Managing Customer Experience at Your Salon

Many things can go wrong when running a service business like salon. Shining in the service industry is at all times more challenging as compared to the product industry. Management of salon business needs to keep service standards in perspective and customers in the center of the business when it comes to provide exceptional customer experience.

People don’t remember what you said as much as how you made them feel. The vast majority of companies focus their training on the technical with very little on the experimental. For any service business strong practical and operational excellence is important but many times that may go unnoticed by your customers. Very few customers ever call their friends and say, “You wouldn’t believe how clean their restrooms are”, or “everyone was in proper dress code.” However if any of those are not in place, it becomes a “Veto”, and results in customers not returning or providing word-of-mouth. Neither technical nor operational excellence will create brand loyalty the way customer experience excellence will.

It is imperative that every manager is uncompromising about the execution of your standards. Your standards have to be truly non-negotiable. Your employees have to know that they cannot pick and choose, that every standard has to be delivered to every customer. That is why it is very important not to have a dozen standards of every stage of interaction. Keep it realistic to achieve.

Take care of your customers, and they will take care of you. Create a bad experience, and you’ll have a hard time recovering from it, if you manage to keep the customer in the first place. Following are smart strategies that will enhance customer experience at your salon without too much effort.

• This starts with the moment your customer enters your salon. Customers like to see someone available to greet them and ask if they need any help. Salons often do mistakes in scheduling appointments. If there’s a problem with the appointment, apologize in a proper way and offer options to accommodate the customer. In my recent visit to a popular beauty school in Pasadena, the receptionist told me that I was scheduled for 12th rather than 7th. And said “Since you are here, I will sign you in...” It sounded to me like a favor on me however it was their mistake in scheduling on wrong date. Later at the end of visit when I was ready to pay she found that the person scheduled on 12th was Sima Patel, and My name was Seema Parween. So it was something she did not pay attention to and had made me wait for 45 minutes.

• Make sure staff is available to people when they need them. If the salon is overbooked or is running late to accommodate an appointment, then inform your client in advance and offer them with free extra services or a discounted rate when they come in next time. Show your customers you value them and don’t just look to make business. Inform your customers on how much time it will take for the haircut or facial and make sure to provide service effectively within that time. Don’t be in a hurry either, to quickly serve the customer and move on to a new one. Every customer is an asset to the business and should be served sincerely.

• Customers don’t like rushing into getting a spa treatment or a haircut without putting thought into it. It’s not just about the cost, but also the impact a treatment will have on them. Say will the red or shot hair suit them? Is an exfoliating body scrub the right choice for their skin type? Give your clients the time and attention they are looking for and patiently try to understand what their requirements are. This will help your client gain trust on you and help you provide better customer service since you will know what the client is looking for and how to deliver it right! Make sure you ask your client all the questions and queries they have, and give them a rough idea about how it will all be carried out. Your customers must feel comfortable and at ease while getting the service from your beauty salon.

• Make sure the beauty specialist knows her job well. If your business is a beauty school, the teachers must be professional. They should look professional and talk professionally. This is what your students will learn from them. A beauty specialist should know what she is doing. For example a hair stylist should know her work well and be updated on what trends are in fashions. Also he or she should know how to take directions from the customer and produce work which the customer is satisfied with and not only what the stylist thinks looks good. Staff shouldn’t talk unnecessarily with the customer, sharing their problems or work gossip. They don’t want to be let in on your issues or become friends, they are primarily there to forget their problems and have a nice experience.

• Offer knowledge – don’t push your products and services. Instead, educate customers so they can choose for themselves, with their own needs in mind, rather than pressuring anyone to buy. In most of my visits for review, I notice that specialist just offer some products to me without telling me exactly how that product can help me. As a specialist you should also ask my opinion about what I am looking for in a product. 

• Say thank you – your customers need to feel valued and appreciated. Never tell your customers that your service was cheaper than other places unless the customers say it’s pricey. It does not look good if you say that “today the service was only $79.00.” Customers like to hear you thanking for the business they have given you. Customers have a hundred choices to go to when it comes to salons, because the market is filled with them. 

Beyond increasing the chances of repeat business, an exceptional customer experience can turn customers into promoters who will recommend the company to others. Sell the experience to customers rather than service or product. You customers will come back to your business with more business.

Building Customer Loyalty Through Quality

Customer experience and loyalty are closely connected, yet brands often find it difficult to integrate them effectively. Serving your customer better does not necessarily mean serving him/her in a more expensive manner. The goal is to ensure that you have aligned your service elements with each and every customer’s need.

