The value of encouraging clients to re-book

Julia Gaudio, owner of Elaje Hair & Beauty in Cambridge, explains why she made a decision to focus on re-booking appointments.

Although the business was doing well, rebookings were never our strength and it was becoming increasingly hard to forecast profits.

We knew our clients would come back, and we knew they were happy with their look, but leaving them uncommitted to coming back left us open to the possibility of them not returning. 

Your clients are your revenue, and if you do not book them in, you cannot possibly forecast future margins. Re-booking a client is as much part of being a successful stylist as being a creative genius. 

A sensible perspective is to think about the profit to be had from a client over a year. For example if they spend £100 every two months that equates to a minimum of £600 a year that can be forecast for the salon. If you are not re-booking appointments then this equates to an uncertain revenue forecast.

Yes ‒ we aim for 60% re-bookings. Some clients will just not re-book, and that is fine, but we like to offer everyone the opportunity to do so. The most likely people to re-book are the ones who insist on seeing you personally, so it is really up to the individual stylist to make sure they are running their own columns and taking responsibility for their bookings. 

First, we always stress that bookings can be changed or cancelled nearer the time. We have no issue with appointments being changed at all, but the reality is that people tend not to change their appointments once made.

The approach our team members tend to use is subtle. We stress to our clients that we are busy and that if they want to ensure they get the same person again then it is best to book it in advance. This is the truth, and if we failed to relay this to our clients then we would not be doing our job properly. We also manage our clients' expectations by relaying to them how long the haircut or colour will last, which also prompts them to re-book. 

Ideally we like to re-book when clients first arrive, or alternatively we have floor managers that walk around the salon with laptops and ask the client, while they are having their colour processed or hair dried, if they want to re-book. 

The worst thing would be to leave the re-booking as an afterthought as the client walks out the door. If reception is busy, the client is more likely not to bother so we prefer not to leave this aspect of re-booking to chance. We also try to book two or three appointments at a time and not just the next one.

We do take deposits on lengthy appointments, or occasionally for a new client.

When we started focusing on our re-bookings, we offered clients a discount of 10% off their next appointment, but that's not necessary now.