Burn the Boats and Turn Off Your Online Booking System

By Chrissy Alger

Hello everyone, I am Chrissy Alger- Senior Coach for The Zing Project, Salon Coaching… I am a Salon Owner, Salon Marketer and Salon Coach having successfully run my own Salon business from start-up. NOT as a technician but purely as someone addicted to business…

I am actually a Psychologist, who decided to do something different and venture into the salon industry space under the guise of wanting to do more to promote health, wellbeing and selfconfidence (all the things we get when we spend time in a Hair or Beauty Salon).

Now let’s talk about the elephant in the room…

Your long term, existing clients using your ONLINE booking system to book their appointments…..

TAKING CONTROL

As a professional, it is an expectation that you “lead” your client.

What do I mean by “lead”? In effect, prescribe what it is they need to be doing.

So your client is BEST served by a sequence of bookings that meets their needs, targets their concern and achieves their goals. shape or keep ghastly underarm hair at bay, or whether they need to work on skin concerns, ALL clients have a need to have their appointments set in a manner that will enable these outcomes to be achieved. Leaving the frequency of booking up to your client to master via an online booking portal, is a recipe for disaster.

Clients need to be advised how their booking frequency needs to look, and more importantly, you need to take control of what that looks like. So it is not a case of “would you like to rebook”, it is a matter of, “so Mary, you mentioned that you want to keep that brow shape so I’ll need to see you three weekly to do this. Is today’s time and day your best time to attend? We can book your appointments until Christmas to make sure that is all scheduled for you, so that you don’t miss appointments and you can keep seeing me as your ongoing therapist”.

If a client is opting for an online booking option, they are not committed to the service plan and you are letting them get away with it. Therefore, the work that needs to be done lies with you as the professional, taking the lead, educating on the importance of their frequency of attendance and getting all those bookings into the appointments booked well in advance, before they leave the salon/clinic!

BUSINESS IMPACTS OF ONLINE BOOKING

On average, a client who is left to their own devices in terms of appointment attendance will miss an average of 3-4 visits per year. So I’m going to share with you some eye watering statistics on what this means for you and your business.

Meet Sally

I did a support call with Sally who is a skin clinic owner wanting help to grow her business. Initially, she wanted more clients coming in through the door. But when I saw her rebooking was sitting at 45%, I decided that she definitely did not need a new client attraction strategy. Despite her protesting that her retention was 85%, and that her clients preferred using the online booking system, she was oblivious to the fact that this issue was costing her THOUSANDS in revenue every month. So I did some calculations with her.

Sally’s average client spend was around $175 and on average her clients were visiting every 6 weeks, however she admitted they should have been attending every three to four weeks. So in essence instead of attending 12 times per year, her clients were attending an average of 9 times per year, so they missed 3 appointments per year. In a 6 week period, Sally and her therapists saw around 200 clients, meaning that she had about 200 engaged clients.

Lets do the sums…

100 Clients (50% approx clients not rebooked) x $175 Average client spend x 3 (appointments missed per year) = $52,500

Sally was losing $52,500 per annum just by letting half of her clients book their own appointments online. Not only that, she was likely to be losing clients who just never ended up returning and the inconsistency of her appointment books meant that she couldn’t guarantee hours of team members, or for some of her full time team members she was paying them to stand there! So that’s not including the cost of these issues.

Still want to leave the online booking on?

CLIENT IMPACTS OF ONLINE BOOKING

When a client is not booked into a service or treatment plan, it can mean that “desired outcomes” or results can be compromised. If a client is not attending the salon/clinic within the prescribed time frames, they are not likely to be witnessing the goals being achieved that they had come to you for in the first place. This ultimately leads to client dissatisfaction, mostly which is directed towards you and often your credibility as a beauty professional becomes challenged.

You see, clients don’t often take responsibility for their own lack of commitment in a treatment setting. You’ve all heard the client that says they went to the clinic “down the road”, “paid all of this money” and “got no results”, right? The client does not disclose that they only attended every 8 weeks rather than every 4 weeks (and probably knocked back the home care as well). So protect your professional credibility and take control of the booking process. It’s the only way to guarantee the results your client is looking for.

BEAUTY/SKIN NEEDS REALLY ARE A JOURNEY

Clients often come to us seeking solutions to their skin and beauty woes, and typically most of these issues cannot be fixed overnight. The concerns are addressed over a series of appointments that should be fully mapped out. Now, whether the concern is hair removal (so maintenance is the clients need here) or skin concern (this one is a no brainer as skin concerns cannot be sorted in one appointment), the client has a need to understand that treatment is an ongoing process that is mapped out in advance, so any unrealistic expectations can be addressed early.

The client also needs to understand what impacts that non-compliance can have, e.g. what happens when they don’t attend appointments in a timely manner? It is your duty to ensure the client is educated, not just with product needs or ideas for treatment, but with a solid map of what is to come and WHY it is important that they adhere to the schedule.

It is often the seemingly “small things” in business, like entertaining an online booking function for the “convenience” of the clients that can have huge impacts on business revenue and growth. The problem is we often overlook the simple changes in favor of obtaining the next amazing skin treatment machines, or rebuilding the website, investing in google ads or other costly endeavors that don’t always deliver as promised.

Do you need more help with getting your business strategy right?

I would love to help you. Book your free strategy session with me via chrissy@zingcoach.com.au

Or for more salon strategy, listen to ‘The Salon Hustler’ podcast on all your major podcast platforms and follow me on Instagram: @chrissyalger_zing and Facebook: @chrissyzing