How To Deal With Bad Customers

1. How to prevent clients from showing up for appointments without warning 

It is important to know which customers in the past may have given a "hole" or "package" and therefore have particular attention to the "unreliable". The best action to do is to call the potentially problematic customer 24 hours before the appointment and remind him of the appointment. Why just 24 hours before and not the same morning or evening? In this way, if the customer cancels the appointment, we have at least 24 hours' notice to recover the empty space. Although, it is hoped that, with 24 hours notice, the customer can arrange to come. By doing so, we solve over 90% of the oversights. People forget things for escort athens to do and a quick reminder can save a service worth an average of $ 50. Yes, that's fine. But what if I have 40 appointments a day? I can't notify everyone by phone, maybe I even disturb the client at work with a call. No problem: in this case you can think of sending an SMS, also automating the activity through a digital agenda that can do the job for us.  

2. How to avoid that a customer shows up and changes the services he wants to do, expecting to be inserted perhaps with a technical job?

 It is of fundamental importance that those who make the appointments (you know, they can also be several people) know the customer's history very well. The big question is: "Hi Giovanna, what do you have to do?" “A little trim, maybe even the color”. And here's the drama if you don't ask the right question. "Color or Sunshine?" "Yes of course, I meant the meches with maps, in short, what I always do!". How many times does it happen that the customer in the salon wants to change service or even worse the marked appointment is not what the customer needed? It is not such a rare thing, especially after counseling. In fact, with the time available, consulting is the best way to propose the most suitable services for the person and consequently also increase the value of the receipt. But if this happens on Saturday, there is a risk of fitting a color - with a full agenda - and delaying all subsequent appointments. A salon is a perfect machine of joints, it is not possible to allow yourself the luxury of changing the schedule of works without first having consulted the appointments already set. This is why it is extremely successful, during the phone call, to check the customer history. And propose well in advance and an excellent organization, out-of-frequency services or correct the client's incorrect information on the treatments he wants to do.  

3. How to avoid losing weekly customers by booking repeat appointments in advance? 

Weekly customers are the most loyal people and who (albeit few in number) guarantee a safe entry. But they are often people with even the most demanding requests and the risk of not satisfying them is always very high. Has it ever happened that a customer said on the phone or (even worse) directly in the salon: “But how can you not have room? You know that on Saturdays I always come at 11 to do the styling! I told you to sign me up until Christmas ”To avoid running into this unpleasant situation, it is crucial to always keep all future appointments on the agenda (even months later!). Especially in the high season (Christmas, Easter, long weekends and anniversaries) the risk of overlapping an appointment is real. This is why we must always remember to always check the appointments of the coming months for weekly clients. In this way it is possible to satisfy both the weekly customer and the more occasional passages, giving everyone the right availability and above all priority. If there are so many appointments? You can help yourself with a digital appointment system that automatically copies the same appointment for many months with a simple click. Thus, to mark or delete them all together, a few seconds will be enough.

4. How to best assign services to the ideal collaborators for each client?

 To avoid dissatisfied customers because the services have not been assigned to their favorite collaborators (or in the case of new customers to those who know how to manage a customer for their first time), it is important to look at the history and also ask the customer if she wants to be served by an employee in particular. We must not forget that some collaborators are faster or slower and that some can work better certain types of hair. There is much more to laying times and the purely technical ability to know how to create a service: the customer must be assigned the best collaborator for the required needs. But how to know all this? First, ask the new client for the length and type of hair and write this information in the notes, to facilitate the collaborator. Furthermore, any changes must be noted and updated after each service: in addition to the technical note of the color (mandatory, otherwise we remain prisoners of the collaborators and the notes remembered by heart), the customer's punctuality must be noted if it is a critical point, the difficulties on the hair encountered and customized production or installation times to improve subsequent appointments. Only in this way can more and more appointments be made while maintaining an impeccable organization.  

5. How to avoid delays in the salon due to bad organization 

Every morning, when the sun rises, whether you are a store manager, receptionist or owner, you know you don't have to be late. Otherwise, the agenda will become a battlefield between travels and extended appointments. For this reason, the consultation time must also be written in the diary if it is relevant beyond 10 minutes (essential for new clients!). It is also necessary to look at the progress of the work and intervene, shifting any services that are accumulating delay to the fastest collaborators, to better distribute the workload. The punctuality of employees is also an indispensable condition: collaborators must arrive at least 10/15 minutes before the start of the first appointment, in order to prepare and read the customer sheet. This is why shift management plays a key role in preventing delays from occurring from the beginning of the day: if an employee usually arrives at the last, it is preferable to start it earlier or during the day. It is equally important to make appointments wisely: inserting 5 consecutive colors or light effects on a collaborator (perhaps with new customers) will cause the mathematical certainty of unexpected events and therefore overlaps. The uniform distribution of types of services among collaborators must be taken into account when making appointments. Last but not least: often time is lost during the realization of the services because the customer card has not been prepared at the reception. It can be printed or on screen, it doesn't matter. What is essential is that the collaborator can have access to the history easily: if the chips are lost, the advice is to avoid printing them and using tablets in the salon both to consult past appointments and to mark the additions of the day.