5 tips to get your clients to book more often at your salon
When you want to increase your bookings, the first thing that often comes to mind is how to find new clients. Yet it is usually easier and cheaper to keep your existing clients coming back than to attract new ones.
Here are a few ideas to increase bookings at your hair salon, spa or beauty salon.
1. Make booking an appointment easy
As trivial as it may seem, booking an appointment is actually a major obstacle that keeps clients from coming to see you as often as they would like. By making booking easier, you can get them to come back much more often and gain dozens of extra bookings.
Why? Your clients lead busy lives, and when the idea of coming to see you pops into their head, it’s often not a good time to book (they’re at work, it’s evening, it’s Sunday…).
Since your clients aren’t always thinking about you, several weeks can go by before they think of it at the right moment and actually book.
Our advice:
- Offering online booking is without a doubt the best way to make your salon easy to reach. Clients can book 24/7 as soon as it crosses their mind; they know it, and it makes a big difference.
Good to know: access to the online booking module on RDV360 is completely free. Learn more here.
- If you only take appointments by phone, make sure your clients always have the salon’s number with them, for example by sending a text confirmation for every appointment.
2. Reward your clients for their loyalty
It’s well known: setting up a loyalty program for your hair salon or beauty salon clearly increases the number and frequency of bookings. And it’s a virtuous circle, because the more often your clients come back, the stronger the emotional bond, and the more likely they are to return and recommend you to the people around them.
Building a base of regulars adds value to your business.
The internet now lets you multiply the impact of your program by creating online loyalty cards that update automatically with every booking. The benefits are many:
- An email is sent to the client after each appointment showing their account balance. It’s an opportunity for them to visit your website and perhaps book again or discover your shop.
- Once on your website, it’s very easy for them to share their experience with their friends on social media.
3. Stay in touch with your clients through interesting newsletters
A regular newsletter is a great tool for strengthening your client relationships. Special offers, special occasions (Valentine’s Day, summer, Christmas…), entertaining content… Every email reminds clients about you, and bookings generally come in with every newsletter you send.
Avoid sending more than one email a month so you don’t wear out your audience, and never send an email if you have nothing special to share.
4. Encourage your clients to come back automatically
At the end of a service, don’t hesitate to suggest that your clients book their next appointment right away. Once the booking is made, you can be sure your client won’t go elsewhere (you can set up automatic appointment reminders here to avoid forgotten appointments).
Thanks to the internet, you can now automate emails or texts to your clients to reach them at key moments and bring them back. For example, you can send them a birthday message, a message when they haven’t come in for a little too long, or when they reach a certain amount spent with you (set up automatic messages with RDV360 here).
5. Stay at the top of your game
Finally, keep in mind that the best way to bring your clients back is, of course, to do the best work possible. Make sure you offer good advice and good service from start to finish.
Make sure your employees are trained to provide the best possible service.