How to Get Clients to Rebook in My Salon?

How to get clients to rebook their next visit is a common question pondered on by many salon owners.

Easier said than done, keeping a client interested in your salon takes careful but subtle strategy, clever marketing and a personal touch. This article can help you rebook clients before they’ve even left the building.

Attracting new clients is important but retaining the old ones can save you both time and money. A loyal client may spread the good word about your business and become a reliable source of income. You should focus on having at least 20 - 30% of your monthly traffic from new clients, and the rest from repeat bookings.

While fancy branding, active marketing and excellent employees keep your business afloat, rebooking clients is the secret to success in the salon industry.

Check out these top tips to help keep clients, happy, engaged and most of all, booked back in.

Jump To The Section You Like

1. What is Client Rebooking?
2. How to Calculate Your Salon Rebooking Rate?
3. How to Increase Rebooking in Your Salon?
4. Conclusion

What is Client Rebooking?

Booking the next appointment in advance, right at the reception before leaving the salon or afterward through online software, is considered salon client rebooking.

The aim is always to make the client book the next service before leaving the salon, as it eliminates the chance of them forgetting you and going elsewhere. If you’re in their calendar, they’re more than likely coming back.

Successful salon owners focus attention on returning clients to help increase sales. A higher salon client retention average naturally translates to a better reputation and increased revenue.

When the client books the next appointment in advance, it offers operational benefits too. It helps you see a clear picture of your future work schedule, often a week or so in advance. Also, it helps you and your stylists’ meet the targets efficiently.

Clients rebooking can be done in-salon at the end of the appointment or online. Some businesses also take bookings over the phone appointments, but online software tends to be easy to manage and more efficient.

To learn more please check out our post on How to Build Salon Clientele Fast.

How to Calculate Your Salon Rebooking Rate?

Salon rebooking rate is the percentage of clients that make a new booking in your salon (online, reception, phone) within 24 hours from their last appointment. If your clients make a new booking after the 24 hour period they would be considered retained, and we talk about salon client retention.

The average salon rebook rate in the industry sits around 40%, with only a few businesses making it above the 70% threshold. If your business is struggling to reach a higher rebook rate, follow the ideas below to help book your salon out.

How to Increase Rebooking in Your Salon?

1. Create an Excellent Customer Experience
2. Educate and Train
3. Create the Rebooking Culture
4. Utilize Your Salon Software
5. Offer Packages
6. Loyalty Program

Create an Excellent Customer Experience

The overall customer experience is crucial for every hair, beauty and wellness business. If your clients are spending a lot of time in your salon they’re more likely to book back for more.

Providing a beautiful, efficient and effective service is imperative for a perfect customer experience. If the treatments are showing results, your team will not need to push the clients to rebook before leaving the salon.

The ambiance and the behavior of the staff are other factors that contribute to a great customer experience. Smile brightly, speak with warmth and remember that your body language will help your clients relax and feel more comfortable.

Review the overall client experience from time-to-time to improve on any points that might be lacking.

Educate and Train

How your team communicates with clients can decide a lot. The stylists should understand that rebooking depends on good client relationships and the right consultation.

Helping your team to develop the perfect way of handling and communicating with clients can go a long way in improving the recurring appointment rate.

Your team shouldn’t sound too salesy when talking about an advance booking with a client. Often, if they take an easy, breezy, friendly approach, the client will naturally feel compelled to schedule their next appointment.

Reminding the client at the right time for rebooking is vital. Train your staff to plan the next appointment with the client while offering the treatment. Educate the stylists on how to plan services in different sessions to ensure better results and repeat visits.

Instead of asking the client when they will next visit, suggest a time best suited to maintain the effects of the current treatment. Suggest an ideal time and day and then book that in with the client there and then.

If the client pays without confirming her next visit, train the reception staff to gently ask when their next appointment is scheduled. This doesn’t have to be pushy — a friendly, helpful reminder will get more appointments in the diary.

