Salon Talk

One Kick Butt Fact you need to know as a Salon Owner

Malcolm | December 24th, 2009

You know – it struck me as I was sitting waiting for friend to have a drink with that at 4.15 on a Thursday afternoon there are literally thousands of potential clients for salons walking around.

How did I figure this out? Simple really, I just looked at their hairstyles and thought WOW, how much better that lady would look if she cut her style shorter, or longer or asymmetric or added colour… then I wondered to myself, what is her hairstylist doing to her. I bet she gave up a long time ago suggesting a new look, maybe because a client a long time ago said no to her, and mores the pity because one day that lady (and the thousands of others) will get bored (if she’s not already!) with her hairstylist and will probably go to another salon for a change of style, and she will do this because she will assume her current stylist cannot do ‘other styles’ than what she has been doing for years, if she could she would have suggested it… wouldn’t she?

Are you a Hair Salon Owner that doesn’t see the value in communication training or doesn’t make the time available to teach your team how to look after their clients? Are you watching your stylists let clients just go off to other salons to be pampered and cared for? If so what do you do? what do you think? do you do anything? do you want to do anything?

The truth is most clients will not move on if your team look after their emotional needs, as well as their hair needs.

So today’s One kick Butt Fact is: Your clients will not always wear the same hairstyle, I mean gee, do you or any of your team? I bet not, in fact you probably change it at least 3 or more times a year… or a week! So, why do you let your Stylists produce the same old styles week after week? Train them to offer change and watch your clients glow whilst watching your profits grow.

Time to get off the boredom wheel and kick some butt with new styles and ideas for all your Salons clientele, your clients will love you for it and reward you with increased spend and loyalty.

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Competing For the Customer – 4 Great Tips to Creating a Higher Expectation of Customer Service

Malcolm | December 19th, 2009

It is widely agreed that a high level of customer service contributes significantly to customer loyalty and results in return business. How often have you been affected by bad customer service at a local restaurant or petrol station and decided not to go there ever again because it appeared that the attendant didn’t care? Compare this with being served your meal very late but still being happy because you were looked after by the waiter very well, perhaps they were very polite, maybe they gave you a complimentary drink and offered a discount voucher for the next time you book. The difference in the two scenarios is the customer service expectation. The first scenario the attendant indicated to you that they didn’t care by just that… not caring, thus your expectation of customer service was low and you never complained, only promised yourself to never go there again. In the second scenario, the attendant at the restaurant created in you, the customer, a higher expectation of service because they cared, you expect to receive when you go again.

With this article, I intend to convince you, that just ‘good customer service’ is not good enough. Your customers will disappear as soon as your competitors offer a better service level than you. It is simply human nature to feel good when treated nicely; a customer will go where they are treated well. Most businesses offer good customer service however today good customer service is also simply not good enough. Everything else being equal, good customer service will help keep your business competitive, on the other hand, it will not get your competitors customers to come to you, nor will it assist greatly in increasing your customer base. So, as an SME owner/manager generally with limited a budget, a limited competitive advantage over your competition or maybe a not so ideal location, what do you do? I suggest you compete for your existing customers so as not to lose them and compete for a share of your competitions customers. You may be saying that this is not possible; your competition has a lower cost structure so they are cheaper, you may be concerned about the cost of staff training within your limited budget. I challenge you to create a line of defence to protect your customer base; you will also prepare, develop, test and bulletproof your firms abilities and capabilities. This will prepared you well when you are ready to entice and compete for your competitors’ customer or for that matter all new customers.

By now you are probably wondering or perhaps asking “how do I create a higher expectation of customer service?”

Its much easier than you think by following these key steps:

1: Identify your competitive advantage

This is any area of business where you are better than your competitor, identify your strengths and see where you are better than your competitor.

2: Identify what your competitors advantage is:

Is it price? Are you competitive around the pricing of your products and services? Do they have better delivery systems, delivery of service and product?, Identify your competitors advantage and remember price does not always dictate purchase decisions. It could be better opening hours, or a cast iron guarantee, maybe they handle returns or unhappy customers better.

3: Analyse the customer:

Blanchard and Bowels, the authors of ‘Raving Fans: a revolutionary approach to customer service’ suggests “trying to see customers as individuals and try to understand all their needs”. You should know your strengths and your competitors’ weaknesses. In analysing your customers, identify areas of concern for them and make every effort to exceed the service and delivery expectations of them. The key to this idea is creating a level of customer service in all areas of your business that far exceed the current level offered and be more competitive within your competitors’ weakness areas. Great customer service will contribute to new business coming to your door and sustain the existing customers need for continual recognition. Superior customer service will allow you to meet the market demand for your industries products and services irrespective completely of price or quality.

