Maintaining Customer Engagement During Covid-19

How to stay in contact with your guests:
COVID-19 is a pandemic we did not have time to plan for in many industries. Many businesses were forced to shut down due to state mandates for extended, unknown lengths of time. Even as some states re-open, others are closing back down. Once able to open, some salons saw a surge in guests, while others experienced low guest volume since some people still don’t feel safe to get their hair done. Many people are going to stay in their homes until they deem that it’s safe to re-enter public spaces.

As a business owner, it’s important to think about the best ways to convince your guests that your business is safe and clean. Normally, a coupon would be a perfect way to increase guest retention, however, it’s important to make sure that your salon can regain some lost revenue as well.

Regular communication with your guests:
Take the extra step and keep communicating with your guests. Let them know the actions that you and your employees are taking to ensure that everyone is safe. Communicate how often you’re cleaning, providing clean capes for each guest, that you are doing a screening at the door, and any other best safety practices being implemented in the salon.

Make sure you have high levels of openness and communication with your guests. Gain their trust and let them know they can ask you any questions they may have about the safety of your salon. When guests are in the salon, explain to them what is expected of each stylist to make sure everyone stays safe.

Communicate with your guests not only how you are keeping them safe, but also keeping your staff safe. Let them know (on a high level) about your COVID-19 policy for stylists and safety plan. If a stylist or a member of a stylist’s household gets sick, how will that be handled? If one stylist gets COVID-19, will any special cleaning or staff testing measures be taken? Any information relative to these topics might be reassuring to your guests.

Getting guests in the door without a coupon:
One of the best ways to get a guest in the door is by running a sale. But with so many businesses being closed, making sure you regain as much lost revenue as possible to pay your bills is important.

Social Media is a great tool that can help market your products and services at a low cost. Try hosting a social media contest. To enter, guests need to post a before and after image on their social media page and tag your salon. Pick a random winner and give them a reward such as a gift card, cleaning supplies, product, etc. By posting online, more people are seeing your salon’s services. Let people know what great things guests are saying about your salon. Include it in communications with your guests by posting it on your social media pages or including it in an email.

Relationship Marketing:
Owning a salon puts you in a unique position. In this industry, relationship marketing is extremely important, useful, and inexpensive.

In your communication with guests, use your stylists’ relationships with their clients to your advantage. At SmartBase Solutions, we can create specific email lists so that you can send emails specifically to clients of a certain stylist. Take a picture of a stylist and send the email only to their guests. You can potentially even have the stylist write the copy for this message. When the stylist writes the email copy, the guests can often recognize it’s their favorite stylist communicating with them.

Staying in contact and open with your guests is extremely important when you can’t offer deep discounting to make them come back. Continue to remind your guests that you care. Even if they decide it isn’t time for them to go out yet, they will be more likely to come back to your door when they are ready.