In the second conversation in the Innergize Leadership Huddle series, Zenoti CEO Sudheer Koneru discusses how different roles in the salon—owners, managers, CFOs and the front desk—are using AI to better manage their businesses and coach employees. Then he reveals big plans for a Shark Tank-style competition at Zenoti’s Innergize conference.

As a leading salon management software, it’s Zenoti’s mission to help their customers grow and prosper—even when their efforts go beyond the software itself. When the company sees an opportunity to drive positive impact, they invest in it.

In part one of our series of elevated conversations we’ve named The Inngergize Leadership Series, Koneru shared growth insights from Zenoti’s 2024 Beauty and Wellness Benchmark Report, previewed its Innergize event, and revealed how salons will tap into AI to better manage their businesses.

In our second conversation, we dive deeper into Zenoti’s AI capabilities and how becoming an early adopter gives beauty businesses a competitive advantage. 

SALON TODAY: In our first conversation, we spoke a little bit about AI, including Zenoti’s AI-first philosophy. The industry is on the cusp of a dramatic technological change, which for many people is both exhilarating and a little intimidating. Tell us more about your perspective on artificial intelligence.

Koneru: If you think about the internet and our mobile phones, we can’t imagine life without them—they are integral. Now, AI is in its early stages of entering our daily lives, and a time will come where you won't be able to imagine life without it. So businesses that can invest in and embrace AI can be more competitive, more nimble, and outperform the local markets—it becomes an advantage, which is why AI has become a big focus for us. 

But we’re still an industry all about touch and personal care, so many wonder what AI is going to do for us. It’s not going to replace people; however, our fundamental approach is to give AI first crack at the tasks we do every day. And if you don’t like how AI does it, the people are still in control. 

For example, AI can set up the employee schedule for the week. If you don't like it, you can edit it. Another example is monitoring inventory/product orders. AI will be good at these tasks because it knows your patterns—seasonal items, when traffic increases, etc. So I think owners will start relying on AI for many daily tasks, but people are still in control. AI is just a tool to help accelerate.

Salon Today: How is Zenoti putting the power of AI into the hands of salon managers and the front desk team?

Koneru: When it comes to the front desk and managers, possibilities are everywhere. If you want to change your business hours for the Fourth of July, for example, you tell your Zeenie (an AI virtual assistant or “genie” within Zenoti) and it will update the hours for you. You won’t need to navigate through the software and do it yourself—you are able to do everything by asking a virtual assistant.

AI will also help with guest calls: Let’s say you have a customer call and complain she was incorrectly charged for a product. Your guest service person can ask AI to pull up the invoice from the date of the guest’s visit, and it’ll bring up the correct invoice immediately without the front desk having to go find the customer profile, search her last purchase, etc.  

AI is going to get smarter and smarter, so front desk tasks will be streamlined. Our Zeenie will be able to give best practices for everything from how to deal with customer complaints to onboarding new employees. 

What we’ve heard for years from owners is that the front desk is only tapping into a percentage of what their software is capable of doing. That’s because they don’t necessarily know its capabilities. With Zeenie to assist, you can just ask it for help doing a task you’ve never done before. You’ll be learning how to use your software that was there to support you the whole time, but you didn't know how to implement all of its features.

With an internet phone integrated into HyperConnect a salon can tap into Zenoti's AI engince to completely transform how your front desk works. When you answer a call, that customer's details appear instantly on your screen, so you can make every conversation deeply personalized which makes customers feel special.  

See how the laser facial company Skin Laundry leverages Zenoti's Hyperconnect...

Salon Today: AI can also play a relevant role for owners and other elevated positions like CFOs. What are some tasks you see AI tackling for those types of positions?

Koneru: CFOs are always analyzing their businesses. It’s amazing how many different ways CFOs want to look at data—everybody has a different viewpoint on reports and how they want to analyze them. So it has been a journey trying to build all kinds of rich reporting capabilities. But now, with AI, the CFO just asks AI what they want to know.

The days of going to an analytics team to ask for a new report to be built are gone. You can just ask your AI assistant for the insight you’re looking for. Zeenie figures out the answer based on having access to all the data in your business. 

And for owners, customer engagement is a big deal—especially for multiple-location salons. In addition to making sure every call and every appointment is booked correctly, AI now analyzes all calls across all centers, and then flags problems and sends owners an email saying, “Here are four calls we think didn’t go well, and here’s the synopsis of each of those calls, and here's where we think it fell short.” 

Now the owner has an easy coaching opportunity with the front desk. These are just a couple examples, but we’ll continue to expand on our abilities for owners and managers to help drive their costs down and make their front desks more efficient. 

Salon Today: I love the idea of an AI coach helping you coach your team, because it’s virtually impossible for an owner to overhear every conversation someone in their salon has with a guest. I know SALON TODAY readers are interested in innovative solutions. How can they learn more about what Zenoti can do for them? 

Koneru: Our website is a great place to start. We have a lot of video and content, and a page dedicated to AI first. We also have an upcoming event for anyone in the industry, Innergize, in Las Vegas, October 13-14. A lot of the focus at the event is around AI and how different brands are using it. Attendees will hear firsthand experiences from a variety of leaders, and we’re also excited to bring keynote speaker Lori Greiner from Shark Tank. In a competition called Deep End, brands are going to be able to pitch to her, explaining why they are able to grow a franchise. The winner will get $50,000 and the runner up $25,000.

Salon Today:You have a special $300 discount code for SALON TODAY readers: SALONTODAYEB (early bird). Visit innergize.me to sign up with the code. And, I encourage everybody to visit your site and go deeper into the AI experience.

Koneru: We think those who embrace AI as they plan their growth are going to see it much more accelerated. I truly believe people who are early adopters have the competitive advantage.