The secrets of the chapel's success - business extra

The past two years have been dominated by tales of financial hardship, businesses closing down and general economic doom and gloom and yet Kent and London salon group The Chapel is thriving with a 32% increase in business.

Owners Amanda and Toby Dicker shared some of the secrets of their success with the Business Extra audience at Salon International.

First to the stage was Amanda, the creative force behind the business, who explained that she spent six months getting to know what makes really customers tick in order to shape the brand.

"I went out on the street and spoke to people about where they got their hairdressing inspiration from and they all told me magazines or the movies, not one person said the hairdressers.

"Then I went into the home hair care aisle in the supermarket and spent time looking at the hair dye boxes. They had safety guidelines, tips on ideal sectioning patterns and even advice on the right make-up to use with the colour. It was better than some hairdressers I know and it made me realise that we had to do things differently."

Armed with these ideas they set about creating an experience more like a hotel than a hair salon, where client education was central to the service and every client was encouraged to evolve their look according to trends or the season ahead.

Achieving these goals meant that they had to make a few major changes to the business. "We realised that the price list was restricting creativity as a client would always have the same service, so we decided to charge by time instead. Now the team can make recommendations based on what would really look best on the client and she doesn't have to worry about the bill," she added.

"We have also created a culture where we leave people wanting more. We tell them about forthcoming trends and how these could work for them and make them feel part of a journey.

"Finally we never talk about retail, but we do give clients take home education to enhance their look. It has definitely worked as we have a 95% retention rate and 48% of our customers buy home care."

The key to a successful salon is to have a perfect marriage of business and creativity and next it was over to Toby to share some of the innovative business ideas The Chapel has implemented.

At the crux of this is generating - and dealing with - open and honest feedback from clients.

"We encouraged complaints so that we could take a negative and turn it into a positive," Toby explained. "A complaint dealt with well has the potential to create the best, most loyal clients and is also far more likely to be talked about, even more so than a bad experience."

A head of guest relations was employed to manage this process, which uses a combination of pre-set messaging that is sent every client two days after their first appointment and bespoke spreadsheets that enable them to contact clients who have stopped coming to the salon.

Finally they implemented a three step policy to turn negative feedback into positives. In the first instance, the customer is always right and will be thanked for their feedback. Next they will be offered a complimentary service with added extras to get the problem fixed. If this still doesn't satisfy the customer they will be offered a full refund.

"The key skill in business is to retain your customers. By making clients feel important and showing them we have listened we have created a climate where people keep on coming back," Toby concluded.