Many people dream of starting their own hair salon business one day. Once they finally achieve that dream and it is up and running, it can be easy to become stagnant and let your business plateau. Instead, you need to maintain the mindset that there is always room for improvement in your business.
To improve a hair salon overall, you can focus on your customer base, customer approval, and business revenue. There are multiple ways to achieve each of these improvements: offer new products and services, give more than you take, connect with local businesses, ask clients what they want, charge more, and upsell existing customers.
Each of these steps will take time, energy, and potentially money, but the investments you make in your business now will help it improve for many years to come.
Improving Your Hair Salon Customer Base
There are two primary ways to improve the number of customers your hair salon business has:
- Offer new products and services.
- Connect with local businesses
When you improve the number of customers you are connected to, you will improve the amount of revenue you receive and the amount of reach you have to potential customers.
Offer New Hair Salon Products and Services
This improvement will increase the access points your potential customers have to reach you. For example, if you only offer hair cutting, only people interested in haircuts will need your services.
However, if you decide to add hair dying into your services and roll out some products that you recommend to everyone who visits your hair salon business, you are bound to connect with more than just people who want haircuts.
Additionally, people will be able to use you for multiple services. Customers often prefer when they can go to their trusted professional for not only one beautifying treatment but also multiple. While you do not want to spread yourself too thin, branching out may improve your customer base overall.
Connect with Local Businesses
This improvement will help your hair salon business build relationships with others in the community. As people begin to know and trust you and your business, they will be more likely to use your services and recommend you to others.
You can also be strategic with your new relationships with local businesses. You may choose to promote one another in different ways. A coffee shop may choose to offer a discount to your hair salon to anyone who joins their loyalty program. Alternatively, if you run a contest, you could make a gift card to the local coffee shop part of the prize.
Selling merchandise in one another’s shops is another great way to connect with local businesses around you. If you have a particular brand of hair product that you sell, ask the local market if they would keep it stocked for you. This will increase the availability of your products within the community.
You can sell local merchandise in your hair salon as well. This can be extremely beneficial to both parties, as long as your target demographic uses the particular establishments you choose to partner with. If you choose to partner with someone that does not fit your clientele, you might be hurting your business.
By choosing the right business partners to share merchandise with, your customers will benefit from shopping for their favorite local products while visiting your hair salon business.
Improving Hair Salon Customer Approval
If you already have a substantial customer base, another improvement worth diving into is improving your customer approval rating. It is one thing to have a decent number of customers, but quite another to have an overwhelming majority of satisfied and happy customers.
Two ways you can improve this approval rating:
- Ask your customers what they want.
- Give your customers more than you take
By implementing either or both of these practices, you are sure to improve your hair salon customers’ overall customer experience.
Ask Your Customers What They Want
The concept of asking your customers what they want seems simple, but it can also be tricky. Some customers will not feel comfortable telling you their wishes straight to your face. Others will not even know what they want without taking time to ponder the question thoughtfully.
There are a few ways you can assess your customers’ desires:
Ask Some Prominent Customers
While not every customer will tell you their desires for your hair salon, some will. Find the customers you are comfortable around, trust, and know willing to share their thoughts and ask if you can pick their brains. You might even want to offer them some free services to win them over.
Once you know what these customers want, you can infer that many other customers will want similar things from your hair salon business and improve accordingly.
Survey Your Customers
Another way to see inside the minds of your customers is to offer a physical or digital survey. Surveys often provide the anonymity that allows for honest reflection.
By asking your customers a few targeted questions and providing them with lots of space for open sharing, you are bound to understand their desires more intimately.
Give More Than You Take
In most businesses, you are offering a product or service. This is true of a hair salon as well.
However, you always want to be looking for ways to provide additional value beyond your hair salon’s primary services.
Can you offer a free class on hair care?
Can you provide discounts on birthdays?
Can you share videos online teaching different ways to style hair?
While none of these offerings may seem like they provide immediate value to your hair salon business, recognize that you are marketing your business every time you are giving more than you are taking from people. As you provide value, you will earn the trust of your surrounding community and contacts.
The more trust you can earn, the more people will want to buy from you when they need a service or product that you offer.
Check out our post on promotions HERE!
Improving Hair Salon Revenue
If you already have a substantial customer base and a high customer approval rating, then this next improvement might be for you. There are always ways you can tweak your current offerings so that your business makes more money.
Two primary ways to increase your revenue with your current clientele include:
- Upsell existing customers
- Increase prices
Upsell Existing Customers
Upselling is an art. If you are not currently upselling your customers, you must make an essential improvement to your hair salon.
When you upsell a customer, you encourage someone who has already purchased a product or service to take one step further in purchasing a more advanced (and more expensive!) product or service.
For example, let’s say you offer a cheap basic haircut package. If someone regularly uses this package, you might start telling them how good they would look with a more advanced styling package or hair dye procedure. You will have to do it in a way that does not offend your customer or make them feel self-conscious.
It may not even happen all at once, but over time as they hear you reminding them that they can “treat themselves” to your higher tier package, they will be more likely to take the bait and spend the money.
Increase Prices
Another way to improve the revenue your hair salon brings in each month is to increase your prices.
This needs to be done carefully, in a way that does not rock your hair salon customers too much. It might not make sense to double your prices right off the bat, but it could be something you slowly increase over time.
It is important to note that some customers might not appreciate or be able to afford your new higher prices. They may choose to or need to stop utilizing your hair salon because of your price increase.
While you may be tempted to view this as sad or even devastating, note that their departure is just making room for customers who can afford a higher price point. Some customers will even appreciate your higher price point because they will know they are receiving high-quality products and services.
This type of quality treatment will keep them coming back again and again.
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Related Questions
How Do I Know Who My Target Customer Is?
This is a question that should be answered when you are first conducting your market research.
As you get to know the community and interview various community members, pay attention to who is saying they would be most interested in a new hair salon business. If you start to see a trend within the demographic of those interested, this is likely your target customer.
How Can I Survey My Customers Online?
Google Forms is a free service provided to anyone with a free google email address. You can quickly create a form that allows customers to rate various services you offer, reflect on open-ended questions, or even select what new services they may be most interested in seeing.
Looking to start your own Salon? Get the documents you need to get organized and funded here.
Please note: This blog post is for educational purposes only and does not constitute legal advice. Please consult a legal expert to address your specific needs.
About the author. Entrepreneur and Salon Business Fan.
Hi! I am Shawn and I am a happy individual who happens to be an entrepreneur. I have owned several types of businesses in my life from a coffee shop to an import and export business to an online review business plus a few more and now I create online salon business resources for those interested in starting new ventures. It’s demanding work but I love it. I do it for those passionate about their business and their goals. That’s why when I meet a salon business owner, I see myself. I know how hard the struggle is to retain clients, find good employees and keep the business growing all while trying to stay competitive.
That’s why I created Salon Business Boss: I want to help salon business owners like you build a thriving business that brings you endless joy and supports your ideal lifestyle.
