How 5 Little Words Can Make Your Front Desk Run Better.
I’m often amazed that an industry so “image conscious” could be shooting themselves in the foot before they even meet a potential client. Poor telephone skills can give your salon a terrible image and sometimes infuriate a new prospect before they even step foot in your door!
Not only that – your current clients often call your salon to check up on appointments or to make new appointments. What kind of message are you sending to them if your receptionists can’t even answer the telephone in a professional manner? Not a very good one – I can tell you that.
I know this blog is normally reserved for talking about HairMax salon software issues but I’ve heard these basic mistakes being made over and over again and I felt compelled to address them.
Plus, there is also a big productivity lesson that can be learned from just asking five little words. That’s right – five little words that can not only make your desk staff more productive, but also make the data in your HairMax salon software more accurate.
The five little words are “Have you been here before?” I know it sounds basic but it’s more important than you can believe. I will get to “why” in a moment. But first, let me tell you what most clients hear:
“XYZ salon and day spa, please hold”
You would be surprised at how many salons I call up (particularly busy ones) that have a receptionist that pulls a stunt like that. If you’re the client – immediately you get a rush of fury running up your spine. This is the proper way to answer the telephone:
“Thank you for calling XYZ salon and day spa, I have 1 client ahead of you, could you please hold?”
Then, you wait for the response, and move on. This lets the client know where they stand in the queue and that you at least care enough to ask them if they want to hold. Ok, now that we’ve gotten past the introduction, lets talk about the booking. This is a typical poor salon:
Client : “Hi, I’d like to make an appointment for a cut and blow dry”
Receptionist: Ok, when would you like to come in? or “Who would you like to see?”
Both of these responses are wrong! The first thing out of the receptionist’s mouth should be “Sure I can help you with that – Have you been here before?”. The client’s answer to this question will determine a lot.
If the client answers “yes” – I know that they’re in the computer and I can get to them easily by just asking for the last 4-digits of their home telephone number. They also know whom they want to see, and I can go right to the “time narrowing” stage.
If the client answers “no” – I know that I’ll need their first name, last name, and telephone number to book the appointment. So much time is wasted by searching for clients that are really “new” to the salon, or worse yet, bogus names are added to the system by careless receptionists.
Now, I could go on and on about how to book the client appointments quickly from here but if you just change those first two things (introduction and adding the 5 little words), you will have happier clients and a more productive front desk!
Best regards, Steve Sampson
HairMax Salon Software is a product designed to be the best investment your salon has ever made. It is not only the easiest and most powerful salon management software on the market. It is from a company dedicated to becoming the ultimate VALUE source to the industry.
The Most Vital Information to Know About Your Business
In a world of information overload, we sometimes focus on things that don’t really matter and gloss over the information that really does. Today, I want to talk to you about a piece of information that is really easy to get – yet almost nobody pays attention to it.
But it is vital in building any salon business and even more vital in making sure that you’re not wasting money every month. That’s right wasting money every month because you’re “trying to guess” where and how your clients are coming to your salon.
Over the last few weeks, I asked a group of salon owners where their new clients were coming from. Half of them couldn’t even tell me how many new clients their salons were getting every week. And almost all of them, could not tell me with any certainty, how many clients were coming in from what source.
In other words, how many were coming in from their website or how many were client referrals or how many were just driving by, etc. Now, why is this so important?
By the way, your HairMax Salon Software has a report called a Salon Activity Trend report that will give you the number of first-time clients your salon gets every week and the average number over the last 6 weeks. Now back to why this is so important.
Well, it’s probably best to give you a little story that will bring this to light. A few weeks ago, I did a survey (that you may have been part of) that told me that 71% of survey participants (salons) already had a website. Yet, better than 3 out of every 4 of these salons were unhappy with the number of new clients they were getting each week from the Internet.
In fact, 68% of those salons were getting less than 3 clients per week from their websites. Now that may not be a real shocking number to you because you may be one of the 68%, but here is the real kicker.
Almost 90% of these salons, updated their websites over the last year! In other words, they are still spending money – even in this terrible environment – on their websites even though they are getting a measly 3 clients (or less) per week from the Internet. Now, why do I say they are “wasting” their money?