Leadership is not aligned. Leadership in your organization needs to be crystal clear on the experience your consumers want and what you are going to offer. That means spending in-depth time with your customers—and the people you would like to be your customers—to understand their needs. You can’t stop with answers like “I want a faster transaction.” You need to know what customers mean by faster and how they expect “faster” to feel. 

There are, however, several common mistakes that businesses make when implementing customer experience plan that can have an impact on the success of their customer loyalty program. The three most common mistakes are outlined below. By avoiding these three pitfalls, your business can increase customer loyalty:

Treating customers unequally: A common mistake businesses make is that they undervalue the loyalty of customers with smaller wallets.We are so focused on driving revenue today that we fail to recognize the potential of tomorrow's revenue generators. High spenders receive the majority of communications and reap most of the program rewards. But customers have different spend potentials as they progress across the life-stage continuum. Young adults typically lack the wallet size of established career people. Though they may have minimal potential today, young adults should not be ignored or alienated. Start building relationships with them now so that when their spend potential grows, you already have their loyalty.

Ignoring your competitors: We always think that we’re better than our competitors, but I can guarantee they are contacting our customers and trying to make them switch. Make sure you are keeping an eye on your competitors and try to ensure your perceived service is better than theirs. 

Ignoring customer feedback:  We can’t learn anything if we don’t take action. If a customer leaves you feedback, make sure you follow up with them and make sure they feel listened to. Use the feedback to create a better experience for all your customers.

Customers don't have to keep buying from you, and they don't have to tell their friends how great your business is. But if you put in the effort to earn their loyalty, that's exactly what they'll do.An ongoing challenge for any company is the retention of customers. It is well known that getting new customers costs much more than maintaining ones already doing business with you. Failure to keep your customers at the center of your strategy will result in wasting time and money languishing in one or more of these loyalty pitfalls. In a tight economy, you can't afford that mistake.

Word of Mouth and Customer complaints

Companies need to find out what is most important to customers and what is the best way to get more customers. Today one client told me that one of his regular customer got upset with his employee and said that he will never do business with them. This is not a new story for businesses dealing with hundreds of customers everyday. But if one customer gets upset with your business, is it really going to effect your business? Yes! It will. A problem may not happen very often but still be a problem that will cause customers to defect. Word-of-mouth is one of the primary influences of purchase behavior. Positive word-of-mouth can increase the success of your brand, yet negative word-of-mouth can destroy brand reputation.

Research has repeatedly shown that word-of-mouth information is an important factor in consumers’ purchasing decisions. Dissatisfied customers tell about twice as many people as satisfied customers. Technical Research Assistance Programs (TARP) reported that dissatisfied complainers told a median of 9 to 10 people about their experience versus satisfied complainers who told 4 to 5 people. A General Electric study found that 61 percent said the opinions of friends were useful, whereas only 29 percent said advertising was helpful. A Louis Harris study showed that 72 percent used word of mouth most often, whereas only 33 percent used advertising most often. In a Whirlpool study, 38 percent relied on friends and relatives and only 6 percent on advertising.

In his classic summary of the impact of word of mouth, Arndt reported that mass media dominate in the product awareness stage, but informal sources—that is, word of mouth—are of major importance in the product evaluation stage. He also found that negative word of mouth had a stronger effect on purchasing decisions than did positive word of mouth. Customers are more likely to use word-of-mouth information for riskier products, higher-priced products, and a costly problem resolution. Average consumers receive a minimum of 200 marketing communications a day or 1400 per week. They act on only about one of the 1400. In contrast, consumers act on approximately one out of three word of mouth messages.

The Internet has given unhappy customers a way to spread their word-of-mouth gripes even further. There are numerous websites where customers can complain about their latest awful experience. Intel, Nike, Mrs. Fields Cookies, and Hilfiger have all been blasted. Some companies are monitoring these sites to use the complaint feedback to improve. Others are trying to stop the sites by accusing sites of trademark infringement.

It happens a lot that we hate customers when they complain.  Keep in mind: If customers do not complain, companies lose the opportunity to find out why the customers defect. While increasing complaints sounds counter intuitive, that is exactly what companies should do if they want to retain customers.

Most research has found that complaint resolution yields customer loyalty. A classic study conducted by TARP for the U.S. Office of Consumer Affairs found a direct relationship between customers who complain and their intent to repurchase. For products costing $1 to $5, 70 percent would buy again if the company resolved their complaint. For customers whose complaint was resolved on the spot, 95 percent would buy again. Even among those whose complaints were not satisfactorily resolved, 46 percent would buy again. Only 37 percent who did not complain would buy again. For products over $100, 54 percent would buy again if the company resolved their complaint, and 82 percent would buy again if it is resolved quickly. 

