The Salon Owner’s Guide to More Sales

Gratify is all about helping small businesses connect with customers and keep them happy while improving the business’ sales. That’s why we’re providing you with these five tips on how to increase sales for your salon. 

These tips will empower you to connect with first-time customers, upsell products and treatments without the sales spin, and provide customers with new payment options.

5 Tips To Help You Increase Your Salon Sales 

Here are five ways you can increase your sales as a small business. 

1.) Strive for Excellent Customer Service, every time 

Customer retention is much cheaper than acquiring new customers. Therefore, it is essential to do everything in your power to hold onto customers. 

Some simple ways to improve customer relations include: 

• Provide easy payment methods such as buy now pay later (BNPL) 
• Make good customer service a priority. 
• Always ask your customers how their experience was 

Learning from your customers is the easiest way to understand trends in your salon. It also means you won’t lose touch as your salon gets bigger and you see less customers yourself. Use the customer feedback received to improve your services, add new products to your product line, and improve customer satisfaction.  

Give customers a reason to share their satisfaction and convince others to get on board and try your Salon. This gives your salon free word-of-mouth advertising. Remember, satisfied buyers who return to your salon are ideal customers, so it pays to keep the happy customer coming back. Satisfied customers also tell their friends and family about your salon, resulting in free advertising and new customer generation. 

2.) Add the upsell to every sale 

“Would you like fries with that?” It’s the easiest 6 word upsell in the world. It’s soft but direct. It offers your customer a small benefit for a small outlay. And it’s easily useable in your salon. 

Upselling and suggestive selling, when done correctly, aren’t intimidating and can make you and your customer feel easy about saying yes or no. Here’s a few ways you can add upselling to your repertoire without sounding like a hard-nosed saleswoman: 

1. Did you see any shampoo you like? 

2. Would you like 10% off your shampoo today? 

3. Did the stylist use any products today that you liked? 

4. Which product was your favourite today? 

5. Would you like to pay in installments? 

Using a simple question that matches your customer’s context will make it more natural, and means you are focused on the customer not the sale. And more importantly, if 1 in 10 customers adds 10% to their purchase, you just increased your revenue by 1% simply by asking a question. What’s your best upsell question? 

3.) Focus on Building Your Online Presence 

Set up a business profile on all social media channels so people can come to your business page organically and see a link to your: 

• Product pages 
• Photos 
• Operating hours 
• Likes 
• Shares 
• Testimonials 
• And other elements 

These can all result in further sales. Make regular posts that are informative and conversational. Social media profiles for your business are a great way to share photos of your product or store, show videos of products in action, or explain and educate about your message. 

Getting reviews on sites such as Google and Yelp can go a long way to spreading your brand’s awareness and getting potential buyers to see how satisfied your customers have been. Make a frequently asked questions (FAQ) section on your main site or app. This way, people can see the answers to questions they may have before they reach out to you through a contact section. Make sure the contact option is visible and easy to reach. 

4.) Incorporate New Payment Methods 

If customers don’t have an easy way to buy something, they may get frustrated and abandon their purchase. Don’t lose customers from a lack of payment options or a difficult buying process. 

Buy Now Pay Later 

One way to grow revenue is to offer a buy now pay later (BNPL) payment system. With buy now pay later installment plans, customers can buy a product and pay for it over time. This is similar to a credit card but is a much better payment because there is no interest. It gives customers peace of mind that their payments are stretched out, allowing them to spend more. 

Gratify can help your salon incorporate a BNPL and get you going in a few hours. This can be the quickest way to increase your sales. Customers receive a treatment and get approved for an installment plan in 2-3 seconds — and that’s it. 

Reach out to Gratify to see how your business can get set up for BNPL.  

5.) Create a simple Customer Loyalty Program 

Customer relationships can improve when salons show they care and appreciate repeat business. A loyalty program can include coupons or deals after a certain amount of purchases has been made. 

Start with just picking five repeat customers and giving them a call to thank them for their business. In today’s automated world, a simple human-to-human connection can strengthen customer loyalty and advocacy. 

Letting customers buy something and pay for it later can build loyalty to your brand, and as buy now pay later grows, you are at risk of losing customers if you do not offer buy now pay later. One option to reward these loyal customers is sending them gifts on birthdays. This can not only help remind the customers and keep your brand in their awareness but can even result in the surprised customer sharing their birthday gift on social media. These loyal existing customers are also the ones most likely to try your new products, so samples of new offerings can be sent as a reward for loyalty.