How do you manage the Christmas period in your hairdressing salon?

It's that time of year when the snow falls and the wind blows... Except at your place! No, in your hairdressing salon, the end of the year is a race and it's hot! Sometimes a little too much...

The team Wavyteam, which has been working with you for more than 4 years now, has witnessed the overwork that you experience in your hairdressing salon during the festive season. This is why we have decided to help you.

Christmas is a very important time for the health of your hair salon, beauty salon or barbershop. It is the month when your turnover explodes and it is important that you can work efficiently.

In this article, we offer a few tips and best practices that will help you manage the Christmas period more easily, and thus ensure a successful organization.

Optimise your planning for December

Your customers generally tend to want to make their appointments a few days before Christmas. Find out how you can organize your appointments by targeting your customer base.

Organise your appointments with SMS campaigns

It is usually your clients who will make their appointment 1 or 2 days before Christmas, which is perfectly understandable... Brushing at home, it's D-Day!

Our advice: bring the men in at the beginning of the month!

A man's haircut doesn't change much in 1 or 2 weeks. Encourage your male customers to come to your salon between 1 and 20 December. How do you do it?

Communicate from December 1st on these different points:

Tip 1: Send an SMS campaign to your male customers

Your male clients are most likely thinking about you in the back of their minds. Nevertheless, some of them put off calling to make an appointment in your salon. Don't wait for them to call and take the lead in getting them to come!

Take the initiative tosend an SMS campaign to attract them to your hair salon in the first half of December. SMS is a very effective means of communication: 95% of messages are read within 10 minutes of receipt.

Here are 2 examples of SMS campaigns:

Tip 2: Communicate exceptional opening hours

We recommend that you open your hairdressing salon exceptionally on certain Sundays or Mondays in December. This will allow you to be more relaxed in your race against time on the other days of the week. If you don't want to open on Sundays or Mondays, you can also offer night hours, for example on Tuesday or Thursday nights.

It is important that you communicate about your salon's exceptional openings and closings on social networks, your website, and also via SMS campaigns. Make sure this information is visible!

Tip 3: Prioritize your most loyal customers

It is a universal rule... It costs 6 to 7 times less to bring back a loyal customer than to acquire a new one! With this in mind, don't hesitate to call your loyal customers and make them a special offer to thank them for their loyalty. These customers should be prioritised in your planning. Their loyalty has a real impact on your salon's turnover and, as a little bonus, they are the most likely to buy your products, either individually or in a box.

What's more, your loyal customers are your best ambassadors. Positive word-of-mouth is your most efficient and cost-effective means of communication.

Avoid forgotten Christmas appointments with SMS appointment confirmations and reminders

Missed appointments (or no-shows) are a real waste of time and money at Christmas time. Christmas is the time when hairdressers turn down the most appointments. For you, a client who doesn't keep an appointment is always an irritating moment. The good news is that you can do something about it!

Thanks to online planning and online booking, reduce no-shows! How does it work?

1. When booking online, the client receives an SMS confirming the appointment, on which there is a link allowing him/her to change the date of the appointment or to cancel the appointment.

2. The customer receives an SMS 24 hours before the appointment, on which he/she also has a link to modify or cancel the appointment.

In both cases, you will receive a notification that an appointment has been changed or cancelled.

Gain new customers through your website and online booking

It is possible that one or more of your hairdresser neighbours are turning down client appointments. This is the perfect opportunity for you toacquire new clients in your salon, if you are not already full 😉 .

Doyou have a website and/or online booking? Share the links! Go, go, go on your social networks to reach as many people as possible. Use the online booking visuals created especially for your publications, to encourage your customers to make an appointment online.

Online booking shows your availability, which significantly reduces the number of calls to your salon. You can really focus on your customers and take the time to take care of them without being cut off. Trust us, the customer experience in your salon is much better.

Increase your salon's customer loyalty at Christmas

Other than prioritizing and pampering your already loyal customers, the Christmas and New Year's Day period is an opportunity to retain your non-loyal customers. Make your hair salon as special as this time of year is!

Decorate your living room like at home

When a customer visits your salon, he or she goes through several stages, which is called the customer journey. During their journey, your customers experience several emotions that will determine their opinion of your salon. Christmas is the perfect opportunity to surprise your customers during their journey, by playing on the 5 senses.