There is no getting around customer complaints, regardless of your industry. Although no one likes receiving a complaint, they present you with an opportunity to identify and rectify specific problems with your current systems or product. They can also help you to develop your relationship with your customer by allowing you to demonstrate that you value their trade by taking their concerns seriously and dealing with their complaint.

Remember - it costs at least five times as much to gain a new customer than keep an existing one. Keeping a complaining customer should be the top priority, and at these cost ratios you can afford to be generous in your time and effort.

Freedom to choose

The freedom to choose may be the most powerful attribute and precious you have in your life. It shapes who you become, how you express yourself, the success you achieve, and your influence in the world. You are a product of your choices, not your conditions. Your choice will determine whether you become a person who is truly indispensable or one who is hardly missed. Choice is essential to freedom and anatomy, and freedom is at the core of everything we want in life, including feeling strong, secure, and resilient; finding meaning; and experiencing joy and peace. These are the things that make us feel alive and cause us to become more engaged. Freedom, therefore, is critical to your happiness and well-being.

By the time you lay your head on the pillow at the end of the day, you will have made hundreds of choices that will affect the quality of your life. The nature of these choices will affect the quality of your life. The nature of these choices will determine how much freedom you have and the degree to which you live an empowered life. Many choices you make today will enable you to control your destiny, and some of them will put your destiny in the hands of others.  Freedom is yours for the taking- even at work- but the problem is that we all frequently fail to embrace what is immediately available and already ours. That’s because many people think that freedom lies “out there” in a better boss, a more enlightened culture, a different job, a bigger office, or a more solid customer base rather than “in here”, in them.

But freedom is a choice. Freedom is a state of mind. It is established from the inside-out. Not choosing is itself a choice. When you abdicate this most basic of freedoms, you imprison yourself. You choose to become helpless, powerless, mindless, less influential, and less happy. You’ve benched yourself in your own game of life. If you work in a high-paying job for a toxic boss who makes your life miserable and you say,” I have no choice,” what you really mean is, “I am choosing to prioritize making money over my own job fulfillment,” or “I am choosing to embrace safety versus risk, or the known instead of the unknown.” In reality there are other jobs that will enable you to pay out your bills, and other leaders who are more enlightened.  For any number of reasons, you are not willing to confront the uncertainty, That, in and of itself is a choice. By rationalizing that you no choice, you are choosing not to recognize legitimate alternatives that are yours for the taking. You are stuck in a comfort zone of inaction that is functional and safe, but leaves you dead and disengaged.

Research from Gallup, Walker information, Hudson Institute, and others shows that approximately Seventy-five percent of the workforce is disengaged at work and are not loyal to their companies. You know them, because you work with them.  They are in the next cubicle, down the hall, in your department, on the front line, and yes, even in the executive suite. So, what about you? If you had the opportunity to hire you tomorrow, would you do it?  

When you will realize your career is a result of choices and not conditions, the effect will be absolutely liberating. You will begin to think big and act bold. You will become impassioned and engaged. Coworkers will look to you for leadership and inspiration. Leadership does not come from having an official title but from making choices: to serve others, take on risk, assume responsibility and discover a life where passion and excitement replace ho-hum routine.  

There has been a lot of research that shows that every leaders ask how they can motivate their people. Therefore, if your are unhappy with your job and with your work environment, there are basically three choices: fix it, change it, or leave it. Whatever decision you take, it is your personal decision. Remember: Taking responsibility, engaging yourself, and getting involved not only help you to be more satisfied at work, it also will help to live a more rewarding private life.

Multicultural Customers

 Globalization has brought everyone in one global market where people from different ethnicity and life styles communicate in one culture which is called business culture. But still we all struggle when we communicate with a person of different culture. Culture means a way of life for a group of people. It defines what is acceptable. Culture is a set of shared ideas about how to live and how to get along with people. I have been asked about the cultural differences in business dealings regularly by my clients in workshops.

Learning about diversity is an opportunity to develop new ways of thinking and new perspectives. For any business to succeed, employees need to be able to adapt to new or ambiguous situations and learn new standards and practices. Understanding multicultural diversity helps you increase your job satisfaction and increase customer satisfaction by recognizing variations in customer needs, values, and beliefs. Understanding will help you communicate despite accent and language differences.

Several studies have shown that the success of international business depends largely on employees’ intercultural communication competence. Employees need to adjust communication skills to fit cross-cultural needs. Businesses must develop a culture of inclusiveness to achieve their goals. The building blocks of this culture are empowerment and education to enable employees to reach their potential, corporate flexibility to meet customer and employee needs, and open two-way communication to promote information and opinion sharing.

