What Do Hair Salons Have To Do With CIAM? - by Dan Moore

I was talking to someone at a conference a few weeks ago about the value of customer identity and access management (CIAM). After I explained I worked on ‘login systems’ and was met with a quizzical look, I talked through a use case that I thought explained the benefits in more details.

Imagine you are president and owner of a chain of hair salons. Naturally, you want to optimize the number of customers your employees or contractors can see in each hair salon. This helps you defray the fixed costs of marketing and rent over as many customers as possible.

One way to help increase efficiencies is to make sure that your employees are always cutting hair. Taking reservations and letting potential customers know about wait times is one way to do that. Exposing this information is a win-win; employees know when folks are coming in. Customers know when the local salon is busy and can pick a different time.

You can offer this information via the phone, but that requires someone to answer the phone at the salon. That can either be a hair stylist, who is taking time away from their customer, or a receptionist, who will cost money. You can also have an IVR system, but that may frustrate some users.

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