German Chancellor Helmut Schmidt is credited as saying, “The biggest room in the world is the room for improvement.” For many years, that quote has become the mantra for individuals and businesses striving for continuous growth, innovation, and excellence. Always be on the lookout for how to improve your hair salon business.  

However, events like the current economic downturn in Nigeria can hinder growth and improvement from time to time. This is normal and quite common for beauty businesses. Nonetheless, you must find ways to improve your business. 

In this article, I’ll show you how to improve your hair salon business with practical, easy-to-implement strategies. But before we get to it, let’s first see how to identify areas of your business that require improvement. 

How can you identify areas of your business to improve?

There will always be areas in your business to improve. The challenge is identifying where to focus your resources per time. Here are some ways you can find out:

• Encourage employee feedback. From interacting daily with customers and recommending products, your staff will have some insight into how you can improve aspects of your business. 
• Compare profits and costs. Your business goal must include always looking for ways to cut costs and create new revenue streams while you increase existing ones. 
• Perform customer analysis. Check your customer base and separate active customers from non-active ones. Then, follow up on the inactive customers, sending them targeted marketing messages to reactivate them. You can even offer discounts and promotions to incentivise them. If you’re not already tracking your performance, start now. Splice can help you. 

• Keep up retail sales. Beauty businesses often sell products to enhance revenue. The goal should be to complete more sales than the previous month or year. Otherwise, it’s time for some reassessment.  
• Go hunting. Pick a day every week or month to go on a physical tour of your establishment to identify what needs repairs or upgrades, from equipment and furniture to customer service and staff wellbeing. 
• Ask customers for feedback. Create a feedback system that allows your customers to leave reviews, complaints, or suggestions. It can be as easy as sharing a form or your Google Business Profile for them to leave a review. This will provide you with insights that can direct your improvement endeavours. 
• Do competitor research. Study other hair salons in the area or city that are doing well. Find out why that is, what they are doing right, and what you need to avoid. Then, use that knowledge to improve your salon. 
• Utilise Splice Insight and Reporting. A coveted feature of the Splice software is providing a comprehensive performance overview of your business. Even a quick look will reveal what’s working and what needs improvement.

Finding ways to improve your hair salon entails constantly asking yourself, “Would I want to keep coming here if I were the customer?” Explore scenarios where your answers might be “No,” and work to turn those answers into a resounding “Yes.”  

How can you improve your hair salon business?

Now that you can identify which areas of your business need improvement, let’s explore five ways to improve your hair salon and position it for unprecedented growth.

1. Increase your customer base

Here’s the thing: your beauty salon wouldn’t be much of a business without your customers. Simply put, your business wouldn’t survive if you didn’t have customers. Every new customer you acquire contributes to the growth of your business. 

Here’s how to ensure you’re getting new customers: 

• Track your progress. As a beauty business owner, one of your key performance indicators (KPIs) should be the number of new and old customers you attend to monthly.  Customers base = new customers + existing (loyal) customers – lost customers. 
• Run introductory offers. Offer discounts and promos to first-timers to attract new customers. Let them come for your mouth-watering offer and stick around for excellent customer service and loyalty rewards. 
• Give staff targets. Outlining a target for the number of customers each employee should have is a common way to drive customer acquisition. 

The Splice reporting feature I mentioned above can help you track these KPIs.

2. Enhance customer retention 

By the time your marketing starts bearing fruit and pulling in customers across all channels, you should have a customer retention strategy. The numbers are there: Retaining customers is a surefire way to increase revenue and grow your business. 

Customer retention is critical to your hair salon’s future for several reasons. It’s cheaper than trying to acquire new customers as it’ll cost you six to seven times more to get a new customer than to keep an existing one. That’s not all. As small as a 5% increase in customer retention can increase your revenue by up to 95%. Generally, compared to first-time customers, loyal customers buy more often, spend more, and are more likely to refer their loved ones. 

Here are some ways to boost retention: 

• Run loyalty programs. Inspire loyalty in your customers by rewarding them with a free service offered after a set number of visits, a discount for every customer they refer, or cashback after they spend past specific amounts. Splice can help you automate and manage your reward system. 

