How To ACTUALLY Get Clients To Stay Forever | Client Retention Strategies

Competition is fierce, and the cost of acquiring a new customer is getting higher and higher, so it's never been more important to maintain loyalty in your business. Here are my five tips on keeping your customers spending. Hello, hello, hello, my salon friends. Phil Jackson here, your queen of salons. How on earth are you? Achingly well, I hope. How is the summer treating you? Today we're talking about client loyalty, and I have to say I've always been very lucky in my businesses. Otherwise, perhaps not lucky as much as we've managed to get it right. We still have customers in the salon business now that were there on day one. Quite a lot of them actually have stuck with us through all of these years. And in my coaching business as well, my churn rates, the number of customers that I lose and have to replace each year, is very small as well compared to industry averages. And that's a really good thing for business, and it's a good thing for your business too, because to get a new customer into the business costs. It takes time, it takes effort, and it takes money. And the cost of acquiring a new customer in a salon is going up and up, because competition is going up and up. Competition between other salon businesses, but also competition because customers, some customers, are cutting back on their spend. There are less client visits to go around, so things are getting pretty fierce out there. That means maintaining customer loyalty becomes more important. And to be honest with you, is there anybody out there who would rather see new clients all day every day than see their regulars? Of course not. We love building those longer term relationships, those nurturing relationships with our salon customers. So today, my five tips on keeping customers with you for life. What can we do to make sure they stay loyal to you and loyal to your salon business? Well, tip number one is about the knowledge that we have of our customers. And we need to be constantly updating, polishing and refining our ideal customer avatar. We have an enviable position in our industry in that we get to spend all day every day asking questions which add to the picture that we have of that ideal customer. We literally have our test market sat in the chair or on the bed in front of us. So we get to ask these questions. Where are they spending their time? Where are they spending their money? What do they listen to when they're in the car? Do they listen to music or radio? Where do they get their news from?

What social media are they hanging out on? We get to deepen the connection that we have with our customers, deepen the relationship through a very solid understanding. The bit that people don't seem to resonate with, though, salon owners don't take seriously enough, is they don't understand how they're helping their customers. They think it's all about the service. They think it's all about the transformation. They think it's all about them looking better or feeling better as they leave. I promise you it's nothing to do with the services you're carrying out. It's about how you enhance that customer's life. What are you offering them? Is it sanctuary away from the family so they get some time to themselves? Is it finally someone they can confide in that isn't going to judge them for being slutty over the weekend? What is it that you're offering to your customers? Well, the thing is to maintain long term loyalty, that's going to change. So the customers that we had when we very first set up the salon 21 years ago are a different life stage now. When we started out, our ideal customer was someone who was working in senior management. They were running a team, usually as part of a big company. Then because we were keeping those customers for so long, we went through the stage where they were setting up their own consultancies or they were getting to very top level management or directorship of companies. Now we're at the stage where some of them are starting to retire. So we've got to adapt and change our business as time goes on because what's going on with our customers adapts and changes too. So if you're slavishly targeting people in their early 20s, bear in mind you're going to have to find a flow of new customers to replace them and actually maintaining lifetime loyalty with those original target customers is going to get harder and harder and harder. So that understanding of your customers needs to change over time and the understanding of how you can fulfill their needs changes too. What my customers need from me now is very different to what they needed from me 20 years ago. Tip number two is to make sure that we remain exceptional and that's talking about systems is talking about standardization is talking about leveling up the client experience as much as we possibly can. Now the difficult thing when I think where lots of salons go wrong is they get very complacent with their regulars. The level of service is different when you become a regular customer than it is when you're a new customer. Maybe we're not as forthcoming with ideas for the future.

Maybe we're not suggesting products as consistently. We're not upselling like we used to because we know that she never takes the upsells when we talk about it. So why bother and what happens over time is that we start to erode that customer experience when actually if you've got a deep understanding of your customer those upsells those recommendations should be really second nature to you and part of your consultation every single time. What we had to do was make a promise so we have a salon promise I've talked and mentioned this a few times if you want more information about this let me know and we'll do a whole episode on guarantees in your business. But we have a promise that we will carry out a full consultation every single visit and that doesn't matter whether you're a new customer or you've been coming to us for 20 years you will still get that full consultation. And part of that includes recommendations on what we would maybe think about doing or adding to your services next time. So delivering a consistent but exceptional level of service is really tough when you've got that level of familiarity with someone but it's vital if you're going to keep them feeling valued in your business. Tip number three or actually it's an anti-tip it's something that I don't believe works for maintaining long-term loyalty and that is loyalty schemes. Honestly so many loyalty schemes that I see are just discounts hiding under a different name. Basically it's you accumulating points to get some money off a service a bit further down the line and I have a problem with this on a couple of levels. Firstly I don't think the reason that people keep coming to you is because they're accumulating these points on some card attached to their key ring. And also if you really screw things up if you get somebody's beauty service horribly wrong or if you cock up somebody's haircut very badly I don't believe that those points will maintain that loyalty. I don't think it's enough to keep someone in the business if things go wrong. The second problem I have with it is what we're doing is discounting our very best customers. So we're taking someone who's loyal we're taking someone who's profitable we're taking someone who's long-term and reducing the attractiveness of that customer with loyalty points.

