Effective Customer Retention Tips for Beauty Salons

/ posted in: Hair Stylists

If you are running a salon, you know how it can get competitive it can get. Beauty salons constantly try to stand out from their competition to hook prospective new clients.

Local salons are popping up everywhere. Even in a smaller town, there can be 15, 20, or more beauty salons – all offer similar services within a ten-mile block.

How do you make sure your beauty salon business stands out?

In today’s post, let’s talk about some practical marketing ideas for beauty salons. These tips can help expand your customer base and stay ahead of the competition.

Managing Beauty Salons

Tools are important for beauty salons.

Establishing a beauty salon entails a passion for beauty and a competitive drive to market and advertise your business.

It might get overwhelming or confusing to handle this side of the beauty salon, especially for those with little to no experience.

Whether you are making adjustments to your beauty salon’s retail strategy or starting one from scratch, consider the following marketing tips we’ve prepared for you below.

Beauty Salons: Identifying Your Target Customer

Your products and services need to resonate with the type of client you want to attract. Before choosing the right beauty salon services that attract your ideal client, you must first determine who that person is.

Developing your beauty salon’s final list of products and services revolve around determining the following:

  • Who is your target market?
  • What are the requirements of your target market?
  • Determine the preferences of your target market.
  • What are your target market’s expectations?

Finding the correct answers to these questions allows you to develop and design your services with a portion of your target audience.

As you know, customers play an extremely vital role in any organization – big or small. They are the foundation of the success of any business. In beauty salons, for instance, attracting and retaining customers is highly essential to achieve success.

When you know your target customer, you can customize your marketing efforts based on what will grab their attention.

After the sale, beauty salons should continue focusing on customer service by providing customer support, asking for customer feedback, and devising other salon products and services that clients would like.

In a nutshell, knowing who your target client is will let you know what salon experience they expect from you.

What Makes an Ideal Beauty Salon Client?

Simply put, your beauty salon’s ideal clients are:

  • Easy to attract
  • Not hard to keep
  • Turn into regular and loyal clients

What makes an ideal salon client different from typical clients is the amount of effort, time, and resources you exert to have their business.

Running a successful beauty salon entails more than just knowing the latest beauty trends.

However, this doesn’t mean that you can put your salon marketing strategies on autopilot. Even a regular customer can turn into an ideal one if you employ the proper marketing techniques.

Mastering Customer Retention for Beauty Salons

With numerous local beauty salons popping up in every community, competition is fierce. That’s why for any beauty salon, gaining new clients can get challenging.

Even after employing marketing strategies – both through online and offline platforms – it’s still more affordable to maintain your current salon customer base rather than acquire new customers.

Many owners of beauty salons opt to customize their marketing techniques towards gaining new clients. However, it’s vital not to forget to retain the current ones.

Improving your customer retention approach is beneficial for your salon business. When you keep your existing clients happy, it fosters loyalty and satisfaction. These vital traits will keep your customers coming back every time.

On top of that, enhancing your customer retention can improve the experience of running a beauty salon. This is because you can focus your marketing efforts on keeping your existing customers happy and feel great.

Here are more essential benefits of customer retention for beauty salons.

Client Retention Techniques for Beauty Salons

Simply put, client retention for beauty salons means that you have a stream of clients who keep coming back for your services. This concept also entails ensuring that new clients turn into loyal ones.

The interior of a beauty salon is important.

Beauty salons need a reliable, friendly, and experienced staff who can relate well with the clients. As you know, one bad customer service experience can turn away many customers.

It’s not very common for beauty salon owners to track their customer retention progress. Because of this, they don’t conduct any customer retention techniques. No wonder there are a lot of empty beauty salons.

This is a domino effect.

Many potential clients will opt not to go into an empty beauty salon. They will immediately think the empty shop most likely has unsatisfactory salon services.

If you’re running a salon, it’s essential to know the figures. A new customer coming back to your beauty salon will keep your business fully booked.

Here are some effective customer retention strategies.

Make an excellent first impression.

This starts with making sure your staff has adequate policies and guidelines to follow. The more consistent your salon services are, the better the service you can provide.

Clients appreciate consistency. They want the same level of quality service, care, and attention in every appointment and at every stage of the service.

The only other thing clients appreciate other than consistency is when the salon experience only gets better.

Ask the clients for pre-booking.

Asking your current clients to pre-book their next appointment may seem pushy or nagging at first.

However, that’s not the case. Most customers take this to mean that you, as the beauty expert, want them to look their best all the time. The more you get to know your clients and their preferred salon appointment schedule, the easier it is to retain them.

Give expert recommendations to your clients.

As we mentioned above, you are the beauty expert. Your clients need your guidance about the beauty services they’re interested in and the products they want to use.

Don’t give recommendations just to sell. Your clients will know if you’re just shilling products and services. Get to know your client’s needs, preferences, and beauty goals. These details will help you give the proper beauty treatment, service, or products that work best for your clients.

In customer retention, trust is vital. When you gain their confidence, you will convert new clients into returning ones.

Develop a customer loyalty program.

The best way to go about this is to reward loyal customers with a product or service they’ve never tried. This way, you introduce them to a new item for free. Customize your incentives based on what you think the client wants or needs.

For instance, if your regular client always gets hair treatment services, offer a new color, cut, or rejuvenating hair services. They will most likely avail that product, service, or treatment at the total price if they like it.

Beauty salons must get customer feedback.

Customized rewards will grow your pool of regular customers, build stability for your business, and increase your profits.

Ask for Customer Feedback

Don’t hesitate to ask your customers for their feedback on your services. Generally, customer feedback is vital for beauty salons.

Here are some initial questions you can raise to your customer:

  • What did they like /dislike about the product or service they got from you?
  • What would they want to change about the product or service they received?

Asking for customer feedback allows customers to tell you precisely what they need. This, in turn, will let you serve your potential, existing, and future clients better.

I have been a professional hairstylist for 23 years. Husband to my high school sweetheart, Ines. We love each of our four cats. I was born in Lyon, France but my whole family moved to Atlanta when I was 17 years of age. At times I miss France, but America is forever my home. A few years ago, I visited Canada and tried out a high-quality goose jacket. It was so unique that I immediately bought it. I've never owned a coat so comfortable! Later on, I was domain shopping for a new blog to share helpful haircare tips and knowledge with the world. Saw this one and couldn't resist!