How to Prepare your Salon for the Christmas Rush
For many people, the Christmas season is an incredibly busy time filled with family dinners, fancy work parties, New Year’s Eve celebrations and much more. People want to look their best for these big occasions, so naturally, beauty parlors and hair salons typically see a rise in bookings during this time. Here are a few tips for you to manage—and take full advantage of—your Christmas rush.
Make it special
Get your customers excited for the season by adding festive flourishes to your salon. Tiny white string lights are an elegant and classic way to add some sparkle to the room. You may also hang garlands, or ornaments.
Don’t forget to treat your clients to something sweet: many salons have candy dishes at the reception. Go the extra mile and offer customers a hot chocolate or spiced tea to warm them up with Christmas nostalgia.
Data-driven beauty
You can also create a unique experience for your customers by offering the Christmas looks they are literally searching for.
How? In a word: Buzzsumo. It’s a website that lets you see the most shared posts related to any topic of your choosing. We’ve done some of the work for you by browsing the most shared blog posts related to Christmas hair and makeup.
Here’s what we found.
Makeup: Offer your clients a choice of five or so celebrity-inspired makeup looks. Need inspiration? Check out #TheList: Holiday Makeup Ideas by Harper’s Bazaar, which has been shared over 9,300 times on social media.
Hair: Same advice. Choose about five red carpet looks that will appeal to your customer base. Why not offer them a Brigitte Bardot-inspired look as detailed in this blog post by Lauren Conrad. It was shared over 58,700 times.
Consider your VIPs
The season presents a great opportunity to re-think your loyalty programme. Ensure your best clients are taken care of during this important time of the year by reaching out to them via a newsletter or through social media.
Create and promote Christmas beauty packages. For example: a full look for the evening including makeup, hair washing, cut and styling. It is also a good idea to come up with gift cards, so that your VIPs may share the love with their family and friends.
Analyse last year
Every salon has its own customer flow. To get a sense of what to expect, take a look at last year’s sales data. You can access your sales history via your SumUp account.
Specifically, pay attention to how the changes in traffic might affect your resources. Ask yourself if you’ll need to hire a seasonal worker, or if you ought to extend your opening hours. Also, pay attention to your inventory: will you have to purchase additional beauty or hair supplies?
Work as far ahead in advance as possible. The more prepared you are, the more capacity you’ll have to push sales even further – with promotions or special events, for example. You’ll also be able to be more flexible with appointments.
