Salon Business
Learn tips, tricks and business recommendations from our top salon professionals.
03.10.2020
3 Simple Tactics for Pre-booking
One of your salon’s most important measures of success is driving client retention. What are the benefits? Pre-booking increases the frequency of visits, which will create a ripple effect! When you increase a client from four to six visits per year through pre-booking, you increase business by 40% and will have better control of your schedule, who doesn’t want that?! We hope that you can set new client retention goals within your salon by following 3 tactics below that have been proven to work!
1. Run Contests. Encourage planning ahead with contests. Reward the stylist who scores the most pre-bookings for that month or that week, if you work as an independent stylist, reward yourself!!
2. Entice Clients. For two months, enter each client who pre-books all of their appointments for the following year into a drawing for a $500 gift card or four products of their choice (clients receive one entry for every appointment booked).
3. Promote it! Anywhere and Everywhere. You will be surprised how many bookings one salon can receive by promoting the contest via Facebook, Instagram, email, salon signage, and mirror clings. Additionally, place visual reminders on erasable stickers outlining dates in four or six weeks for preplanning ease.
Do not be afraid to tell your clients to pre-book instead of asking them to pre-book.
“Do you want to pre-book your next appointment?’ gives clients a chance to say no. Instead, give them a reason to pre-book! An example could be, “I am booking up far in advance; I suggest pre-booking your next appointment now to get the day and time that is best for you.’” This will also help you plan your life outside of the salon. While emergency hair color sessions can help your bank account, it can really mess up other appointments or the afternoon of shopping that you promised your friends. Consider charging a small fee for emergency appointments, once you start setting boundaries to your availability, clients will begin to value you even more!
Lastly, if you have a front desk, make sure they are prepared to seal the deal. The easiest way to enable your front desk to pre-book is to simplify operations for them with the right POS system, scripts, and systems—or even a “roving receptionist” who pre-books clients on an iPad at the styling chair.
You can also incentivize the front desk team. When pre-booking hits 70%, reward each front desk employee!
Now go make a plan!
Sincerely,
professionalstore.com