Salon front desk training will give your staff a professional edge, and in turn, convince clients to pre-book with ease.

Always educate your clients about the benefits of regular treatments over infrequent parlor visits — this will make rebooking a natural, ‘must-do’ progression.

Create the Rebooking Culture

The culture of rebooking in your salon starts with your team.

Introduce special rebooking incentives for staff who get more rebooked clients. This will build team morale and encourage them to get regular clients to confirm their next visit before leaving.

Make the benefits of rebooking clients clear to your team.

Having a pre-booked calendar helps them to plan their day, which, of course, maximizes earnings.

Encourage them to Introduce complete makeover projects involving at least 2-3 visits to the salon. Getting the client booked in for the complete package will quickly improve your advance booking rates.

If your salon is not already making use of metamorphosis packages such as complete hairstyle change, or anti-aging treatments, you could be missing a trick.

Another simple way to increase advance appointments is to create the impression that your salon is overbooked. A busy salon will have fewer available slots for appointments.

Early bookings become necessary, so your visitors don’t miss their next due treatment time. This is a great strategy for getting clients to rebook with urgency.

Utilize Your Salon Scheduling Software?

You can also use your salon software to promote advance booking.

Get your stylists to ask the client to confirm their next visit while they are standing with them in the salon. Use a salon booking app and a tablet to make the process quick and effortless.

And don’t forget about the clients who leave your salon without rebooking.

Use your salon software and social media to stay at the top of their mind.

Send booking reminders sent via SMS or email immediately after someone leaves the salon to inspire clients to rebook quickly.

Social media-based follow up marketing strategies can also help to get the clients back in your salon within weeks and increase the return rate.

Make sure online rebooking is easy and offer relevant promotions. It’s imperative the quick rebooking option is incredibly simple — so via a single click or over the phone.

For more information about online salon booking, read our next post on how to get clients to book online.

To learn more please check out our post on How to Get back Time with Salon Software for Small Business.

Offer Packages

Package treatments can be a boon for any salon struggling to make sure that their clients rebook the services.

Create a package with multiple sessions.

You can include the same service multiple times in the package or a stepwise treatment plan to be provided over several sessions.

Bundle packages may include services like anti-acne treatment along with advanced nail care or hair regrow treatment depending on the service demand in your salon and the availability of your staff.

The best thing about packages is that here you get the client to sign up for a continued treatment plan and repeated visits right at the time of purchase.

It ensures confirmed rebooked slots for all the sessions in the package.

Loyalty Program

Loyalty programs are a great way to retain your old customers.

You can also customize it to improve the rebooking rates in your salon.

Want to know how? There are some simple but effective techniques.

Offer more loyalty points to the clients that are rebooking before leaving the salon. This will work as an incentive for your client, pushing them to confirm the next visit in advance.

To make it more appealing, you could offer free treatments to loyalty club members who rebook more than three times.

Conclusion

Now you have a clear idea about how to get clients to rebook, you’ll see that motivating people towards advance bookings is not such a difficult task.

But you need the full support of your team to make it happen.

Once your employees realize how important it is to rebook a client before they leave, it will make all the difference.

Advance appointments can help you increase salon revenue and meet targets quickly.

A successful salon will naturally ensure higher job security and pay for your team members.

Let your stylists, technicians and employees know how their attitude and efforts can help to ensure a better rebooking rate.

And if you love these ideas or have some other ideas that you've used in the past to promote your salon business, why not share them with the Belliata community in the comment section below. We would also be delighted to answer your questions, as well.

Citations

REBOOK: a deterministic, robust and scalable resource booking algorithm
https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007/s10922-010-9167-8.pdf

Clued In: How to Keep Customers Coming Back Again and Again
https://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=nGgFosXctiMC&oi

The importance of information asymmetry in customers' booking decisions: A cautionary tale from the internet
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0010880406290966