Sounds harsh. It is a very fair statement though and believe it or not in most cases, loyalty schemes are actually losing salons money. Quite often I would ask the question, do you offer a loyalty scheme to your clients?
A common answer is “yeah, we have a great loyalty programme where our clients receive stamps when they spend money, just like a coffee shop.” This answer always raises alarm bells with me.
A coffee shop and a salon are 2 very different creatures, for a host of obvious reasons. So why would you base your own loyalty system on a business that has very little, if any, similarities to your salon? Many salons are in massive danger of creating a culture through these type of loyalty schemes that will be hard to ever remove themselves from.
For your business, lets drop the word loyalty for a moment and look at really what any business is looking to do.
- You want to keep your existing client base
- You want to maximise revenue from these clients
- Naturally if 1 or 2 are working for you, you will then generate new clients through referrals.
Yes as a short term impact £5 or £10 off a treatment/service might be a nice touch for the client but is it really going to have any long term lasting effect to the client or to your business? The straight answer is… NO! It won’t.
What a really brilliant loyalty scheme will do is:
– Change customer behavior, by increasing average client spend
– Make it really hard for a client of yours to ever go to a competitor
– Generate new clients through referrals.
– Keep these clients even if their “preferred” staff member leaves
The clients that do more in your business will be rewarded quicker. The client who spends money on services, products and refers new clients into your business will get to a reward quicker than someone who only spends money on services. This incentive encourages them to become a more lasting client and build the relationship with your business.
Staff members will leave you. That’s a fact. Let’s take a client of yours who always goes to a certain staff member and then this member leaves. Maybe to go out on their own, maybe they leave for a competitor. If this client hasn’t been integrated into the business there is a serious risk of losing them too.
A really good loyalty scheme will safeguard against this by introducing the client to various staff members by offering rewards with these staff. Or it could be by your business becoming their expert on products. This way the client is a client of your business and not of a particular staff member.
A service or a product as a reward will have a far more hard hitting effect on your clients than £5 or £10 off.
The Phorest TreatCard is specifically designed with all these factors in mind, and more. We guarantee to increase your clients’ average spend.
Justin Fiddy is in charge of TreatCard Loyalty system for Phorest. You can contact Justin via email at justin.fiddy@phorest.com
