Keep service levels high over the festive period

Salon business expert Penny Etheridge of Radiant Hair Consultancy looks at how to maintain service levels and keep everyone happy over the festive period. OK, so everyone knows Christmas is our busy time in hairdressing and this should not come as a shock to anyone. However in our efforts to make hay, as it were, let’s keep the bigger picture in mind before potentially loosing good clients in the mad Christmas rush. Let’s not overlook the fact that existing clients still expect the high levels of service they have enjoyed with you during the year; after all that’s why they have kept coming back. New clients who have decided to try you for their festive look will need their hair done in the following year, so they do need to see you at your very operational best too. I know, and also appreciate, that as a salon owner that those potentially cold months of January and February can be a struggle. Those months that keep us awake at night might just cloud our judgement slightly while in the high yielding month of December... so here are a few tips as a Christmas checklist to ensure that all of our customers still love us in the New Year!

• Organise all the team's hair to be done in early December. Perhaps arrange to do it on a Sunday and make it fun with Christmas songs and food. One thing you don’t want is miserable members of staff wandering around your salon looking fed up because they know that there is now no chance of getting their own hair done for Christmas. Happy teams make for a happy atmosphere which makes for happy clients.

• Don’t 'crowd' appointments. Just one 'squeezed in' cut and blow-dry could cost you in dropped levels of service - not just on the shoe-horned in client, but also the clients surrounding that appointment. It’s just not worth it in the long run.

• Employ a Christmas Relief Team. They do in all the department stores so why shouldn't we have back up for those busy days?

• Give set job roles to your extra staff i.e. towels, staff room, back area, refreshments... However much people want to earn a bit of extra cash at Christmas, no one wants to be treated as the salon dogsbody. Keep their responsibilities clear to the rest of the team, that way your trained staff can get on with what they are trained to do: hair!

• How about nominating one person to do a lunch run at the beginning of the day so everyone has their food on site? Hungry staff get irritable and lose concentration and without seeming to pander, I think taking fruit into the salon on our busy days is a nice idea to keep our teams' energy levels up. No one works well when they are tired or hungry.

• Finally, ENJOY! Don’t worry if it's not all perfect. Nobody minds a slightly chaotic, but buzzy, salon. After all, that's part of the fun of Christmas. Just remember that amongst everything else, we always need to think service, service, service!