When you think guest experience, do you only take into consideration their experience during their salon service? Guest experience starts long before your client steps into the salon and in this blog post, we’re going to give you simple ways create the ultimate experience for your guests, in salon and online.
WHY IS GUEST EXPERIENCE SO IMPORTANT?
You can have the most talented stylists, use top of the line products, and have a gorgeous space, but none of that really matters if your guest experience is subpar.
If your guests have an excellent experience at every point in their service from booking, until they leave the salon, they are not only more likely to return, but to refer their family and friends. Not only that, but statistics also show that customers are far more likely to return to a company if a mistake is made if the customer service is excellent, 78% to be exact. So now that we’ve covered why it’s so important, we’re going to breakdown what next level guest experience looks like in your own salon/spa!
WHAT DOES THE ULTIMATE GUEST EXPERIENCE LOOK LIKE IN A SALON?
In order to determine what the best guest experience looks like in your salon, you have to break it down starting from the top. We’re going to give you things to keep in mind both in salon and online:
IN SALON EXPERIENCE:
Guest Greeting
Guests should be greeted quickly upon entering your business, and this is especially important for spaces like salons that can be intimidating to enter. It’s important to set this standard for your entire team to ensure every guest is greeted with a warm welcome.
Service
Although every service is going to look a little different, your guests should still have the same level of experience through and through. A great service experience hinges on an even better consultation to guarantee you and your client have communicated goals and expectations. Once that has been established, the rest of the service should be filled with positive energy, continued communication, and offerings such as beverages and add on’s to enhance the overall experience. To finish, the last interaction of ringing your guest through should tie the entire experience together with a bow. Your stylists should be recommending everything their guest needs to recreate they look and maintain their beauty investment following their appointment as a way of continuing their experience long after they leave the salon.
Follow Up
If you really want to take your guest experience to the next level, you’ll send a follow up message or give them a call a few weeks later to see how they’re enjoying their service or having any issues that you can help with. This level of customer service will push guests experience over the top and make them feel important and recognized.
ONLINE GUEST EXPERIENCE
Now that we’ve covered how to create an amazing in salon experience, we’ve got some tips to make sure your online experience is up to par! When it comes to creating excellent online experience for existing and potential guests, the first step is making sure you have everything they need available and easily accessible. This means you need the basics like your website and social media set up with current, up to date information.
Website
When it comes to your salon’s website, it’s important to keep a few key things in mind. First and foremost, your photos should be good quality and laid out in a clean, organized fashion while copy needs to be well written and easy to understand. Guests must be easy to navigate and have clear cut instructions on how to do what they want to do, whether it be find the services you offer, book an appointment, or purchase a product. It is also important to optimize your page speed as it’s been shown that a delayed or lagging page loads can affect the users experience enough that they will discontinue their search on websites.
Click HERE to learn more about Salon S.O.S Website Creation services!
Social Media
When it comes to creating a great social media user experience, you need to start with your bio. One of the biggest things that salons and spas overlook on their social media pages is the most basic and important, their bios and the information that should be included in them. Your bio needs to include what your business offers, where you are located, and how to contact you.
If you’re looking for a more in depth dive into updating your Instagram bio, download our Freebie bundle to get a free IG Bio Audit and Refresh Workbook!
Your social media content should also be providing some level of value to your audience to create the best use experience. We’ve got some excellent resources to spark inspiration when creating your social media content, click here for caption& hashtag help and click here for a 35 day social media calendar!
Online Communication
There are so many ways for guests to communicate with businesses online from emailing to Direct Messages on social. Often times this is to ask a question about booking an appointment, which means this is starting point of your guests experience. This is an opportunity to create a great first impression with quick, personable, informative responses. For commonly asked questions, we recommend automating responses to save yourself some time. We’ve got a breakdown on exactly how to do that, click here to learn more!
CONCLUSION
People will forget what you say, how well you did their hair, how perfectly you styled it, and the amazing products recommendations you made for them, but they will never forget how you made them feel, positively or negatively. That’s what guest experience is, a feeling. We hope this blog post gave you what you needed to move forward in creating the ultimate guest experience for your salon clients, in salon and online.
For even more digital marketing goodness, check out our YouTube Marketing Academy as well as all the resources and support we have for you here on our website
‘Til Next Time,
Your Team at Salon S.O.S