New Year! New Clients! New Results!

Now that we are 6 weeks into the new year and settled in, it’s time to focus your sights on elevating an area of your business that I find is not tracked enough, new client retention!

After covid, this is in area I began to put a lot of attention into. My clients were all seeing a huge uptick in new client traffic as consumers were coming out of quarantine wanting to get a fresh start. Due to how great this new volume was and how critical it was to cashflow I directed my attention to not just the new of new guests but what the salons and spas I coach were doing to retain them.

What I found was shocking, new client rebooking was at a woeful 19%. I was shocked! Imagine how the owners felt when we looked at it together. Well, we sprung into action and we haven’t looked back since.

As the years have separated us from that terrible era came important lessons for us all. As a coach, one that I had was digging even deeper into this important area of business performance and growth.

With this history as a backdrop let’s look together at some steps you can take to boost your new client retention:

1. Track it! Leverage your software or invest in some that will help you see where your new clients are coming from and how many per month.
2. Analyze results! Look at how many guests are rebooking. How many are purchasing at home care and how many are adding on relevant treatments beyond what they had scheduled. These three metrics indicate how well the business, and each technician is performing with each guest.
3. Collaborate! Share this data with the team and get them involved in creating plans to improve results. Work with them to create steps to improve everything, from how guests are greeted, educated and have their service completed. What are you asking guests? What are you sharing about yourselves? What are they learning that they have never learned before? What are they leaving with to support their care and are they set up on the proper maintenance schedule? Are they wowed?
4. Cheerlead & coach! Put accountability barometers in place and catch people doing things right. When you do, make a big deal about it!
5. Reflect & repeat! Analyze performance by week, month, quarter and so on. Share results with the team and have everyone collectively look at progression, lessons and next steps.

In this competitive market it is more important than ever that each new guest be looked at as the diamonds in the rocks they are. When you find them, cultivate them, nurture them and help them look and feel their best. When you do, your team will grow, your cashflow will grow and your confidence right along with it!