5 Tips to Improve the Hair Salon Guest Experience

Paying attention to details and making your clients’ salon experience easy, pleasant and satisfying can keep them from reaching out to your competitors.

It’s a good bet that your clients pass numerous styling salons on their way to work daily or while they’re running errands around town. Those competing salons may pique their curiosity, or your clients may drive on by without paying much attention.

But you can be sure that if a client feels like they’re not valued or not receiving quality hair styling services, those competitors might start gaining more of their attention, no matter how long your client has been coming to your salon.

“If you haven’t developed a gold-standard guest experience from beginning to end, it doesn’t matter how big your marketing budget is or how talented your team is,” according to beauty business marketing consultant Stephanie Mitchell, owner of Sunnystorm Marketing. “You will be losing clients left and right.”

And you can’t always count on your clients to fill you in on what they don’t like, either.

“If you’re not providing great customer service and a memorable experience, clients will either have nothing to say, or worse, they might have a few choice words that won’t shine a favorable light on your beauty business.”

To create a guest experience that will keep regular clients returning and convince a new client that you and your hair salon are right for them, try these five tips for improving the hair salon guest experience.

1. Make online booking easy

The guest experience doesn’t necessarily begin when the client walks through the door. The pre-appointment experience is huge when it comes to a satisfying guest experience at your salon, according to Mitchell.

Offering online booking through your website saves time for both staff and customers, and it’s vital that you make the process easy to use and understand for all concerned.

Mitchell recommends asking a friend to book an appointment via your salon’s website and let you know the pros and cons of their booking experience so you can make any necessary improvements.

“Perfecting this first part of your guest experience is the difference between having a relaxed, confident, and informed new client in your chair excited about your services, and a frustrated, confused, put-off new client who’s biding their time to say goodbye forever,” says Mitchell.

2. Extend a warm greeting

When stylists are busy with clients, it’s easy to let a warm greeting slide while focused on providing quality services to the client in the chair. Even if you’re swamped, take a second to smile at clients walking through the door. If you can, provide them with an estimated wait time.

3. Provide consistency

The quality of services shouldn’t depend on your mood and how much effort you want to extend that day. Make sure your clients know they can expect consistency with each appointment.

“If you offer a relaxing scalp massage during one visit but the next time you rush through their shampoo, your clients will start to feel confused and may get the impression that your customer service is going downhill,” says SalonBiz.

“Make a plan and then keep it consistent to provide the best customer service and keep your guests coming back.”

4. Don’t skip the consultation

You may think you’re too busy to provide a consultation for your client’s hair and styling preferences, but skipping the consultation means you’ll miss out on finding ways to make the guest experience positive and keep the client coming back.

The consultation has many benefits, according to small business software provider Yocale, including:

• Making sure that you and the client have the same vision for their hair style and other services
• Providing an estimate of how long services will take
• Personalizing services
• Letting the client know you want them to be happy with the styling and all services you provide

Digital consultations in advance of the actual appointment, are also helpful, according to Yocale:

“With this, clients can attach photos of what style they’re looking for as well as pictures of their current hair. You can also have them complete information in a digital form that you show them as they make their online booking.”

5. Choose your playlist carefully

If working to heavy metal music gets your creative juices flowing, don’t assume that your clients will love that, too. They come to the salon for a relaxing experience, not to be stressed out by loud, distracting music. Choose softer, easy listening music as a backdrop. Or, if you have only one client at a time, ask them about their music preference and stream music accordingly.