SALON CLIENT EXPERIENCE GUIDE

Information about how to shape the best client experience in your business

This comprehensive guide to client experience for a hair and beauty business includes:

• What is client experience?
• Why is client experience important?
• Client experience tips

        Tip 1: Offer a seamless booking experience

        Tip 2: Personalise your client’s experience

        Tip 3: Create the perfect salon atmosphere

        Tip 4: Keep in touch with your clients

        Tip 5: Build an amazing salon team

        Tip 6: Create the best loyalty program for maximum client retention

        Tip 7: Take your client consultation to the next level

        Tip 8: Help clients maintain their hair and skin between appointments

        Tip 9: Provide a sustainable salon experience

        Tip 10: Ask your clients for feedback

• Booking, rebooking and reducing no-shows
• Avoiding bottlenecks in your client experience
• Client experience success stories
• Choosing client management software

Client experience tips

Here are our top 10 tips for creating an outstanding client experience at your salon, spa or clinic.

Tip 1: Offer a seamless booking experience

The perfect client experience starts when the client books an appointment with you. Whether a client is making an appointment in person, over the phone, or through your online booking platform, it’s important that your booking process is as simple and convenient as possible.

Learn more about improving your booking experience

5 reasons why your salon needs online booking

Online booking is becoming an expectation for clients and the norm for businesses. Here are five reasons why you need online booking for your salon, spa or clinic. 

10 ways to reduce no-shows in your salon, spa or clinic

Appointment confirmations and reminders are the easiest way to reduce no-shows. Find out more ways to keep your appointment book full.

Learn more about creating the perfect salon environment

How to create an exceptional client experience in your salon

What does it take to create a perfect salon experience? It's important to look at the whole package from start to finish. Every small detail can add up to determine a client’s overall experience.  

The importance of creating great client experiences

What can we learn from the hospitality industry when it comes to exceptional client experience? Find out more.

The barbershop quartet – 4 steps to providing a brilliant barbershop experience

Creating a unique client experience comes down to knowing your target audience, being authentic and aligning with your core values. 

Learn more about building a strong team

Culture eats strategy for breakfast: 5 tips from Philippa Middleton

Learn how culture shapes the success of your business and how to develop your dream team.  

9 no-nonsense tips for shaping an amazing salon team

How do you shape your amazing salon team? From hiring the right people to providing ongoing training and giving feedback, get these practical tips.
 

Five super reasons to train your team

Training and developing your team is crucial if you want to increase the productivity of your team, increase the quality of your client experience and improve your culture.  

How to create a positive salon culture

Creating a positive team culture seems easier said than done, but these five tips are proven to develop and improve company culture.

Learn more about elevating your client consultation experience

7 reasons to formalise your client consultations with forms

A comprehensive client consultation helps you to understand your client’s goals and needs. It also gives them more insight as to what they can expect from this and future appointments.  

How Studio 31 made the switch to using Kitomba Forms for their client consultations

Find out how Studio 31 introduced digital forms into their everyday processes and how it streamlines client experience across their multiple locations.

Learn more about creating a sustainable client experience

Attract clients by developing a sustainable client experience

Making your salon, spa or clinic more sustainable gives your clients the experience they’re looking for, saves you money, and is good for the planet.  

Introducing sustainability into your salon, spa or clinic with Sustainable Salons

Make sustainability simple with these tips from the Co-Founder of Sustainable Salons, Paul Frasca.

Improving your booking experience

When it comes to improving your client experience, it could be challenging to decide where to start. Let’s look at three key areas of your business - booking, rebooking and no-shows - where you can take small steps and introduce incremental changes to reap the benefits for your business and improve client satisfaction.

Booking

A negative booking experience can affect a client’s overall experience with your business. Here are the common issues that clients encounter when they’d like to book an appointment:

• Looking for the salon’s contact details is not convenient

• Not being able to get through to you when they call

• Having to call to make a booking if they prefer booking online

• Not being responded to quickly enough

• Not having an easy and seamless booking experience

• Not being reminded about the upcoming appointment

It’s also good to be aware that clients are increasingly choosing to book online at their own convenience, outside standard business hours. If you already offer online booking at your hair and beauty business, have a look at these tips to make sure it provides your clients with a seamless experience:

Tip 1: check your pricing and deposits

Firstly, make sure that your service pricing on your online booking platform is accurate. That way if you charge a deposit or a full payment for your services, there are no surprises for your clients and they are charged correctly.

Tip 2: keep your appointment book up-to-date

If you have any planned business closures over holidays or for renovations, if you have a team member going on vacation or not available for certain days, make sure to update that time in your appointment book. This way when clients are booking their appointments online, there’s no risk you’ll need to reschedule their selected time.

Tip 3: make your online booking accessible

Once you have your online booking platform ready to go, think about where it would be best to add the link to the platform so it’s convenient and accessible for your clients.

