The ABC’s of Salon Client Retention: Weave a Tangled Web

A recent survey found client retention among the top three challenges for salon owners, coming in third after managing and motivating staff and getting new clients. Here are five salon client retention strategies that will help ensure your salon becomes an entrenched and irreplaceable part of its clients’ lives.

In a recent survey of 250 beauty professionals by Phorest Salon Software, one in five listed salon client retention as their biggest challenge. In a consumer marketplace that has become increasingly deal driven and a salon marketplace filled with independent marketing professionals including booth renters, salon suite owners and franchise salons competing with the traditional local salon business model, perhaps it should not come as a surprise that retention rates would be negatively affected.

One of the taglines I have used for several years has been this: Build a bigger role for your business in the lives of your clients. Brands that are content to sit on the sidelines rather than find new ways to matter to their customers are easily replaced. Brands that offer their clients intrinsic and unique reasons to feel personally connected cannot be easily replaced by competitors, even when price differences become significant.

Here’s a case in point. I am a member of the Milbrandt Vineyards wine club. I live three hours away from their tasting room, which is located in Prosser, Washington where my parents live. Although I do get to drop in several times each year when visiting my parents and it’s always a great experience, they have found several other ways to matter to me in ways that are important and unlikely to be replicated elsewhere.

They treat my parents, and even my sister and her husband, as though they are part of the Milbrandt family, not just me. Recognizing any of us as soon as we walk in the door, the winery’s staff treats us as long lost friends that they have been waiting to see again, even extending my member pricing to my extended family and giving my dad bags full of used corks, which he uses to make custom cork boards to give away and sell.

Milbrandt has made itself part and parcel of the visits I make to see my parents, a corporation that sees me as an individual and treats me like an insider, not just any old customer. They send me emails. They let me taste reserve labels. They interact with me on social media. (Update: within 16 hours, they responded to THIS post on Facebook, scroll down to the bottom to see their comment!)  They make me feel like they’ve giving us special seating and individualized service every time we visit. They have made themselves a valuable part of my life, not just a stop on my shopping list.

And this, my friends, is the key to salon client retention: Weave a tangled web.

Referencing the quote, “O what a tangled web we weave when first we practice to deceive.”  Walter Scott, Marmion, it’s my assertion that building a bigger role for your salon, beyond the products and services you sell is what makes you truly valuable and irreplaceable in the lives of clients. Products and services are commodities; meaning, equivalents can be purchased at multiple sites nearby. It’s the tangled web you weave that gives clients reasons to become loyal to your salon, not the services you offer.

It’s not about lying, but this quote offers an interesting analogy, and one that should be easily visualized by stylists and salon owners. When a web is truly tangled, there is no untangling it.

When someone turns to a lie instead of the truth, they often find that they have to make the lie bigger, deeper and farther reaching to avoid being found out. In time the route back to the truth might not even be traceable, with twists, turns and tangles making it impossible to undo.

Lies are negative, but client retention is a real positive!  Weave your salon’s brand into the lives of your clients so that it is not easily untangled. Make your salon’s influence bigger, dig deeper, and extend value farther in order to turn salon clients into bought-in brand advocates who feel personally connected to the brand of your business.  Here are five ways to entrench your salon’s brand into the lives of clients and make it an inextricable part of their lives.

5 ABC’s for Improving Salon Client Retention Rates

Appeal to Values

Does your brand stand for (or against) anything? The values a brand associates itself with in customer promises, charitable giving, and community activism provide powerful emotional connection points. Likewise, how valuable a salon client feels they are to you (remember the story about how important I believe I am to Milbrandt!) and your business directly affects whether they will reciprocate in making your salon important to them.

Bring Others to the Table

Without question, the fact that Milbrandt treats my family members as insiders simply because I’m a member has impacted the amount of wine they’ve been able to sell to us and the frequency with which we visit their tasting room.  When your salon makes it enticing for clients to bring spouses, kids, colleagues and friends into your salon client base, you are creating that wonderful tangle that makes it less likely they will leave.

Contribute to Community

Attending networking and Chamber of Commerce events can be intimidating and may feel like an impossible add to an already impossibly busy schedule. But carving out time to be present within the community can pay off big as a client acquisition strategy, and it also gives you the inside scoop that can position you as a community leader in the eyes of your clients. Sharing community news, resources and information on your social networks and email might even make you “the” authority on local topics to your clients who may be too busy themselves to get personally involved in the community.

Deliver a Unique Experience

Earlier I talked about the difference between commodities and non-commodities; and it comes down to this: If clients can receive an equivalent experience in competitor’s salons, you’re not doing it right. The salon client experience you deliver must be unique, and one that is not easy to replicate. You can’t achieve this type of experience with a discount, by trying to appeal to everyone or by offering a one-size-fits-all client experience.

Engage Outside the Appointment

If Milbrandt’s interaction with me was limited to the wine shipments they send every 4 months or the visits I’m able to make a few times each year, there would be little reason not to extricate myself from the relationship and spend my money elsewhere. But not a month goes by that I don’t have at least one newsletter in my email inbox to tell me about upcoming events, members only wine tastings and other special offers. Any time I tag them on social media with a photo or review I get an instant and personal response.

They understand that our relationship isn’t about the wine (even though the wine is wonderful). Milbrandt understands that it’s about the connection, the way I feel about doing business with them, and the pride I feel when I find out that they treated my family members and friends just as good as they treated me.

Interacting with your clients for a couple of hours every few weeks isn’t enough. It’s not often enough, nor is it long enough for you to convey all that is special about your brand, services and products and leave a lasting impression, keeping your salon top of mind when it comes time to book their next appointment or refer loved ones or colleagues your way. The engagement you provide outside of the salon client appointment may ultimately be more valuable and important than what occurs when they’re in the chair.

NOTE: Within 16 hours of when I posted this on Facebook, tagging Milbrandt, they responded (of course!)

 

You might also like: 20 Email Marketing Ideas for Salons

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