker and industry consultant of 25 years, Top 200 salon member, Intercoiffure member, and Co-Author of Salon & Spa Software For Dummies, switched to KORVUE in 2006.

As a hairdresser-to-salon owner-to-industry consultant-to-author, I've had an incredible opportunity to see the salon and spa industry from so many points of view. I entered the industry at a time when if you knew "Sassoon" you could make a great income cutting hair and teaching staff to do the same.

However, in the early 90's it all began to change--the ability to perform great services became nothing more than the price of entry. In addition, you had to also learn how to run a business and, contrary to anyone's initial belief, that meant using software. It became a part of our industry, from the most basic implementation of an appointment scheduler, POS and cash drawer to those companies that were really trying to make a difference.

As a dedicated consultant I evaluated virtually all the software products available, always recommended the best ones and even helped to develop some of their reporting and analysis logic. They played a vital role in the evolution of this industry. Given that I have contributed to other software packages, I am constantly getting the big question: why did you /switch to KORVUE?

Two answers!

First, times are changing AGAIN, just as they were when the original need for automation occurred. The platforms, the databases, and the technologies available to our industry have all reached a completely new level--a level that in days of past were either unavailable or unaffordable.

Second, I wanted to move up to a technology that was not only the most powerful available today, but also stayed on the leading edge. The parent company of KORVUE is a multinational software company with expertise in so many industries, making software not only for salons and spas, but also CRMs, retail systems, warehousing systems, electronic ordering technologies, and they even manufacture their own credit card processing software, where the others use 3rd party software. This vast depth is truly shown in the brilliance of KORVUE! The software is in a league of its own and when I show my friends, they quickly stop with "why" and move to "wow".

I usually follow that up with more about KORVUE's incredible speed and reliability. My salon and spa is a member of Intercoiffure and is ranked in the Top 200, but with over $2 million dollars in annual revenue it has a very busy environment. The activity was too much for our prior software and network combination and we had to run a database fix program virtually every day. I since learned that KORVUE is different and runs on a SQL database that is transaction-controlled at the database level, where desktop or ISAM databases either have no transaction control, or have to emulate transactions in the software, which is not as reliable. The previous software's database-design combined with my network and environment was the reason I had so many stability issues. Since I switched to KORVUE--after more than two years--I have not had a single database issue, even though I made no changes to my network and my environment is busier than ever.

Another very important aspect of KORVUE is the checkout process. Clients spend far less time at the front desk than ever. KORVUE's integrated scheduler and checkout screen work seamlessly together and checkouts can be completed in just a few keystrokes or mouse clicks. And, back to speed and reliability, KORVUE's credit card processing software is internal and built by the same company as KORVUE, so it also works seamlessly. With my past system, we processed credit cards through the checkout, but the processing occurred on our server. Often during busy times the credit card software would crash and we would need to reset it, and sometimes reset the server. Obviously this caused the client to wait at the front desk until it was back up, which was definitely a situation we all dreaded. KORVUE is different here too, because each computer that is running KORVUE can process a credit card independently of the server and it is lightening fast, taking about 1 second to approve a card. Again, since switching to KORVUE, we have not had a single instance where we were not able to process a client's card.

When I started to put some words together to describe my KORVUE experience, I could have written a book. However, in the best efforts to keep this as short as possible, here is my KORVUE "scratch-the-surface" list:

1. Book appointments, process transactions and finish a sale with speed and accuracy never before imaginable.
2. User preferences and security allow the system to behave differently based on who is using it, creating an environment that helps each employee reach a maximum comfort level and efficiency.
3. Manage inventory like never seen before, to the extreme that the software can actually monitor and electronically order your vital products for you - if you want, of course.
4. Proactive client retention systems, instead of reactive reporting. There are implementations for the providers, front desk, call center, and even directly with the clients online. At night, the system scans the database and learns the habits of your clients. Incredible. The most innovative retention system I have ever encountered - the results are truly amazing.
5. The automated promotion system allows you to create, distribute, track, and enforce your promotions. I setup six months worth of promotions in a single day and they will occur on the dates I set, automatically. This part alone pays for KORVUE several times over.
6. Security controls beyond your wildest dreams. I can control what each and every employee can and can't do, including what they can see and can't see. Employees can login with a password, security card, RFID tag, or even with biometrics, like their fingerprint. Peace-of-mind to say the least.
7. The system also comes with an artificial intelligence engine that scans your database 3,000-5,000 times per day, looking for things you want to know. It can take action for you, alert you and even send a text message to your cell phone. Want to be alerted when potential theft occurs? Done. On vacation and want your daily summary on your cell phone? Done. Want "birthday" and "miss you" emails sent out automatically? Done.

Needless to say, the list can and does go on-and-on-and-on. Oh, by the way, it also does all the normal stuff you would expect a software system to do, but that really goes without saying.

Two of my favorites--one is an add-on module and the other a standard screen--that you should know about that are really exciting:

1. KORVUE Provider. This touch-screen kiosk is specifically designed for the service provider and has the capability to completely eliminate that huge "paper trail" between them and the front desk. Everything they would ever want or need to know about their schedule, clients and history, product and service recommendations, and the ability to up-sell, upgrade and downgrade the service ticket, add products to the ticket, and much more. This all happens prior to the client arriving at the front desk, giving them an opportunity to bag the product in advance and start one-click checkouts without the typical mistakes. It even eliminates the front desk from accidentally giving credit to the wrong provider.
2. KORVUE Productivity Engine. This is without a doubt my favorite part of KORVUE. I FINALLY have the ability to create virtually any type and any kind of performance factors that I want to see, in real-time and in any comparison or grouping you could possibly imagine. How crazy is that?! I can even select which factors I want to have run automatically and I have them show up in my email every Monday morning. In my opinion, this is the single greatest development in salon and spa software since the first real automated appointment scheduler. I'll stop here before I simply get too carried away.

In closing, why did I /switch? In all due respect to all those before KORVUE, the answer is extremely obvious.