Why Salon Memberships Fail in Month 3 | The Fix Nobody Tells You

I hope by now I've convinced you that salon memberships should be part of your business plans for 2026. In terms of smoothing those peaks and troughs in your income, in terms of standing out as something different from your competitors, they can't be beaten. But most of all, they're an amazing tool for promoting customer loyalty. And most memberships will run for years if we can get them past month three, but so many don't. Here's why. Come on, build your salon. Hello, hello, hello, my salon friends. Phil Jackson here, your queen of salons, coming all over the internet with another dose of my Wise Owl wisdom. How on earth are you achingly well, I hope, as we steam towards the end of the year with our last Build Your Salon podcast episode of the year. How's it been for you? How has 2025 been? I always find in this bit of time between Christmas and New Year's, so many people are taking a good hard look at their business, figuring out what's working and what's not and what they're going to take forward into 2026. And I am here for it. That's exactly what you should be doing before you set out and do your goal setting. And of course, I'm hoping as your queen of memberships to see that memberships are going to be a really strong feature of your business plans next year, because I honestly believe that memberships should be part of every single salon and clinic business out there. I think they're an incredible tool. And we've talked lots of times about some of the benefits of salon memberships, and I hope I don't need to convince you, but maybe you have memberships in place and maybe the picture is not quite as rosy as it ought to be. And the pattern seems to be that we bring memberships in and there's a big, exciting launch and there's some really early signups and lots and lots of energy put behind our salon memberships. And then things start to go a little bit quiet or start things start to go a little bit wobbly. Maybe we start to get some people cancelling their recurring payments. I have seen this a hundred times, my darling, and I promise you there are some very simple things that we can put in place to make sure we're getting people past that 90 day mark. Because the truth is, if we can keep them for more than 90 days, if we can keep them loyal for that little bit longer, they tend to see the longer term benefits of their membership and they will be loyal for years. I promise you they're going to turn into some of your favourite customers ever.

So where are things going wrong? Where could we be getting things just a little bit away from target, which is actually killing the ability for you to keep those members for longer? Well, the first thing is that I see people selling to the wrong customers. What you're doing so many times is taking your best customers and moving them on to salon memberships. The problem is memberships require a slightly different model of loyalty. That continual spend month after month, which we enjoy as salon owners because it gives us that predictability of income, smooths those peaks and troughs, requires something different from our customers. In my mind, there's a continuum which runs from 1 to 10. At number 1, we have those customers who only come in when they have been bought a gift voucher or when you've put some late availability on Facebook or because they can't get in anywhere else. They're probably going to lots of other salons for services in between. The loyalty just isn't there. Then at number 10, we have your absolute diehard customers, the ones that were first back into the salon after COVID, the ones that would crawl over hot coals to make sure they get the appointment that they need. They're the ones that buy you the Christmas gifts. They are supremely loyal customers. I see so many people trying to build memberships either for those people at number 1 who are never going to be loyal, trying to turn them into someone who's happy to give you a direct debit or recurring card transaction month after month after month when the loyalty just isn't there. It's never going to work. They're your number 7s and number 8s. They're the people who really are fans of the salon. Maybe they're going to set themselves an intention and a New Year's resolution to put themselves first in 2026. But you know that by March, they will have gone off the radar a little bit.

Life will have got in the way. Kids will have got in the way. Other priorities will come along. And that New Year's resolution will be pushed to one side. Perfect customer for salon memberships. So that's who we're targeting at. And they should see the benefit in your membership really quickly. That means they're going to make it past that 90-day mark and be membership customers for a really long time. Mistake number 2. Killer number 2. Let's be dramatic about it, shall we? Because SEO loves that. The problem is there's no engagement beyond the service. They come into the salon. They get their hair service or their beauty services done. And then they leave. There's no recognition of the fact that they're giving you that extra loyalty. There's no member perks. There's nothing that makes them feel like they're part of something. It just feels like a standing order. And that's not going to be enough to keep people excited, to remind them why they signed up, but most importantly, why they should continue to be a salon memberships customer. We're going to need to build some extra stuff in, and it takes a little bit of effort. Maybe we need to start getting our customers who are membership customers on a separate list away from our email list and talking to them in a slightly different way, bringing them extra communication from you that they wouldn't get otherwise, making them feel special and that they're part of something special too. Maybe it's as simple as just recognising that they're membership customers and giving them those sprinkling over a few of those extra benefits. For example, maybe next year, they're going to get first dibs on those December appointments. Maybe we've got a slightly different cancellation policy, or perhaps there's some extra exclusive services that we can build in that only our members are going to get access to. In my salon, we had a couple of events per year that were member-only events. One of them was at Christmas, so that's nice and fresh in everyone's mind. We had a Christmas event for our regular customers, and then the next night we had the same event, but for members only. And it's when we put the Prosecco away and got the real champagne out. It's when the canapes were levelled up a little bit. And my members loved it, because they started coming back year after year, seeing familiar faces, starting to strike up friendships, feeling like it wasn't just a membership. It was a club that they were part of, and it was a reminder why they signed up in the first place. Or maybe it's as simple as just leaving something behind reception for them. Maybe it's not about giving them goodies when they sign up. Perhaps at month three, we could have an envelope behind reception just with a couple of samples in it. And when they come in for their service, oh, I see that you're a member.