It's not just about putting up tinsel and a Christmas tree. Choose a playlist of appropriate music, light candles with cinnamon scents, and sell candles in your living room, for example! You can choose a theme to help you get ideas for decorating. Share photos of your decorated hair salon on social networks. You can even post pictures of the "during", where you put up the decorations.

     
Christmas window display at Bloomingdale's

Snowy Christmas window

Offer special Christmas and New Year services

Offering special hairstyles for Christmas and New Year's brings you 2 main benefits:

1. You make your services more dynamic by offering new services. This allows you to surprise your clients with beautiful and original hairstyles and also to show them your expertise once again. Don't hesitate to ask your clients if they have a special theme on New Year's Day so that their hairstyle reflects their costume.

2. Your team is also happy to be able to style differently, to learn new hairstyles and thus to acquire more knowledge. Change allows a team to renew itself, which generates a dynamic atmosphere !

Download our Christmas visuals to let your customers know that you have packages and services for the occasion.

Promote your gift cards

It is an opportunity to boost the number of visitors, sales and increase the turnover of your hairdressing salon or beauty institute not only through the resale of products or the setting up of special services, but also through gift cards.

Gift cards are very popular in the hairdressing and beauty industry at special times of the year, such as Valentine's Day and Mother's Day. That's why we have also created a Gift Card Kit for your social networks.

Maintain the relationship with your customers

The relationship with your customers should be maintained throughout the year, to strengthen the bond you have built up in the salon. Thanks to SMS campaigns, you can wish your customers a happy holiday season!

We advise you to maintain your customer relationship also through social networks, such as Facebook and Instagram. Highlight the news you have in your salon, whether it is new services or new products. Your customers are likely to be interested and then come to the salon thanks to your news!

Discover our Christmas packs on Wavy Store

In addition to the services, you can also sell gift boxes specially designed for Christmas. There are all sorts of combinations of gift boxes, here are the ones we have prepared on Wavy Store , the platform for selling products on Wavy:

Wella Fusion Gift Set

The Wella Fusion gift set for an ideal skincare routine:

  • Intense Repair Shampoo 250ml.
  • Intense Repair Mask 100ml.
  • Oil Reflection Smoothing Oil 30ml.

The multi-brand pack for women, proposed by Wavy Store :

  • 60 gummies Detox from Epycure
  • Unbottled Naked Shampoo
  • The premium brush from Mon Shampoing
  • A surprise product!

The multi-brand pack for men, proposed by Wavy Store :

  • 60 Hair Strengthening Capsules from Mulato
  • Barburys beard wax
  • L'Oréal Professionnel Matte Modeling Pomade
  • Seb-Man's 3-in-1 multi-tasker shampoo

The My Shampoo pack, offered by Wavy Store :

  • The hair towel
  • The boar bristle brush
  • Keratin Shampoo 250ml
  • 5ml dry hair booster

Take care of your team

In order for everything to run smoothly in your hairdressing salon in December, a good understanding and team spirit is essential. As the manager of your salon, you should define the working days of all employees. If you plan to work at night, on Mondays or Sundays, check the availability of your employees, as this is not always appreciated and/or wanted by your employees.

In order to organise your schedule in the best possible way, Stéphanie Bozonnet, Educational Director at L'Oréal's Real Campus, advises you to ask your employees if they agree to work more than 35 hours per week, well in advance of the holidays. You need to present them with the advantages, which can be financial or compensatory in terms of rest.

In the hairdressing sector, the increases are +25% between the 36th and 43rd hour, and +50% from the 44th hour (excluding Sundays).

The employee may also pay the premiums by choosing to offset overtime with time off. These rests must be taken within 3 months of the date of the overtime worked (excluding the periods from July 1 to August 31 and December 15 to July 1).

If your salon is not already using Wavy, it's time to get on board! Register today and request your free demo now . Are you already using another software system? No problem, we will migrate all your data to our system. The Wavy software is the simple and affordable key to making your business more viable.

Written by
Aurélie Pauker
Always attracted by the world of hairdressing and beauty, today I answer the problems you may have.

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