It’s the bane of every hair stylist’s existence: the cancellation. Sometimes you have to cancel, and you don’t know how to do it without causing many problems. Or maybe you’re on the receiving end of cancellations, and you don’t know how to re-engage clients. You’ve tried leaving voicemail messages and making your business days and business hours on your website. But if you don’t have a receptionist at a front desk to handle everything for you, it can become easy to lose track of clients—and for clients to lose track of you.
The result? Some clients start canceling on you. Of course, you want to avoid these cancellations, and who wouldn’t? The key is you need a better system. Either your clients are canceling on you, or you need a way to cancel each client for a snow day—either way, it can be challenging to handle the work of placing a phone call for every one of the clients you need to contact.
It may come down to a simple issue: lack of engagement. Your marketing isn’t what it used to be when you were a new hairstylist on social media. Fortunately, voicemail message marketing offers more than just a way of handling cancellations. With it, you can re-engage old clients, automatically place voicemail messages, and gently remind customers of upcoming appointment dates. The result will be a smoother hair salon—and one that feels like it has a front desk on call 24/7. Here’s how to make it happen.
First things first: let’s get you some new clients. Voicemail marketing can help you automate the phone calls for your beauty business, so you’re not constantly reaching out on your own time. That doesn’t just eat into your energy for the day—it eats into the productive, paid work you could otherwise be doing during your hours of operation.
So how do you reach potential clients with voicemail marketing? Consider adding seasonal promotions as part of your ongoing efforts. This is a great way to engage with new clients and re-engage old clients who might need a gentle nudge to return to your beauty salon.
For example, consider a back-to-school special where parents who bring their children get two-for-one deals. Or consider a discount before Valentine’s Day. You can advertise these offers and giveaways with a short message on voicemail—and automate the process when you work with a service like Slybroadcast.
Another issue for handling client engagement is that you may have to cancel an entire day’s worth of appointments due to weather or an emergency—without making each client feel like they’ve been left out in the lurch. Voicemail marketing offers a way out of this.
For example, consider if there’s snow in the forecast. You can use your voicemail marketing like “salon software,” having it do the heavy lifting for you. You can send out a pre-recorded message to every number that has an appointment that day. Think of it as recording one voicemail and then hitting “copy and paste” to all your other clients. It’s a way to leverage your time without feeling like you’re being too impersonal.
The next time you have to cancel on an entire half-days or a day’s worth of clients, consider using a customized “voicemail greeting” that goes straight to your clients’ inboxes. It will feel a bit like having a front desk that handles everything for you—except this time, it’s software that’s giving everyone the personal touch.
You’re at a critical inflection point when you earn a new customer. Their first impression of you will determine how they feel about your service for months—maybe years to come. Customer service is paramount for hairstylists, so any slight touch you can add to make the experience more pleasant can pay significant dividends down the road.
Fortunately, voicemail marketing can help you add a nice “touch” to each interaction without working harder. You can use voicemail marketing service providers like Slybroadcast as a phone system. How do you do it? Greet a new customer with a custom voicemail about how excited you are for their upcoming appointment. Include anything they might need to prep for it—if it applies—and tell them you look forward to seeing them.
You can record this “Sly broadcast” once and continue to use it for every new client you acquire. It’s your voice, so it will sound personal—as if you recorded it that day. The result is that your hair salon will start to feel more like a day spa; you’re using voicemail templates to create a personal touch. People will think they’ve signed up for a beauty salon on the cutting edge of the beauty industry. And you may very well be—but your marketing should reflect that.
A salon voicemail might not seem like the ideal customer experience for someone who has dropped off your radar. However, you can re-engage lost customers using voicemail marketing if they signed up for your voicemail list previously—this allows you to notify them about cancellations, appointment reminders, or upcoming discounts. These upcoming discounts can be wonderful ways to “nudge” someone back in the salon who hasn’t been there in a while.
You can almost entirely automate your outreach with voicemail marketing with Slybroadcast and online booking software. While you’re busy fixing a customer’s hair, your marketing system can reach out to clients, remind them of appointments, and give them links to fit neatly into your schedule. In a business where you have to be there to earn your pay, you need to use technology to your advantage. Doing so will make you a better hairdresser and a better businessperson.