Who wants to know the one word that gave a 100% rebooking rate?

A problem shared by many salon owners is getting their staff to keep those clients rebooking at a great rate.

I was on coaching call with Kellie Bowey of Shear Class Hair Studio in Kojonup and she was having an issue with her waxing clients re-booking. It was about 50% and she wanted to lift it to at least 70%.

Some times you can just straight out ask your clients and you may get your answer and other times we just need to try different stuff to see what will make the difference. One of the things I’ve learned over the years is that if it’s a problem for your clients then there will generally be a dialogue or a conversation that will help to overcome the objection or problem.

So many times we have these problems and we just put up with them as if that’s just how it is, like there is no solution.

There is always a solution!

One way is to simply put ourselves in the other person’s shoes and ask ourselves the question “Why don’t they want to rebook?” What’s happening for them on this score? Is it a time thing? Maybe they have commitment issues or perhaps they think they’ll forget and they don’t want to do the wrong thing by us or who knows… Now, it’s important you don’t get to bogged down in this… we could analyse till the cows come home and we might still be off but it’s good to come up with a couple of scenario’s.

Personally I think it is mostly just a commitment issue. The funny thing is that most clients will have a pretty fixed routine anyway, whether they realize that is the problem for us. You know it as well as I do, the majority of your clients will generally come in every 2nd, 4th or 5th week or whatever it is for them and they’ll have their regular day they do it on too.

So, the key word for these clients is “tentative”.

If they don’t want to commit to their next re-booking then make it a statement and not a question “OK, Mrs Jones, what I can do for you is to make a ‘tentative’ appointment so that you don’t miss out, we are getting busier and this way your time spot is secure. Better to play it safe don’t you think?”

Does it work?

Kellie reports that every single waxing client has rebooked giving her a 100% rebooking rate for the first time ever.

Needless to say she is rapt!

Now, for the doubting Thomas’s amongst you… Did they actually all keep there appointments? Yes, all bar two, which was not an issue as they rescheduled with plenty of notice. You still need to manage the confirmations as you normally would.

In summary, using the word ‘tentative’ in this way has simply helped your clients to overcome any mindsets they may have had.

The side spin benefit to all of this is you are starting to train your clients to do business with you on your terms. In time, what you will find is they will just re-book automatically.