Here are a few ideas where you should have your online booking platform advertised:

• Your website
• Google Business Profile
• Add Book Now buttons to your social media accounts
• Newsletters, client emails and SMS text messages
• Advertise it in your salon e.g. at the front desk, stations or in treatment rooms

Rebooking

If you want to grow your hair and beauty business, you'll know all about the importance of marketing strategy and attracting new clients. But once you have these clients through the door, how do you encourage them to rebook?
Rebooking is an important part of your overall client experience at your salon, spa or clinic. Rebooking your existing clients also helps you maintain strong cash flow and secure future income.

Here are some tips on how to improve the rebooking experience for your clients:

Tip 1: Discuss rebooking during the appointment

During the service, suggest a timeframe for when a client should return for their next appointment to ensure that their hair or skin keeps looking its best.

Tip 2: Focus your team's effort on rebooking

Encourage your staff to rebook their clients by setting up rebooking targets and providing incentives. You could also run a competition among staff where a team member who rebooks the most clients in a week wins a prize.

"Since using Kitomba targets, our rebooking rate is now over 80%, and that has been because they get to look at their targets daily and see how they’re tracking to achieve them."

– Nadia Howard, owner of Bedlam Hair Design & Bliss Day Spa

Learn more about how you can use Kitomba Targets to set goals for rebooking, and other KPI's.

Tip 3: Follow up with clients who haven’t rebooked

Encourage clients to return by reminding them when it’s time to rebook their next appointment. For example, set up an automatic email or SMS text reminder to be sent four weeks after a non-rebooked appointment. Make it easy for your clients to rebook with you by including a link to your online booking platform.

Tip 4: Create a loyalty programme

Create a loyalty programme that encourages clients to come back and earn points or rewards. For example, after earning a certain number of points, your client could receive a free treatment or retail product.

Tip 5: Build strong client relationships

Use every appointment as an opportunity to develop better relationships with your clients. Share your expertise and educate your clients on how they can maintain their hair and beauty between visits with you.

Reducing no-shows

As a salon owner, one of your goals is to keep your appointment book full and reduce no-shows. Think about ways you remind clients about their upcoming appointments, whilst at the same time protecting your business from client no-shows. A strong client experience can help achieve both of these.

Tip 1: send your clients appointment reminders

It’s easy for clients to forget about an upcoming visit even if they are looking forward to it. Help your clients to stay organised and on top of their hair and beauty appointments by sending SMS or email reminders a day or two before. It’s helpful and convenient for your clients and shows that you care about their experience.

Tip 2: add appointments to your client’s calendar

When a client books with you at the salon or through your online booking platform, send appointment details to their calendar by email or text. This way your client can save these details directly in their calendar and plan their time more efficiently.

Tip 3: follow up with clients who missed their appointment

If a client did not show up for the appointment, it might be because they forgot about it or simply double booked themselves. Send an email or text to let them know that they missed their appointment and encourage them to contact you as soon as possible to reschedule.

Learn more about how to reduce client no-shows at your salon, spa or clinic.

Avoiding bottlenecks in your client experience

One of the ways to improve your client experience and increase client satisfaction is to reduce bottlenecks. Bottlenecks are the reasons that your salon processes are less efficient, and they can cause unpleasant or frustrating experiences for both existing and potential clients.

What are bottlenecks?

Think about a bottleneck as an obstacle or a point of congestion that slows down your processes and negatively affects your client experience. For example, if a client calls your salon or clinic to book an appointment, but you’re too busy to pick up and a client has to call back later, that’s a bottleneck.

How to recognise bottlenecks

To identify your bottlenecks, have a deeper look at overall processes at your salon, spa or clinic.

Ask yourself the following questions:

• What are the areas or processes that take too much time from your clients or your staff?

• What can you gain from improving this process or your timing? For example, it can result in increased client satisfaction or improved service capacity.

• How can you solve this problem? For example, by hiring or assigning more staff or using salon management software. If you feel that processes at your hair and beauty business are in need of a major overhaul, consider speaking to a salon business coach.

How to solve common causes of bottlenecks

Improve your booking experience

Over the past few years, consumer preferences on how to shop or book services has shifted dramatically towards online booking across different industries like hospitality, tourism, retail, groceries, health and wellness. If you still rely on bookings by phone, it can be a major bottleneck in your hair and beauty business that causes gaps in your appointment book, lost clients or bookings, and ultimately lost revenue.

Online booking is becoming an expectation for clients as it offers the convenience to book an appointment from any device, anywhere and at any time. Think about all the channels your clients use to communicate with you or find out more information about your business. It can be:

• Your website

• Social platforms

• Google Business Profile

• Newsletters

• SMS text messages

• Emails

If you set up your online booking once, you can use the link and promote it through all these different platforms. Having online booking provides your clients with a choice of when, where and how to book with you. It also helps you avoid one of the major service bottlenecks and improve overall client satisfaction.

Learn more about the benefits of online booking to your business.

“The online booking system has made it easy for our clients to see the availability of appointments without needing to call or spend time emailing, which in turn helps the salon become more efficient.”