Here's your benefit for month three. What about setting up a few things like that? Yes, I know it's a little bit of effort, but in exchange, we're getting the most loyal, highest spending customers in your business. Surely that's got to be worth a little bit of work. And I know it's not infinitely scalable, and I know it takes time, but I promise the benefits far outweigh any time that you're spending. Killer number three is we don't notice when they start drifting away. Maybe they don't book their next appointment and you don't say anything. Maybe the frequency starts to drop. Now, this is a difficult one because what we find is that when people first sign up for memberships, they're in the salon a lot. It's a bit like when you first join a gym, particularly if you have an unlimited membership, which are my favorite memberships, as you well know. But when you first join a gym, you're there all the time. You go for the show around. You go for your induction. You go, you know, three, four times a week. Maybe then you don't quite go three or four times a week, but you go along and use the sauna and the steam room. Or maybe you don't actually use the sauna and the steam room, but you use the car park and make sure that you can park there for nothing where you go to Costa next door. But you're there an awful lot. Then over the next few weeks, what will happen is your frequency will start to come back to something that's manageable for you in the long term. So a little bit of a drop in frequency is actually very common. But normally that happens about week four, week five. We start to settle back into a routine that we can maintain for the next 12 months. But beyond that, if frequency is still starting to drop, you've got to notice. You've got to step in. You've got to make sure that people are using their membership to the absolute maximum. Now, this takes a little mindset shift because I understand that some salon owners might be really tempted to let this slide. They might actually be really happy that people are giving them month after month, but not coming in for their services. But the problem is unless people are getting maximum benefit, unless they're absolutely using their membership as much as they possibly can, they're going to cancel. They're going to forget the reasons why they signed up in the first place. They're not going to be loyal in the longer term. So it's your job to make sure people are getting every last ounce of benefits out of their membership. So what are we going to do? Well, the first thing I've already alluded to is to start sprinkling some of those benefits that don't cost you anything apart from a little bit of effort,

a little bit of time into their membership, some pleasant surprises along the way, making them feel that there's actually ongoing benefits to their membership. Maybe a quick check in by email somewhere around the 45 to 60 day mark. How about something just saying, how's your membership going? Make it simple. Keep it personal. Show that you care, because if they're not getting the benefit, we want to catch those issues before month three. Those little moments that I've talked about, just a small thank you, or maybe getting that monthly tip email just for members, making them feel special, not just another client. If a member hasn't booked their next appointment, we need to start following up much more quickly, more quickly than you do for your existing customers. I know lots of you have got booking systems that will push people to rebook if they haven't after, say, four or five or six weeks for your membership customers. Because that's too long. We need to be checking in, saying, we haven't seen your book. Is everything OK? Catch them before they have a chance to cancel. These are your best customers. Don't let them go. And I promise you, if they start to cancel their membership, they will start to think about relocating as well. We've got to keep them in the loop once they've joined up. I have membership clients. Well, one membership client I'm thinking of in particular had an awful lot of cancellations at month three. We stepped in, we figured out that she was selling to the wrong people, and we started to put that check in. We dropped those cancellations to almost zero. And that's not unusual in membership customers. And all she did was make sure she was selling to the right people, putting that check in email. Hers was actually at 60 days, so quite a long way down the line. And I wouldn't necessarily go that far. And just making sure that every month the customer's got something from her, whether it be a note at reception or a few samples or just that monthly tip. That's it to make sure that we kept people loyal, kept them spending, kept them part of her membership. So my call to arms for you, while you've got a bit of time before the chaos of January, I want you to think about setting some of these automations up, getting some of these systems in place, re-look at your membership, and also think about joining SalonSpark. This is my weekly accountability group.

You've got an amazing community of salon owners, plus my expert coaching. Try it for a month. There's a link in the show notes where you can get your first month of SalonSpark for just one pound. It's not coaching in terms of giving you more and more information. It's coaching to keep you on track in 2026. And the key phrase to repeat is month three is where your memberships die or thrive. So let's make sure that you're thriving into the next year. Please, if there's anything I've missed, if there's anything you want to hear from me on memberships on the Build Your Salon podcast, reach out and let me know. My email address is scrolling at the bottom of the screen right now. Also reach out if you would like to be a guest in 2026 on the Build Your Salon podcast. I would love to be sharing your success story with my amazing Build Your Salon podcast viewers and listeners. Just a few short days until I'm coming all over the Internet again with another dose of my wise hour wisdom in 2026. Please, I wish you all a beautiful, peaceful, prosperous new year. And until then, take care.