4: Communicate your ability to deliver:

To ensure that you compete for new customers you will need to communicate your ability to deliver Great Customer Service in a convincing way, which you should be able to do having tested it on your existing customer base. Now all that you need to do is communicate it to prospective customers through various marketing methods. Once they try your service and if it is the Great Service you created there will be excellent reason for them to try you and little reason for them to move on. Your ability to live up to the expectation you create in them from your marketing is needing to be kept up and you need to keep delivering to the standard you have improved upon and using it as a continuous improvement process.

Click Here to sign up for my Monthly Newsletter Salon Biz Tips and get FREE copy of my book  ‘7 Mistakes Salon Owners Make that Chop Away at Profits (and sleek techniques to solving them)

Five Super Reasons to train your team:

Malcolm | December 15th, 2009

Have you ever considered the value of training employees in the art of giving GREAT service?

The biggest complaint I hear from disgruntled clinic owners is that just after providing comprehensive service and ongoing technical training to team members, they up and leave taking all that knowledge with them for the benefit of the next place they work! Unfortunately, there are too many owners with this mindset of scarcity around training.

Looking at the issue, we first must acknowledge that this could be a problem, yes, training someone to perform at their best for your business and having them up and leave can be soul destroying if you are looking at it from a victim perspective.  Training is not the only answer to a successful business; however it is a very important cog in the wheel. It should be included as part of what you offer as a ‘balanced team focussed’ business, and in today’s clinic world we should very definitely be a people (team) focussed business. It was Mary Kay Ash that said “People are definitely a company’s greatest asset. It doesn’t make any difference whether the product is cars or cosmetics. A company is only as good as the people it keeps.”

So here are five super reasons to offer regular training to your team:

1 Productivity: ‘is a measure relating a quantity or quality of output to the inputs required to produce it’. Productivity training should help the team work more effectively thus helping the clinic to achieve its long term goals.

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2 Culture: ‘is a shared, learned, symbolic system of values, beliefs and attitudes that shapes and influences perception and behaviour’. Training helps develop a culture of learning within the clinic, one of my favourite quotes is ‘knowledge breeds confidence and confidence creates sales’.

3 Quality: ‘Quality is a measure of excellence; quality defines desirable characteristics of a product, a process, or a service’. The team will value the added quality they can give to their clients, and clients will love the added quality they receive from well trained, well informed team members.

4 Image: ‘the general impression that something (a person or organization or product) presents to the public’. Ongoing Training and Development helps in creating a better more professional clinic (and industry) image.

5 Profitability: ‘the ability of a firm to generate net income on a consistent basis.’ Training leads to improved profitability and more positive healthy attitudes towards the relationship between educating clients and profitability for the clinic.

Of course there are many additional benefits of team training including the development of leadership skills, higher motivation, loyalty (yes it does happen) and better, healthier attitudes amongst your team.

Look to your suppliers for specific product training and most of these organisations have some great ideas on the art of selling, some even have programs to help you with this. Consider looking at what other organisations are out there for sales training, the chamber of commerce is a good resource for this, also look at programs like Kiwi host for service training, and lastly don’t discount industry specific experts as sources of inspiration, these people are generally experienced in the Beauty Industry and are more than willing to share their knowledge with you and your team.

Raising the knowledge of you and your team regarding service is a step in the direction of raising the knowledge of the industry as a whole. The last few years of technology has somewhat ‘dehumanised’ the buying experience of your clients and your team (particularly younger members) have rarely been on the receiving end of great service, thus have not experienced the warm feelings that great service can bring. The clinics that recognise the value of pleasing the client and embrace this into the future will be the ones to reap the rewards that great service can bring.

Just a quick note on technical training, think about this; better educated therapists means better educated clients, and clients these days that are better educated are more inclined to spend their money knowing exactly what they are spending it on.

Let’s face it, with the availability of the internet with its plethora of beauty advice and knowledge, you better be up with the play or your clients could end up being better educated than you!

Oh and one last thought… Whilst understanding the real fear of clinic owners of when they train their team in giving GREAT service they then leave, Please Consider the implication to your Clients and business of NOT training them and they stay!

Click Here to sign up for my Monthly Newsletter Salon Biz Tips and get FREE copy of my book  ‘7 Mistakes Salon Owners Make that Chop Away at Profits (and sleek techniques to solving them)