– Candice Whitehead, director of The Lounge and Co.

 

Improve your consultation experience

A consultation with a client can make or break their experience with your salon, spa or clinic. It sets the tone for the client’s hair or beauty journey and helps to determine the trust level your client will have with you. So how can you make sure that you run a consultation in an efficient way and provide additional value to your client?

Gather client information

The most important part of executing the perfect consultation is gathering information about your clients’ needs and goals that they want to achieve. How do you record and store this information? Remember, it’s important to keep this data in a safe and confidential manner but also make sure that your staff can access it to help them better prepare for the next appointment.

When your staff are getting ready for an appointment, can they access this information only from your computer at the front desk? If yes, this is a potential bottleneck as we know that the front desk area can easily get busy and overcrowded. Can your staff access it from tablets or smartphones anywhere in the salon?

With Kitomba Digital Forms, you can create a range of fully customisable forms which can be sent to clients prior to their appointment, and will automatically add to their client card. Client cards can be accessed on any device through Kitomba 1, and can be used to easily see all your clients information in one place.

See more about streamlining the client experience using Kitomba Digital Forms.

Use photos

A great way to elevate your client consultation is to use photos. For instance, it can be photo examples of what your client wants and likes. It can also be a photo before and after the treatment to document your client’s progress and journey.

Use tablets

Think about how you can use technology to improve your consultations and make them more efficient both for clients and your staff. For example, use tablets to access client cards with client information, treatment history, any allergies and preferences.

Set up new client forms

If a new client signs up for an appointment, send them an online form before their arrival so that they can fill out some information in advance and save time during their appointment. A formalised new client form will also help you to get to know your clients better, learn more about their needs and provide a personalised experience from the very first appointment.

 

For more ideas on how to improve your client consultations, check out these tips.

 

 

Improve your administrative processes

If you already have a system and process around collecting and storing your clients' information, that’s a good start! It will help you provide a great client experience and build client relationships. The next step is to find efficiencies by reducing the administrative burden. For example, if you are copying information from paper forms into client cards, scanning and saving a copy and then filing the paper away, it can be time-consuming and can lead to errors, such as forms being attached to the wrong client or information being incorrectly entered.

 

" One of the ways in which we deliver the best client experience for our people is to really make sure that we follow systems and provide that consistency. I know systems can be a bit boring, however, without them, one person walking in our door will get a completely different experience to the next person and consistency really is key for that. People talk."

– Janine Simons, owner of MANE Salon

Improve your client communication

When we look for ways to improve client experience, we often focus on the experience once a client arrives at our salon, spa or clinic, and our client communications can often get overlooked.
When it comes to communicating with your clients, think about the following questions:

 

Appointments

• When your client books an appointment over the phone or through online booking, do they receive an automatic confirmation with the appointment details that ideally, they can directly add to their calendar?

• Do you send your client a handy reminder a day or two before the appointment?

• If a client missed their appointment, do you follow up with them to reschedule?

• If a client hasn’t rebooked after their last visit, do you send them a reminder?

• If a new client books with you, do you send them a welcome email or text to make them feel cared about?

 

Added value

• If a client requires after-service care, how do you send them instructions or tips?

• If your client is running low on their favourite shampoo or skincare product, do you send them an email or text with a reminder to repurchase?

• Do you celebrate client’s birthdays or special occasions by sending them a message?

 

Feedback

• To make client experience even better, are you asking for feedback from your clients during their appointment or by sending them a follow-up message?

• If you’re working towards increasing the number of reviews on your website or social platforms, do you send an email or text message with a link to your clients?

• If a new client was referred to your business by a current client, do you send a thank-you note to them?

Keeping on top of all these communications can be a nightmare but it doesn’t have to be! To avoid this common bottleneck, the key is to reduce creating and sending these messages manually and instead, start using the magic of automatic marketing messages.

Automatic messages can be set up in advance and are triggered by a setting within your software that kicks off the automatic sending of an email or SMS to your clients, for instance, when they sign up for their first appointment. Take a look at your salon management software to check what triggers and automations are available to you. There may be a few default types already set up and you may also be able to create your own.

 

 

" With Kitomba, the feature that helps us provide a great customer experience is in the everyday texts and emails we can utilise with Kitomba Everyday Marketing campaigns. What that means for us is that we can quickly text our clients for example, ‘Hi Jane, (stylist name) is 15 minutes behind schedule, see you at 11.45 or come and relax with a coffee’. It’s instant and great communication. All of our clients expect a reminder text or email now, the everyday marketing set and forget communications of Kitomba is brilliant."

– Janine Simons, owner of MANE Salon

 

Read about how Kitomba Everyday Marketing can help automate your communication, and free up your time.

Client experience success stories

Client experience is crucial to the success of your hair and beauty business. But don’t take our word for it! We spoke to Kitomba salons, spas, clinics and barbershops that have outstanding client experiences and here’s what we can learn from them.