#8 Increasing Utilization and Retention
These are 2 of the most important benchmarks to track for your team.
Utilization:
First, we need to make sure our utilization is accurate.
And what I mean by accurate is that everyone’s hours they’re available to take guests are correct each day. If they’re truly not available to take guests because they’re on lunch, in education, assisting, etc. those times should be blocked out or it will skew utilization big time.
About 40% of Utilization numbers we look at for our Salon Owners are inaccurate because they’re not accurately accounting for hours available and hours sold.
Accurate utilization is vital because it is your money. It determines the salon’s revenue and how much of a raise or a price increase we can give someone.
Once we know we’re accurate, then we focus on ways to increase utilization:
Recommend add-ons over the phone. Have your front desk use this script when guests call to book reservations...
“Okay Susan, I’ve got your haircut scheduled for tomorrow at 5 pm. So many of our guests have been loving our deep conditioning treatment and it looks like Danielle would be able to take care of that for you tomorrow as well, did you want me to add that to your reservation?”
Include add-ons as an option on your online booking.
Have team members and front desk talk to guests about services offered from other departments (lashes, facials, massages, extensions, etc.) and set them up for future appointments to increase utilization on the book for the weeks ahead.
Retention:
We want to focus on increasing new and existing guest retention.
On average we want our new guest retention rate to be at 40% or higher and our existing guest retention rate to be at 65% or higher.
2 Ways to Increase Existing Guest Retention:
#1 Send out a monthly newsletter. A few fun newsletter ideas we love are:
How-To Guides
New Product Announcements
Promotions/Specials
Refer-a-Friend Program
Behind the Scenes Tour
Team Member Spotlight
#2 Create a Rewards System. Think fuel points at a gas station, but way better ;)
You could reward points for purchases for services, products, and gift cards. And then also reward points for things like referrals, social Media Shares, and writing reviews.
This is such a great way to create loyalty and your guests will love to save up their points and cash them in for complimentary services and products!
2 Ways to Increase New Guest Retention:
#1 New Guest Packets: Your packets could include a short welcome note from the salon, a few business cards, and an incentive to come back to the salon like ‘Pre-Book your next service and receive a complimentary haircut with a color service’.
#2 Personalized Follow Up: This is such a huge point of difference and will set your salon apart from any salon the guest has ever been to!
Mail a hand-written thank you card to the guest with specific details about them or their experience (who doesn’t love snail mail?!)
Follow up a few days after the guest’s first appointment with a phone call, ask them how they’re liking their new style, if they have questions on how to use the products they purchased, and how their overall experience was.
Ps… This builds so much trust and rapport and most of all if you get even the slightest “It’s ok” you are inviting them back in to make any adjustments 48 hours later
Send out an automated text message to the guest to thank them again for coming into the salon.
Ready for more?!
Listen to our full podcast episode on these 2 benchmarks for a deeper dive into increasing our team’s utilization and retention. Check it out below!