Social media for salons and spas Part 3

August 24, 2012 by

Five best practices to keep followers engaged

In parts one and two of this three-part series, I touched upon the importance of jumping into the social mediasphere, as well as some basic policies and procedures to protect the interests and reputation of your salon or spa’s brand. This week, I’d like to wrap up this discussion by sharing five best practices for salon/spa social media efforts. Just because someone has “liked” or “followed” your social campaign, doesn’t mean they will anxiously read every post/tweet from here to eternity. On the contrary, they will quickly tune out if your message isn’t relavant and concise.

Here are five best practices to keep followers engaged in your salon or spa’s social media efforts:

  1. Value and Interest: When posting to your blog, Twitter or Facebook, ask yourself if your content adds value and interest to the discussion. Make sure your comment, post or tweet is a valued piece of information.
  2. Personality: In the social media realm, you are encouraged to use your own voice and bring your personality to the forefront. The web is a venue that is relaxed, open and diverse — embrace it. A voice that is over-institutionalized and rehearsed can repel your audience.
  3. Planning: Putting in place a social media calendar of sorts for the year can help to organize you on how to cross promote your material and the times of year when you know you will have big events and may want to do extra posts. Also think about who on your team would be the best person to handle your social media needs and whether that is one person or multiple people. Make sure you are consistently contributing  content. You donʼt want to let your followers down by only posting a couple times a year.
  4. Join The Conversation: Listening and responding to your fans/followers through social media sites is just as important as posting information. Make sure you are responding to posts and questions from your followers and fans. Being a part of the conversation already happening about your company shows you care and creates community. Also realize that it isnʼt just about you are saying, it is also about the connections your fans/followers are making to other fans/followers through your site.
  5. Be Brief And Link When Possible: Ideally, posts should be very brief, redirecting visitors to content that resides on another site. Whenever possible, link back to the company’s website.

I hope this three-part series has shed some light on the very sensitive subject of social media and the salon/spa workplace.

Your turn: What problems or challenges have you recently encountered with social media? How did you decide to hand it?

 

Filed Under: Business Builders, Information Flow Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , ,

Why 7 out of 10 new salon and spa clients don’t come back

July 12, 2012 by

You cannot argue with the numbers. From a technical standpoint, the beauty industry offers consumers extraordinary levels of skill and expertise. From a customer service and True Quality standpoint, salons and spas score poorly. No matter how badly you want to refute this assessment, it is impossible to argue with industry-wide numbers that show salons and spas are not retaining seven of ten first-time clients. Interestingly, poor retention remains consistent from value-priced salons right up to upscale, service-intensive day spas.

  • On average, only three percent of owners know their retention rate.
  • Half of these confuse request rate with retention rate — they are not the same.
  • Most have no means to track retention. Even those with point-of-sale computer systems often realize their software doesn’t track retention properly, if at all.

It’s your True Quality score. The overriding objective of every business is to attract and retain customers. The higher your retention rate for first-time clients, the higher your level of customer satisfaction, and the closer you are to delivering consistent True Quality experiences. Granted, you want to satisfy clients on every visit, but client retention tracking begins on the first visit. If your salon or spa fails to perform to client expectations on the first visit, there usually is no second chance. If your business has a 30% first-time client retention rate, don’t even think of using “True Quality” to describe your business.

It’s your salon’s future. Winning the salon/spa business game means building a retained customer base that is loyal to the business. Your retained customer base is by far your most important asset. There is little resale value for used furniture and fixtures. The rules for winning the salon/spa business game have changed. True Quality is no longer an option for owners, but a necessity. The only way to know if your business is moving closer to True Quality is to track improvements in client retention rates. That’s where most salons are in the dark.

What are you doing to retain more new clients?

Filed Under: Customer Loyalty, Information Flow, Leadership, Productivity Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

It's about delivering on your promise to your customer

December 7, 2009 by

Seems the recent full moon has been bringing out those annoying behaviors that drive leaders crazy. I’m talking about things like lateness, absenteeism, missing daily huddles, not following procedures, right up to the ever-present “it’s good enough/it’s not my job” mentality. Yes, it’s all that behavior stuff that ultimately leads to one dramatic and sad conclusion – breaking the company’s promise to the customer.

What’s this big promise I’m referring to? The answer is pretty simple. You promise quality, personal attention, reliability, consistency, fast resolutions to problems, going above and beyond, integrity, team service and so on. Your promise contains all of those lofty and inspiring experiences you want the company you lead to deliver in mass quantities to your customers. [Read more...]

Filed Under: Monday Morning Wake-Up Tagged With: , , , ,

Business is really about connecting with customers

October 19, 2009 by

customers“A place where everybody knows your name.” That’s the famous line from the TV show Cheers. Every time Norm entered the bar, in unison, everyone would shout, “Norm!” He even had his own bar stool right next to mailman Cliff Clavin. Cheers may have been just a TV show, but it demonstrated the power of a business making connections with its customers. There’s something special about being treated as a valued customer – to be greeted by name and to have your preferences remembered. But in these systematize everything days, it’s easy for a business to rush by that most precious of business behaviors – connecting with customers.

By connecting, I mean the magic that occurs when human beings (employees) extend friendliness, warmth, caring and respect to other human beings (customers). You can systematize every minuscule process on your quest to achieve consistency and predictability, but it’s impossible to systemize the warmth of a smile, a caring voice and an engaging personality. These are human qualities. And it takes the right leadership, environment and culture to energize these qualities to a level that customers not only experience, but it draws them back for more. [Read more...]

Filed Under: Monday Morning Wake-Up Tagged With: , , , , ,