Ten Ways To Add Value To Your Customer Service

Maria Dowling reveals her favourite salon marketing ideas

Last month we introduced a very popular new concept to the salon. Cookie bundles from Lime Tree Café. For a small fee, customers can enjoy delicious, locally made biscuits with their cappuccinos while waiting for their colour to develop. In this current competitive climate we all need to think outside of the box, here are my top ten tips to keep your clients coming back for more: 

Entice repeat clients with added value Whether it is cookies or a free massage, try offering your clients a discount or voucher for an additional service the next time they visit. 

Socialise with your clients! We all love a good selfie and your client will obviously leave the salon looking fantastic. Showing their love for their new look on social media is par for the course, but don’t forget to share their pic on your channels, to let them know you value them.

Make it easy to book We’ve just launched our online booking service and it’s the best thing we could have done. Previously our clients could only book over the phone, which meant they were limited to salon hours only. Now they can book their appointments 24/7 and some clients even contact us through Facebook to schedule their next haircut and colour. 

Keep in touch with a monthly roundup While we’re always in touch on social media, a monthly email to our clients telling them about what we have coming up and some of the work we’ve done that month is a great way of making them part of the mariadowling family. 

Personalised advice goes a long way While they’re in the chair, you have a captive audience, so why not give them more personalised advice such as the best product to use - this will create a special bond between the two of you. 

Give them a “behind the scenes” look at your salon Use social media or blog posts to show off the culture of your salon, profile your stylists, use live feeds or ‘stories’ to reflect the environment you work in, this will make your salon look more inviting to new clients. 

Help them celebrate a special date A birthday, a wedding, an anniversary – you hear everything when your client is in the chair. Remember that information and send them a personal email offering them an additional treatment or service they can use prior to the event. 

Create personalised content We use Salon Genius for our content management system and within this there are lots of ways we can segment our clients to allow us to create really personalised communication. 

Create in-salon competitions We’re currently running weekly competitions to win our treatment of the week and encourage our clients to enter while they’re having their hair done. Try promoting through table top signs and mirror stickers at each station. 

A personal reminder of their next appointment A lovely idea to get your client excited about their appointment is to drop them a message giving them some thoughts about what you could do with their hair or talk about a new treatment that has just been launched that would be perfect for them. Forget the generic emails or boring phone messages, make this appointment reminder one to really remember!

Maria Dowling is creative director at mariadowling salon and has been a colourist for more than 20 years. For more information call: +971 4 345 4225

Maria Dowling reveals her favourite salon marketing ideas

Last month we introduced a very popular new concept to the salon. Cookie bundles from Lime Tree Café. For a small fee, customers can enjoy delicious, locally made biscuits with their cappuccinos while waiting for their colour to develop. In this current competitive climate we all need to think outside of the box, here are my top ten tips to keep your clients coming back for more: 

Entice repeat clients with added value Whether it is cookies or a free massage, try offering your clients a discount or voucher for an additional service the next time they visit. 

Socialise with your clients! We all love a good selfie and your client will obviously leave the salon looking fantastic. Showing their love for their new look on social media is par for the course, but don’t forget to share their pic on your channels, to let them know you value them.

Make it easy to book We’ve just launched our online booking service and it’s the best thing we could have done. Previously our clients could only book over the phone, which meant they were limited to salon hours only. Now they can book their appointments 24/7 and some clients even contact us through Facebook to schedule their next haircut and colour. 

Keep in touch with a monthly roundup While we’re always in touch on social media, a monthly email to our clients telling them about what we have coming up and some of the work we’ve done that month is a great way of making them part of the mariadowling family. 

Personalised advice goes a long way While they’re in the chair, you have a captive audience, so why not give them more personalised advice such as the best product to use - this will create a special bond between the two of you. 

Give them a “behind the scenes” look at your salon Use social media or blog posts to show off the culture of your salon, profile your stylists, use live feeds or ‘stories’ to reflect the environment you work in, this will make your salon look more inviting to new clients. 

Help them celebrate a special date A birthday, a wedding, an anniversary – you hear everything when your client is in the chair. Remember that information and send them a personal email offering them an additional treatment or service they can use prior to the event. 

Create personalised content We use Salon Genius for our content management system and within this there are lots of ways we can segment our clients to allow us to create really personalised communication. 

Create in-salon competitions We’re currently running weekly competitions to win our treatment of the week and encourage our clients to enter while they’re having their hair done. Try promoting through table top signs and mirror stickers at each station. 

A personal reminder of their next appointment A lovely idea to get your client excited about their appointment is to drop them a message giving them some thoughts about what you could do with their hair or talk about a new treatment that has just been launched that would be perfect for them. Forget the generic emails or boring phone messages, make this appointment reminder one to really remember!

Maria Dowling is creative director at mariadowling salon and has been a colourist for more than 20 years. For more information call: +971 4 345 4225