Increase salon re-bookings

Why increase salon re-booking?

Re-booking is a hot topic at the moment, with all the key training organisations talking about the need to encourage clients to visit more often. It makes sense; if every client visited 6 times per year instead of 5, a salon with 1,000 customers charging an average price of £40 per appointment, would see an extra £40,000 revenue per year. This is a very basic example, but it’s easy to see how this simple formula can apply to any appointment-based business.

If clients are not actively invited to re-book, they are likely to leave longer between visits and naturally let their appointments slip. It’s human nature to forget and our lives are busy, so many clients appreciate our offers to set their next appointment time for them. Often, all it takes is to ask.

There are some simple methods that can help to increase your chances of securing those extra bookings, including; offering discounts and loyalty stamps to clients, or reminding and incentivising staff about the need to ask that all-important question.

We’ll cover all this in more detail later, but first let’s look at how to find out how well you’re currently doing when it comes to re-booking.

What is your current re-booking %?

Do you know how many clients currently re-book after their appointments? If not, there’s a simple way to find out. You can find your current re-booking rates by looking at your re-booking report. Find it at: MENU > REPORTS > APPOINTMENT > REBOOKING REPORT.

What to aim for

It is difficult to know what the average re-booking rate is, particularly as so many salons still don’t have any kind of salon management system in which to measure this. We do know, however, that the rates of re-booking vary dramatically between salons, and can reach as high as 80% and above. All that’s needed is focus _ and i-salon software of course!

Discounts & offers

Many salons choose to offer a discount or loyalty stamp _ perhaps for a free haircut or treatment once several have been collected _ if clients re-book at the till. These can both be very effective, but a degree of caution is needed to ensure you don’t over-do it. Both options need to be time-limited, otherwise they will simply erode profits rather than encourage more frequent visits.

For example, a client can be offered a discount on their next haircut if they come in within the next  5 weeks, but they’ll have to pay full price if they visit after this time. Likewise, clients can be asked to collect 5 stamps _ one per visit _ to get the sixth visit free, so long as all 6 appointments occur in the same calendar year. 

Remind staff

Often, the reason clients don’t re-book at the till is because reception staff have forgotten to ask them. You can set up a re-booking reminder in i-salon, which automatically displays on the till screen, reminding your team to ask clients whether they’d like to book their next appointment.

To set up a re-booking reminder on the till screen MENU > SETUP > CONFIGURATION > APPOINTMENTS and tick ïRebooking reminder’.

Educate

This one is a tip that we picked up when speaking to salons about their experiences of re-booking and what can help to improve their results. A great tip from a salon with more than 80% of clients who were re-booking with a particular stylist told us the secret to her success was her forward-thinking.

When consulting her clients, she would talk about what they wanted to achieve long-term from their hairstyle _ did they want to grow their style out, or improve the condition or shape, for example? She would then discuss a plan that involved the next three appointments, so that the client was encouraged about the results they would achieve if they kept coming back for regular visits.

This tip really works, and helps to increase loyalty and recommendations too. Clients love to feel as though their stylist or therapist really cares about their long-term results. All it takes is a little time to find out what clients like and dislike about their hair, skin, nails, etc. and how they’d like you to help them change things for the better. 

Incentivise

All salon and spa businesses, and indeed staff, are familiar with targets. Make sure re-booking is one of the areas which is measured and targeted for team members at all levels. Talk about how each team member is doing at team meetings to help share the good ideas.

And finally, avoid no-shows

We know that bookings which are made weeks in advance are more prone to no-shows than last-minute appointments. So, here’s how to avoid those future appointments ending up as wasted time in the salon.

Simple appointment reminder texts are enough to combat clients forgetting their appointments, eliminating 80-90% of no-shows on average. Setting up i-text is simple and takes just a few minutes, plus your first 200 texts are free! Contact your Account Manager for help with this. Email info@i-salonsoftware.co.uk or call 08444 457205.