This a blog post gives you all the details you need on how to keep your hair salon clients coming back for more of your service. It tells you all you need to know to convert your clients to customers!
Do you offer a service? Are you a beautician, hairstylist or barber, make up artist, nail tech, tailor? And do you ever wonder why your clients never come back?
My name is Shade, I’m a hair stylist and I can confidently tell you that I have cracked the code to keeping my clients hooked and I want to help you do the same!
I’ve been running my hair salon since I started college for about three years now and I’ve been able to build a client base consistently of over a 100 clients and over 80% of these being returning customers.
As a professional in the beauty and fashion industry I’ve noticed that getting clients is actually not the hard part. It’s very easy to get new clients, just put up a few pictures from your portfolio on your socials and before you know it you’re getting dms for bookings. Check out this post on how to run a six figure hair styling business!
The hard part is when you’re actually dealing with your clients and delivering your service. The way you interact with your client and your service in itself are extremely important factors if you want to convert your clients to life long customers.
How to keep your hair salon clients coming back
Frequency determination
My first tip is determining how frequently a client will be in need of your services.
Not all services are required frequently, for instance as a hairstylist a client can return anytime from two weeks to two months.
I understand that this is very different for other services but I’m sure you can figure out on average how often a client returns for your services.
Determine what’s special about your salon
For your clients to want to come running back for more there had to be something special about your services in the first place. Now I need you to ask yourself ‘How can I make my services special?’. The golden rule of offering a service is to simply be nice and approachable to your clients.
You’d be surprised at how many beauty professionals completely disregard their clients. Imagine if you were to get your make up done and the MUA was being very rude and mean I know I wouldn’t go back there.
Always listen
Listen to your clients and do what they asked for. When delivering a service I feel it’s best to remove your personal bias unless the client requests your input.
I’ve had a lot of my friends complain to me about the services they’ve got done in the past because the said professionals decided to do what they felt was best and not what the client actually wanted.
Effective communication
Communicate effectively before you start your appointment. Most clients come to me with references pictures and I’d have to analyze the pictures and determine if they are doable with the available resources.
If they are not, I try to make my client understand that it’s not going to be possible and then I make other possible suggestions.
It would be a bad thing if you didn’t say anything to your client and just went ahead to do something else and it doesn’t turn out as the client imagined. I guarantee you that your client wouldn’t be returning.
Read your clients
Try to read your clients before hand and interact with them accordingly. Everyone is different so there is no specific way to treat everyone (except the golden rule of being nice).
Some people like to talk through the appointment and other don’t. I’ve found that it’s best to stay out of my clients business unless they engage me.
Be professional
Ensure that you’re being as professional as possible. Your work space should be neat and organized. Your tools should be clean and you need to look professional. Check out this blog post on 10 hair salons essentials.
I’m not saying you should be decked out in a tux or pant suit but look presentable. I can never get my hair done in a slub even if they’re the best hair salon in the city so if your salon is a slub then you’re gonna have some problems.
Have an informal social media
Having personal contact with your clients is extremely important. Follow their socials back and interact with their content. I don’t mean using your personal accounts to follow theirs but the business account. This just promotes familiarity and that’s exactly what you want.
Good customer feedback
Have an effective customer feedback system where clients can make their inquires, complaints and the likes. Mistakes are inevitable and we can’t avoid them completely but we can always rectify them.
Giving your clients the opportunity to speak up about certain things and actually taking action to improve their experience will give them confidence in your business and promote trust.
Send gentle reminders
Remember when I told you to determine how frequently you want your clients to return? Now is when it becomes important. Once it has been some time since your clients last appointment, You should reach out to your clients maybe send an email or message featuring the results from your latest service.
What this does is that it brings you back to your clients mind and they get inspired to book another appointment. Although you don’t want to flood your clients inbox with spammy emails.
In all my tips notice how I didn’t include negotiating your prices with your clients. This is because you are offering an amazing service that they want you should never have to sell yourself short. If your clients do not value said service then they’re not your target audience.
Conclusion
I hope you were able to gain a thing or two from my mini rant on how to keep your clients running back for more.
Do you have more questions on how to keep your hair salon clients coming back?
Do not hesitate to tell me all about how you take your business to the next level in the comments.