Answer: Because they are doing nothing more than “dressing up a pig” in most cases.
It’s all about results. And when you make changes to a website or spend money on advertising – you do it for one purpose only – to get more new clients. If your website is not generating the results, simply changing a few things here or there is like just throwing the money away.
Now, I’m not going to get into what these salon owners are doing wrong in this blog post – that is coming over the next few weeks. But I will say that if you don’t know how many new clients you are getting every week (and from where) – it is highly likely that you are making the wrong decisions for your salon.
And in this environment, how many salons can afford to make the wrong decisions?
In your HairMax salon software, you can easily track where your new clients are coming from. You can create a simple list for the receptionist to choose from (located in system configuration by the way). You can get a list of these first-time clients every week right out of your salon software.
Once a week, you should be printing off the list and checking to see where the clients are coming from. The whole process will take less than 10 minutes a week in most cases.
Bottom Line: The first step in making better salon decisions is identifying the really important information. Don’t waste your time looking at just the service sales or retail sales for the week. This information is nothing more than a symptom – the devil is in the details!
Best regards, Steve Sampson
HairMax Salon Software is a product designed to be the best investment your salon has ever made. It is not only the easiest and most powerful salon management software on the market. It is from a company dedicated to becoming the ultimate VALUE source to the industry.
Use These *FREE* Salespeople Before Your Competitors Do!
It always amazes me when the answers are right under our noses and we can’t see them clearly. How about if I told you that you already have five to ten “free salespeople” in your town that would love to help you out if you just asked them. Sound too good to be true?
Well, I’m sure it does – to most of you. But that’s because you’re not looking for them. Have you ever noticed that when you really want something – it starts suddenly appearing all over the place? Like when you have a desire for a certain car, all of a sudden you start seeing that car on the road all the time.
That’s because your mind is now “focusing” on the desire or goal. Trust me, the same number of that particular car were on the road before you had the desire. You just now start noticing them. So, how can you get your mind focused onto things that will grow your salon business?
Well today, I have a really easy one that will blow your mind. That’s right, this idea was always here but you just never noticed it before. And that idea is to find key local businesses and charities to actively promote your business – for nothing. Let me explain.
Every town has places that have brides as there customers. It could be a bridal shop, it could be a florist, or it could be a photographer. These brides have wedding parties. Wedding parties that like to have services done! What if you came up with a simple marketing program that allowed the referring business to benefit from the sales?
For example, you give the bridal shop – 50 referral cards (with their name on the card) and every time a new client is referred to your salon – the bridal shop gets a credit. A credit that they can use for discounted (or free) services in your salon. The referral card, that they hand out, will have a small discount for the bride as well. So, they are actually creating some “good will” for their clients as well.
This is a win-win-win situation. And of course, your HairMax salon software can easily control all aspects of tracking the effectiveness of this referral program. You can even use the “on account” feature to put cash rewards on their account that they can redeem whenever they choose.
Now the key to making this work is to make it a “no-brainer” for the participating business. So, you should already have the small display (that holds the referral cards) done for them. Also, let them know that you would be willing to promote their business as well (if applicable).
Local charities are another often overlooked source for referrals. They are always looking for ways to raise money. Find a charity in your area and take the executive sponsor out to lunch to start building a relationship with them. Tell them that you will donate a percentage of your sales for every referral that they send to you.
This technique will take a little while longer to develop, but it could pay large dividends in the future. It can also be successful with local sports teams, Girl Scout troops, and churches.
Your goal should be to try and add one new business or charity a month. At the end of the year, you will have 12 free salespeople working for you. At the end of two years, it will be 24. If you get only one new client a week from each business, that’s about 1250 new clients a year.
But be aware that the first salon that jumps on this idea will shut out all the other salons in the town. Businesses can only promote one salon at a time. And once you get going on this idea, it will be like the car that you wanted. You will start seeing potential “salespeople” all over the place in your town. What are you waiting for?
Best regards, Steve Sampson
HairMax Salon Software is a product designed to be the best investment your salon has ever made. It is not only the easiest and most powerful salon management software on the market. It is from a company dedicated to becoming the ultimate VALUE source to the industry.
