Recently I saw some research that showed just how dramatically the salon market has changed in the last year or so.
New client retention for salons has fallen from the average of 50% (over the last 10 years) to just 19% this year! Put another way, back then you only had to find 2 new clients for one to stick with you. Now it seems, on average you have to find 5 just to hold on to one!
It’s not just new clients either.
Existing client retention figures which have also been stable for the last 10 years have suddenly dropped to 65% from their ‘normal’ 80%.
This means we’ll have to replace all our clients once every 35 months rather than every 60 months … which again is a massive difference!
In my opinion the reason for this dramatic change is the arrival of the ‘Deal’ sites like GroupOn, but in a way, when you think about it, the reason almost doesn’t matter.
What does matter is how we as salon owners choose to respond and the answer is obvious. We’ve got to get even better at attracting new clients and we’ve got to make sure we look after the clients we’ve already got soooooooo well that they wouldn’t even dream of going anywhere else.
The good news is that the Phorest system is brilliant at helping you do this, but it’s only part of the answer. The other part is down to you and how you lead and train your staff. They need to be trained to within an inch of their lives on how to create ‘Raving Fan’ clients.
It can be done and it’s not something you should leave until after Christmas either. You need to take action now, during your busy time when it will have the most effect on the highest proportion of your clients.
If you’re not sure how, you’ll find a step by step guide in my latest book, ‘TheSalon Owners Guide to Beating the Recession’
