Getting your Salon prepared for when you can re-open

Afternoon guys, Happy Friday you’ve made it through another week of lock-down. Hope you and all your families & friends are keeping well during this time. As we all prepare for another 3 weeks of staying at home, we wanted to give you something to think about during this time while you have some spare hours. And so, we’ve put together a few little helpful tips on what you can be doing during the next few weeks, to get your salon prepared and organised ready for when we can return to some level of normality. 

Pull a list of clients who were due to have appointments with you throughout the lock-down.

Obviously once the lock-down was enforced, anyone that had an appointment booked with your salon over the last 4 weeks and the coming 3 weeks, is going to be unable to have that service with you. So now is a great time to pull a list of all of those customers and contact them, to let them know that you haven’t forgotten about them and you will be looking to rearrange their appointment for them as soon as you are able to re-open. You can make a list from the earliest date to most recent, to ensure clients are seen in their original booking order too once you reopen, and it is also a chance to stay in contact with your clients, to make sure that they attend their new appointment.


Marketing and Social Media Campaign to Push Waiting Reserve List

Aside from clients that were already booked in, you can also use this time to utilise your social media channels and if you’re a user of our software, use the marketing suite, in order to contact your whole database of clients to get them to reserve an appointment with you. Again, you could run this on a first come, first serve basis, so that any clients that get in touch you can add them to a reserve waiting list, so that you can offer them an appointment slot in that same order once you are able to reopen. This not only means you are remaining in communication with your entire client base, but it also improves your engagement on social media too by showing that you are thinking of your customers.

Welcome Back Offers

Following the lock-down, people will have come out of all sorts of different situations, due to the unprecedented situation of the last few and also near future upcoming weeks, financials could be uncertain and therefore this may be something to take in to account for when you re open. We appreciate that this has also been a struggle for all salons too not being able to take any custom during these times; however, if you have a little bit of leeway to be able to make a few small offer gestures, this may go a long way with clients who perhaps are also in a difficult situation too. These could be really small % off discounts, or even just free samples with treatments, if you are in a position to be able to offer these. It’s a good time to brainstorm and have a think about what you are potentially able to offer as an exclusive welcome back to your customers.


Treat to Loyal Customers

You will all have your clients that you see and speak to on a regular basis, so it is almost certain that these types of customers will be so ready to get back to your salon for their usual treatments. However, this is a time to remember their loyalty with you and your business, and also a great time to show your appreciation in how much they value your salon. If you are a user of our software, you can use our marketing filters to actually pull your top 10, 20, 50 or how every many you wish, of your best spending customers. You can then send them a direct SMS message straight from the system, which could be just a little text to thank them for their support over the years and then maybe a little loyalty gift/offer for when you can reopen? If you’re not a user of Salon Tracker, you will probably already have a very good idea of who your regular customers are, so you could do something similar by dropping them a message even over social media, with a similar idea of thanking them and offering them an exclusive little treat. You guys as salon owners will know what little loyalties have worked before, so this is a good time to have a think about this and get messaging those regulars!


Brainstorm re-organisation in Salon Ready for a Spring (early Summer) clean.

And to finish, have you had time to have a think about any décor changes in the salon recently? Now might be the time to brainstorm how you could reorganise certain parts of your business, and maybe plan that fresh new colour that you’ve been wanting for your salon. Obviously, you can’t be going and prepping buying paint and things just yet, and definitely can’t re-decorate right now. But, once you are able to re-open, we still have little information on what the logistics of this could be – it may be a phased return where only a number of clients are allowed through the door per day? Who knows, but if you can occupy your mind with your creative side in between appointments, this could be a great time to refresh your salon and have a good Spring clean! As they say, tidy desk, tidy mind! Happy atmosphere in the salon = happy customers! If you can create a clean, refreshed environment, this will then reflect to your customers and we definitely all need a bit of uplift at the minute. So, it’s time to get in touch with your creative side and get brainstorming some salon interior ideas. Get your team involved too over a skype or zoom call, to make sure you keep touching base with your employees too.

Hope this has helped to give you guys something to think about. We are going to be hosting another webinar next week on helping you to market to your clients and prepare for once you can re-open, so keep posted on information about that!

Until then, stay safe, stay at home and take care!

Salon Tracker x