As salon and spa owners we find ourselves begging and pleading with your staff to sell retail. We continually receive the same response “I don’t like to sell”, “my clients can’t afford to buy our products they are too expensive” or one of our favorite is “I don’t want to pressure my clients and possibly lose them”. Well, if our team only realized that by not suggesting take home products to their guest is one sure way to lose them. That’s correct; one sure way to lose a client is by not recommending take home care products. Wow… Now that’s a serious paradigm shift.
Because our team lives in the place of excuses why they don’t make product recommendations to their guests we will need to help sift their old beliefs as it relates to retiling. It’s a very simple formula -our team needs to come from a mindset of servicing their guests not selling to them.
Did you know that a product sale is just one-way of measuring whether we are truly serving the guest or not. Let’s look at some interesting facts – these facts show us that retail equates to retention in your business. For every 1 product your guests takes home with them you will have a 30% chance your guest will return for future services, if you guests take home 2 products that chance doubles to 60% and if your guest take home 3 or more products that chance will triple to90% they will return for future services. So, you see one sure way to lose a client is by not recommending take home products to meet their needs. Follow these easy steps to help your team take a new look at providing outstanding customer service by making product recommendations.
Paradigm Shift:
Identify why the guest is in their chair: Begin by asking your team “why is the guest at the salon or in their chairs?” The reason the guests is at the salon in the first place is because he/she has a need. While the guest is sitting in the chair, this is the prime opportunity to discover or solve their challenges and address their personal concerns, both in the service they are receiving, as well as what you can send the client home with to duplicate the look. If your team is not giving them all the information on how they can recreate the look at home, then they’re not doing their job.”
Educate: Just as our technical team has a system for performing the services they provide. They need to follow a system for educating their guests on how to style their hair at home. The system is simple – if they touch a product they need to tell their guest what it is, if they touch a product then they need to tell their guest why they used it and if they touch a product then they need to tell their guest how to use it at home.
Finalize: This last step is the most important step in the system. It’s where we must ask the guest what products they would like to take home with them. As your team escorts their guests to the front desk for checkout place all products that were utilized on the counter and review the what, why & how to each product. After the products have been reviewed simply ask guests what products they would like to take home to help them duplicate their look.
The sooner your team understands the value of making product recommendations the sooner they will see more guests on their books, have greater retention and truly satisfied guests.