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Sola Salons
Sola Salons
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Overview
A case study on how Outliant delivered world-class integrated web services to Sola Salons
Sola Salons provides beauty professionals with high-end, fully equipped private salon studios alongside the tools they need to create a life and career they love. This includes offering customizable studio space, creative freedom, and support to make the transition to independent salon ownership.
Founded in 2004, Sola Salons is now the largest, fastest-growing salon studio business, with a thriving community of over 20,000 industry-leading beauty professionals and 700+ locations nationwide. And the partner Sola Salons trusts to build their technology stack is Outliant.
The Challenge
Modernizing their tech stack to scale for rapid growth
The Approach
Implementing modern platforms to optimize both B2B and B2C businesses
The Challenge
Scaling People, Processes, and Technology
Sola Salons was established to inspire and support beauty professionals so they can elevate their careers and experience the freedom and benefits of salon ownership.
To achieve their mission of taking care of their community, the team at Sola Salons needs cutting-edge technology solutions that are designed exclusively for beauty experts.
Augmenting existing staff with additional technical resources
01
Modernizing the entire technology stack
02
Optimizing booking funnels for increased customer acquisition
03
As the largest and fastest-growing salon studio business, Sola Salons faced a common challenge of rapidly scaling companies: It needed a tech stack that could support an expanding user base—with hundreds of locations and thousands of beauty professionals across North America.
Independent salon owners—such as hairstylists, makeup artists, and estheticians—specifically need technology that allows them to attract prospective customers, conduct facility operations, and manage bookings and appointments.
Although Sola Salons had previously outsourced web development, the team required additional resources to support their staff and tackle more strategic projects. They chose Outliant for their technical expertise to step in and take Sola’s digital transformation to the next level.
Our Approach
A Complete Overhaul From Back-End to Front-End
To augment Sola Salons’ staff, Outliant served as their go-to technical development team for a multitude of projects.
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Web Development and Design
Independence is a core value of Sola Salons, so Outliant made sure to take a custom approach with the company’s website. This included migrating to a new content management system, replatforming the entire back-end, and creating new webpages using React. The result was not only a sleeker appearance, but also a more intuitive user experience.
Funnel Optimization
Applying a data-driven strategy, Outliant optimized both sides of Sola Salons’ user base with technical improvements. The team improved the B2C salon client experience by integrating a booking platform with advanced functionality. They also revamped Sola’s top lead form, “Why Sola,” to generate more B2B leads from franchisees.
Custom HubSpot Integration
Sola Salons was also in major need of a new customer relationship management (CRM) platform, so Outliant completed a custom configuration of HubSpot. This involved setting up more sophisticated deal creation logic to provide the sales team with tools to manage and track leads more effectively.
SEO Performance
In conjunction with the website’s design, development, and security enhancements, Outliant also implemented targeted SEO performance improvements. This optimization allowed Sola Salons to gain better visibility in the salon franchising market, especially for non-branded keywords.
Before
After
The Solution
Outliant served as an extension to the team at Sola Salons, taking an agile approach that was aligned to key objectives.
The Phases
01
Discovery and Planning
After Outliant conducted a thorough assessment of Sola’s technical requirements, the team created quarterly objectives and key results (OKRs) that rolled up to the OKRs of Sola’s tech team. These metrics also mapped to Sola’s biweekly product roadmap for complete alignment.
02
Sprint-Based Development
Outliant adopted agile two-week sprint cycles, following a Scrum methodology in JIRA. This process allowed for more iterative development and continuous feature integration based on Sola’s product roadmap.
03
Automated Testing
To improve Sola’s quality assurance (QA), Outliant deployed automated testing tools, which resulted in reduced testing times and a more efficient QA team.
04
Ongoing Collaboration
In addition to partnering with Sola’s technical teams, Outliant continues to handle a variety of issues from other departments. This collaboration includes addressing legal and compliance concerns, supporting the customer help desk, facilitating with franchise operations, and teaming up on marketing campaigns.
The Results
100%
Increase in web traffic to salon locations
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70%
Increase in overall website pageviews
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50%
Increase in sessions to Why Sola webpage
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70%
Increase in traffic to Book Now webpage
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The Impact
Empowering Independence. Optimized for Growth.
Outliant’s strategic approach and technical support have enabled Sola Salons to enhance both its franchisee acquisition and user booking funnels.
By significantly improving the user experience and SEO performance of the website, Outliant has optimized both components of Sola’s business. The redesigned lead form has led to increased leads for franchisees, while booking platform improvements have dramatically boosted appointments for beauty professionals.
With better all-around technological efficiency, reliability, and security, Outliant continues to build trust with Sola Salons, ensuring a steady pipeline of projects with expanded scope.
Outliant’s collaborative and agile approach has transformed Sola Salons’ digital infrastructure, providing them with scalable, fully integrated platforms to support their rapid growth.
Their ongoing partnership has freed up the team at Sola Salons from the hassles of technical development so they can focus their time and energy on empowering beauty professionals everywhere to achieve independence and entrepreneurial success.
Jeff Pleis
Vice President of Franchise Operations at Sola Salons
Client's Testimonial
"We pride ourselves on the support we provide our salon owners, and Outliant matches that level of dedication. By integrating our technology seamlessly, Outliant allows us to focus on what’s best for our beauty pros and direct our attention on growing our community."
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