So if nothing else if you take nothing else from this episode have a look at discontinuing your loyalty program. I don't think it's going to make that much difference to your customer loyalty it might make a big difference to your long-term profitability. The money that you've been giving away in those discounts let's reallocate that let's start recognizing loyalty in a slightly different way. Wouldn't it be lovely if I turned up for a hair appointment having coming to your having been coming to your salon for a few years and you said you know what Phil. You've been a great customer here for a few years now have this one on us completely unexpected how blown away would I be and actually it's probably going to cost you the same as those loyalty points or a little gift. Why not you know we were all very good at sending text messages now or emails when it's somebody's birthday over time maybe after I've been coming to you for a few years. I don't just get an email I get a card in the post you can afford to do that if you're not doing loyalty points or maybe after 10 years I get a bunch of flowers delivered to my house instead. We can afford to do this if we reallocate that budget that's been going on these second rate discounts. Tip number four if you want to deepen the connection with customers you've got to be contacting them regularly and this is particularly important as I've already mentioned today. If people are starting to reduce their frequency of visits so lots of people are looking for ways to curb their spending slightly and that means that some of our loyal customers instead of coming in every three or four weeks might be pushing their visits to every five or six weeks. That's dangerous for your business but it also means that we have to make sure we're staying in constant contact with our customers in between their visits. We need to deepen that connection we need to make sure that we are staying in constant touch and that can be through text messages through whatsapp or through social media of course but definitely through sending emails. So if you're not emailing your customers regularly and I'm talking about value driven emails as well by the way if all you're doing is dropping an email into my inbox every week trying to sell me something new that's going to get really tiring very quickly. So we also need to be making sure making sure that we're delivering value that means sharing your expertise sharing your knowledge sharing stories to deepen that personal connection that brand loyalty that I have with you. So constant communication keeping in touch in between our visits and then my final tip is to make sure that our customers feel part of something.

This actually goes for your customers and your team. It's not enough now for people to come in and have a wonderful service. It's not enough not for long-term loyalty. I've got to feel part of the family. I want to feel that I've bought in to your values. Now I'm not talking about a huge level of familiarity but I want something that I can get behind. I want to buy into your values not just the services that you carry out. So we're talking about that deep connection and here is one of the spaces where I think social media works really well. I personally don't believe social media is amazing for getting lots of new customers into your salon but I think it's incredible for deepening connections. Show me behind the scenes. Let me hear from other team members that perhaps I haven't spoken to you in your business before. Show me the causes that you support on social media. Show me the team that you're sponsoring or show me the competitions that you're entering. I want to feel part of the family. I want to feel that I know your business inside and out. Like I've said don't mistake that for a level of familiarity where things get casual. That's not what this is about. It's about deepening that relationship and making sure that I'm brought into your brand as a whole. Also by the way that means you've got to be really clear about what your brand is about and if you haven't spent the time to really clearly identify what kind of brand it is that you're trying to build here I would do that before any of the stuff that I've mentioned today. So how about you? What have I missed? I don't know everything and I would love to hear from you. What are you doing to maintain loyalty long term in your business? And I don't want to hear about loyalty schemes. I want to hear about the stuff that you're doing that keeps people really excited. I'd love to give you a call out on the Build Your Salon podcast and a mention in a future episode. Also reach out if you would like to be a guest on a future episode if you've got a topic you would like to bring to the table and be interviewed by me. Also reach out with future questions for my Q&A sessions which I try and run every single month. They only work if you're sending your questions in. Just seven short days until I'm coming in your eyes and ears again with another dose of Wise Owl wisdom. And until then, take care. Sit down and see what's going on with the queen of salons. Hair, beauty, and more successful tips for business owners. All on Build Your Salon.