• Offer birthday promotions. Who doesn’t love to be pampered on their birthday? Wish them a happy birthday and offer a birthday promotion — a discount on wig revamp or hair extensions. Or run a promotion for a day, week, or month to celebrate your salon’s anniversary.
• Re-book customers. Train your staff to encourage customers to book their next visit as they round off their sessions. A simple “When will be a good time for you to visit again? We have an opening on…”
• Engage customers. Keep up with your customers on social media by replying to comments and direct messages (DM). Leave comments on their posts about your salon or spa. Use salon software like Splice to send e-mails and SMS, checking in on your customers.
• Handle conflict with care. Respond professionally to complaints with high professionalism to avoid negative word of mouth. 

3. Allow online appointment booking

Set up an appointment scheduling tool that lets customers book hair appointments anytime from anywhere. 

Hair salon customers won’t go just anywhere. They’ll patronise beauty establishments that offer them the best value for their money and time. Nobody wants to come to your hair salon and be stuck in a queue, or worse, turned back because all the slots are taken.

Besides, your staff is better served delighting customers than wasting endless hours fielding appointment calls or other manual booking processes. 

Splice appointment booking software will help your hair salon in the following ways: 

• Save time. Your salon and customers will save precious time to do more important things. 
• Seamlessly reschedule and cancel appointments. Customers can cancel their appointments if they have to, but not without forfeiting a percentage of their booking fee (as set by you). They can also reschedule as needed, effectively reducing no-shows. 
• Avoid double bookings. A common problem with the manual appointment is multiple customers booking the same slot. Splice will help you avoid this booking error. 
• Send reminders. Splice sends automated reminders to customers to help them keep their appointments. You can also send personalised thank-you messages. 

Splice makes appointment booking convenient for you and your customers.

4. Intensify social media presence

Most of your potential and existing customers spend their time online, especially on social media platforms. So, you need to take your business to them. Invest in building a comprehensive online presence for your hair salon business. You must also plan to maintain it through frequent posting and engagement with your audience (e.g., replying to comments and answering their questions).

Here are ways to start your online journey: 

• Set up social media accounts. Register and set up your pages on platforms such as Instagram, Facebook, Pinterest, YouTube, and LinkedIn, among others. 
• Get a website. If you have the personnel and budget, also consider getting a website complete with an engaging blog to benefit from search traffic. You can also list your Hair Salon on Google My Business. 
• Post frequently. Out of sight is out of mind on social media. Design a calendar to enable you to post often. Since you’re in the beauty business, prioritise posting catchy pictures and video content, e.g., showing your team at work.
• Share tutorials. Post hair hacks and tips online — e.g., how to get the perfect closure. Video posts like this are highly shareable. And the more they share your videos, the more people discover you. 
• Attach your booking link. Don’t forget to attach the link to book your services in your profile, captions, and pictures or videos.

5. Boost employee morale

The hair salon business is highly personal. Customers come to the people providing the services more than the salon. When a customer is used to a hair stylist, they’ll likely follow them everywhere. It’s most likely the case in your salon if your employees are as good as they ought to be. That’s why you must do your best to create an enabling environment that retains talent rather than frustrates them. 

Your team is at the centre of your business. Here are some ways you can improve work conditions for your people:

• Solicit feedback. Maintain open lines of communication and encourage them to come to you with any questions or concerns.
• Provide ongoing training. Train your staff on the latest techniques, industry trends, and technology updates. Also, provide them with the relevant hair salon equipment and supplies.   
• Recognise their achievement. Reward them accordingly with employee discounts, paid time off, commissions, or bonuses. 
• Showcase your staff. Showcase the work of your hairstylists on your social media and website. You can also print live pictures of the work to show to customers. 
• Compensate them. Most importantly, pay your employees well. 

You can also use Splice to manage their schedules, simplifying how they work and boosting their morale. 

Conclusion

How to improve your hair salon must always be on top of your mind as a business owner or manager. Our previous article discussed starting a hair salon business and shared tips on managing one efficiently. The five tips in this article will help you improve your business. Other strategies like upselling your customers and investing in your salon’s aesthetics and appearance can prove effective. 

As you strive to improve your hair salon business, let Splice help you streamline your daily operations.