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Retaining your clients can be tricky when you run a business, especially when it’s a salon, and there are countless alternatives that your clients may consider. Even if your customers are satisfied with your services, your competitors may try grabbing their attention with special deals or discounts. A wise move would be to ensure that your clients schedule their next appointment with you before they leave. Pulling it off may not be as easy as it sounds. However, with well-thought-out tactics, you can convince them to visit you again. Here are a few useful strategies to get clients to book their next appointment before they leave your salon:
1. Offer the Best Experience
It’s a no-brainer that the chances for a client to book an appointment with you for the next time increase if you offer a seamless experience during their current visit.
The goal here is to meet the expectations of your clients each time they visit you to ensure that they will keep coming back to you.
No matter the service they choose, you should offer your best. It’s the key to retaining your clients in the long run.
2. Make Things Easy
Try not to overwhelm your clients with the scheduling process. You should make things as easy as you can.
A common mistake many make is asking for excessive information from clients during the scheduling process.
Another mistake is making the scheduling process unnecessarily complex or adding too many steps to it. So, we recommend optimizing your web forms and keeping them as simple as you can.
The best course of action here is to leverage an appointment solution for your salon, so your clients can book their next appointment from the palm of their hands.
Giving your clients an option to schedule appointments online will significantly improve your return rate and help you generate more revenue.
3. Leverage the Power of Small Talks
You already know how essential small talk is when running a salon. It helps you establish a strong bond with your clients and cultivate loyalty.
Another benefit of small talk is that it enables you to generate awareness about personal grooming and hygiene.
Complement your clients on their style or appearance and remind them about the importance of maintaining it.
It may help you convince your clients to make online reservations with you on a periodic basis and improve your retention.
4. Advertise Your Busy Schedule
Being available for your customers is a good thing. But sometimes, the best course of action is to advertise your busy schedule.
Showing your clients that your services are in high demand may work in your favor and make them want to book their next appointment with you in advance.
The key is finding the right balance. Be available for your clients, just not too much. Let them know that there’s a possibility that they may not always find their preferred slot.
This way, your clients will know that if they want the best experience at the time of their choosing, they’ll have to reserve their next appointment before leaving your salon.
5. Generate Awareness
One of the excellent strategies to bond with your audience and strengthen your relationship with them is to facilitate their access to useful information.
We’re not saying that you should disclose all your trade secrets or tell them the recipe for your secret sauce.
However, sharing a few useful grooming tips or skin care hacks may help you strengthen your bond with your clients.
You can also think about hosting webinars or other virtual events to educate your clients and share useful information with them.
This way, your clients think that they’re getting more value from the services you offer, which fuels your retention.
6. Watch Your Tone
Asking your clients to book their next appointment with you before they leave may be a viable strategy. However, there’s a chance that it may backfire.
People generally don’t like it when you dictate the terms for them. So, when asking your clients to schedule their appointments in advance, make sure that it doesn’t sound as if you’re ordering them around.
Make it sound more like a suggestion or a recommendation. For example, if someone visits you for a haircut, tell them that they may need to revisit within three or four weeks if they wish to maintain their current style.
This way, you have effectively conveyed your message, and your clients are aware of what they should do.
7. Don’t be Shy
After providing the requested services, try asking your clients if they’d like to book the next appointment with you before they leave. It may seem awkward, but it works well in many situations.
Sometimes, all it takes is for you to ask your clients to book their next appointment with you in a polite way.
What’s the worst that can happen? They’ll either say that they’ll think about it or decline your offer.
However, there’s a chance that they may actually book their next appointment before leaving your salon.
It may sound like a simple tactic. But sometimes, all it takes is a simple strategy to retain your customers.
8. Offer Easy Rescheduling
One of the reasons people don’t book appointments upfront is uncertainty. Something may come up when they have an appointment scheduled, and they fear that they’ll miss it.
You can help them overcome this fear by having an easy-going appointment cancellation policy and rescheduling process. Tell your clients that they don’t need to worry if they won’t be able to show up. They can reschedule their appointment by simply reaching out to you.
There may be a number of ways you can ask your clients to reschedule or cancel their appointments. They can text you, email you, call you, or reach out to you through relevant social media platforms.
You can also consider leveraging chatbots to facilitate your clients if they choose to reschedule their appointments.
If your clients know that they can effortlessly schedule appointments through multiple channels and reschedule them, they won’t hesitate to book a slot before leaving.
9. Offer Discounts
Offering discounts or deals is a proven strategy to retain your clients and convince them to keep using your services. Offering an incentive may encourage your clients and showcase that you value their loyalty.
For example, you can tell your clients if they schedule their next appointment now, they’ll get a 20% discount on all service charges.
If you think offering a discount isn’t a viable strategy for you. You can offer complementary services, such as free beard trimming on a booking for a haircut.
You can also consider gifting them branded merchandise and other freebies upon a successful booking before they leave. Just throw in a little extra and incentivize their loyalty.
Over to You
There you have it, the notable strategies to get clients to book their next appointment before they leave your salon.
If you’ve been wanting to grow your reservations and improve your return rate, the recommendations in this article may help.
The strategies will help you build lasting relationships with your clients and ensure loyalty in the long run. So, give them a go and see if they work for you.
Author Bio
Syed Balkhi is the founder of WPBeginner, the largest free WordPress resource site. With over 10 years of experience, he’s the leading WordPress expert in the industry. You can learn more about Syed and his portfolio of companies by following him on his social media networks.