FIVE STEP plan to ReStart your Salon or Spa from MIKAL

5 Step Plan Turn your Reluctant and Skeptical Clients into Super Stalwart clients! Do you have the tools in place to not just reopen your business but to resume and grow your business in this challenging new business environment? Okay – so we have reopened. The rush of clients was amazing but now the client flow has slowed. Salons seem to have a clientele divided into three segments. The Stalwarts are the clients that are getting services just like always – the ones that could not wait to get back to the (new) normal. The Skepticals are the clients who are coming in with concerns, limiting their time at the salon, and are reluctant to reschedule when leaving. The Resistants are the group that has just not felt comfortable enough to come back yet. It is rough enough that our hours and staffing are limited. So we have split shifts, expanded hours, done price increases or service charges and other strategies to keep the doors open. These strategies have helped but more has to be done to really resume your business and start to grow your business again. We need to engage the Skeptical and Resistant clients to create visits and increase sales. Here are the 5 Steps and strategies Mikal Software salons are using to resume business and grow their businesses. First let’s make sure we are rewarding our Super Stalwart clients – the one who would risk life and limb to get those services done by you. Fire up your client Loyalty and Rewards program for these clients. Here is how one of our salon/spas restarted the points program when reopening: The Spa Owner says… We instituted our program in June on reopening and the clients LOVE it! We give 10 points for every service dollar and have our flyer posted all over the Spa. We also have emailed 7000 people on our Mikal email list about the new Points program. (Note the support that the spa gives the program with flyers, posted info, and direct email marketing to customers.) We have a program called “Pamper Points”. The first reward is a haircut. This is the department we are building. We printed a Mikal Customer Ranking report for the 6 months before lockdown, and worked out the average dollar amount spent by our clients per year. The rewards are to encourage clients to spend more in addition to rewarding our “big spenders”. Redemptions include: - 10 facials generate enough points for a complementary shampoo, conditioner, style and waxing. - 10 massages generate enough points for a complementary hot oil scalp treatment and paraffin hand and foot treatment. (Pedicure and Manicures are extra) We pay our staff for the services rendered. We also introduced a Couples Night Out. It is a great way to get clients to bring in a second potential client to the Spa. We have this deal on our website and in Mikal software have put in a client type for “Couples Night” so we can mail Text or email them with future specials and events – i.e. makeup events. We are building our makeup division. We emailed this info to clients, too. The Couples Nights are held on our slow nights to control numbers in the salon/spa and also build our slow evenings. We also are now open on Sundays for Couples Afternoon Affairs (lol) and were never open before on Sundays. We are working on teen workshops for the Winter/Spring. They are a great untapped market with disposable income for cosmetics and makeup! Some marketing rules for your Loyalty Points program: - Do not expect the staff to describe the points program to customers. You need to market the points program with a sign in the waiting area, on the stations, with direct mail to customers, and information on your service menu and at the front desk. - Do not allow points to be redeemed for popular services that customers are buying. If you are a full service salon do not allow points to be redeemed for haircuts and hair color. If you are a spa don't allow points to be redeemed for facials or pedicures. Pick services or retail items that you want to move or build along with staff you want to build and set them up as items that can be redeemed. - Have a BIG item that customers who accumulate a ton of points can have. One spa has a special deal for 10,000 points (that's right ten thousand points) that a customer can redeem a morning make over with a limo pickup, flower bouquet, champagne brunch, salt glow massage, make up touch up, and styling service - all done on a weekday morning by 10:00 a.m.! For a customer to get this package they have to have spent $1000.00 on services this year (points are cleared each year) and each service dollar is worth 10 points. The limo and flowers are bartered with local merchants and the salt glow and style costs the spa in payroll $40.00. The service is done on weekday mornings only (slow times for the salt glow and the limo company) and the customer goes off to work or whatever feeling and looking great! - You may want to allow points to be partially redeemed for service or retail items, or you may not. Decide up front if the customer needs all the points or can make a partial payment. - Have the rules and items that can be redeemed printed out and make sure the front desk is scripted on how to describe the program. Role play with the front desk on different questions the customers will ask. Come up with off the wall questions and role play them (your customers will ask some strange questions). If you only allow redemption for certain services at certain times and days make sure that is spelled out in writing. If you can redeem points for retail items be sure to identify the items or lines that are available for point’s redemption. The more time and effort you put into the program up front the easier it will be to administer and the better the staff and customers will like the frequent buyer/points program. So think about how to reward those Stalwart clients. Give them Double Points on slow days/times, Give them points for prebooking the next appointment before leaving. Mikal software executes all these strategies seamlessly and without any effort on your part. Set up the Loyalty Points program in with Mikal if runs automatically!