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Love Thy Client Part Two

Providing excellent customer service is the first step to securing a clients' long-term custom. In the final part of this two-part series, Marketing Consultant Sharleen Hunter reveals five simple ways to make your clients feel valued.

In today's competitive marketplace, providing good customer service every now and then is no longer enough. Clients are not looking to just be satisfied with their hairdressing experience, they want to be delighted. So, unfortunately, giving them a nice blow-dry and a half-hearted smile when they visit the salon will not suffice. These days, to keep their business you will have to work a lot harder.

Making the client feel special every time is the first step to winning their loyalty and growing your business. Therefore, in the final part of this two-part article, we will look at five simple, yet effective ways to help ensure that your clients always feel truly appreciated.

1. Listen to your clients

The essence of marketing is about identifying and satisfying your clients' needs whilst making a profit. To be able to satisfy those needs, you have to first find out exactly what it is that the client wants.

Ask for their suggestions on how to make the service you provide even better via questionnaires, feedback forms or by good old-fashioned conversation. You may be surprised with their response.

In addition, by receiving feedback directly from the client, you can be confident that the steps you take to improve your level of service are based on their actual desires rather than just subjective assumptions.

2. Go the extra mile

Don't just meet your clients' needs, exceed them. Give excellent customer service as standard. Give the client more for their money and give them more than they expect.

Every salon and indeed every client is different, so think about what you could offer them that they would truly value. For example, why not offer clients a complimentary deep conditioning treatment or scalp massage? Selling less and delivering more may cost slightly more in the short term but remember if they become a lifetime client, that cost will be recouped many times over.

3. Share the responsibility

Customer service is everyone's responsibility and should be implemented every day. Whether a receptionist, junior, stylist or manager, it is everyone's job to consistently provide your clients with the best possible service to ensure that every visit to the salon is a pleasurable one.

4. Pay attention to detail

Keep a record of those special occasions like birthdays and anniversaries and take the time to find out about your clients' hobbies and interests. Basically, anything that helps you to personalise those all-important client - stylist conversations.

You'll find that remembering those little things will make a big difference to building a good relationship.

5. Ask for help

Finally, if you're still having trouble impressing the importance of customer care to your staff or you haven't got the time to think about how best to make your salon more client focused, ask for help.

Work with a marketing specialist and ask them to create a client care and retention strategy to suit your salon's individual needs and client base. As well as looking at your business from the clients' perspective, an external consultant will not only help you to attract more clients to your salon, but most importantly they will give you advice on how to then keep their custom for many years to come.