Cultures differ on what is beautiful, ugly, humorous, risqué, and embarrassing. Culture determines what foods are considered edible, what foods are taboo, and what foods taste good. We differ on what is appropriate personal hygiene and clothing. Colors mean different things in different cultures. Culture affects logistical needs in terms of money, transportation, measurements, and sizing. People in many other countries think Americans are backward because we do not use the metric system. Imagine their confusion with our measuring system. They think using feet and inches is rather strange.

Remember that our standards are culturally influenced as well. We queue and consider cutting in line rude. In other countries, they crowd, and first shove, first serve wins. We should not take cultural slights personally. They are a reflection of cultural background and not meant to offend. For example, men from some other cultures are not accustomed to dealing with women as equals or professionals. Therefore, we should not take offense if they treat women differently.

Most non-Western cultures value harmony and balance, and so people avoid direct or negative confrontations and believe in saving face to minimize embarrassment. They believe that maintaining group harmony is more important than expressing personal opinions. In over two-thirds of non-American cultures, the needs of the group, company, or family are more important than the needs of an individual. This is the very opposite of mainstream American culture. Americans think they should express their opinion even if it is in opposition to the beliefs of others in the group. In general, mainstream Americans believe in planning and controlling the future and bringing about change. We believe new ideas and new ways of doing things are usually beneficial. This is not the case in most other cultures. Other cultures use history as a guide for the present and believe tradition should be maintained.

The art of listening and speaking is greatly valued in many Hispanic, black, and Asian cultures. You may have had the experience with someone who fidgets, picks up papers, and turns his back momentarily to look at something while you are talking. How did you feel? You probably felt as if the person was not listening. He would tell you that he heard everything you said. You don’t believe it though, because he was not attentive. This may offend in not only some cultural situations but also based on gender and regional origin.

Body language is more important to people from other cultures than it is to mainstream Americans. There are many different meanings in eye contact, facial expressions, hand gestures, body movement, and proxemics. Determine the customers’ culture, and learn the critical nonverbal differences. A smile is understood almost universally as a sign of goodwill. However, whom we smile at, how often we smile, and under what circumstances we smile does vary. We think service providers should smile and make friendly conversation with customers, whereas in other cultures providers should be reserved and respectful toward customers. We consider service providers as equals. Elsewhere they may be seen as a different social class. Cultures differ on whether browsing, touching merchandise, and trying on apparel is acceptable.

If you are not able to understand customers because of a foreign accent, it is okay to tactfully tell them you are having difficulty. Ask if they will slow down a little bit so you can get all the information correct. Do not pretend to understand if you do not. Take the time and listen to the pattern of speech so you will be able to pick up a few key words. There is no need to repeat one word over and over. Be careful how you say you can’t understand. An abrupt “I can’t understand you” or “What did you say?” is rude. Keep job aids available for translations.

It is the spirit of etiquette that matters, not the letter. It is all right to ask about etiquette differences. It is okay to observe the other person’s actions. If you genuinely make an effort and make a mistake out of ignorance, it is all right to apologize. A mistake is often overlooked out of embarrassment or pride, and people may deny they were offended, but an apology will be heard and appreciated.

Learn how your customers prefer to be addressed. Koreans write their last name first, but when they come to the United States, they reverse it to fit in. Some countries do not use last names. Ask, “How would you like me to address you?” Even if you must ask more than once, pronounce names correctly. Do not give someone a nickname just because it’s easier. Americans believe that using first names is friendly; in other cultures, first names are disrespectful. Americans assume we can address anyone in a group. Elsewhere, whom it is acceptable to address is based on age and gender. Be formal until you are told differently. Avoid assuming anything.

What is it like to speak English or another language as a second language? People may be anxious about being misunderstood, feel inexperienced, or be passive and not ask questions when they should. When immigrants speak their native language among themselves around people who do not understand it, it is a misconception that they are trying to exclude outsiders. The real reason is that they feel less isolated, it’s easier, and it reduces stress. Speaking a new language is a strain.

We may assume someone who cannot speak our language does not understand it. The truth is that it is easier to understand than it is to speak it. Those of us who have learned another language know that pronunciation is the toughest part. In addition, speakers often confuse pronouns, mispronounce words, use incorrect words and endings, and have different voice intonation and inflection stressing inappropriate words or syllables and speaking in a different rhythm. How do you react to an accent? Do you assume the person is uneducated, not assimilated into the culture, and ignorant of grammar?

Americans believe that it’s all right to point out an employee’s mistake or complain. In other cultures, it is inappropriate because the service provider would lose face. Asian and Hispanic customers tend to complain in much softened terms. Asians consider it wrong to say anything negative. To save face, an unhappy Asian customer will just disappear even more quietly than a mainstream American customer. If you ask directly if everything is satisfactory, you may not be able to tell if it really is or if it is a vague answer to cover up real dissatisfaction.

Companies need to increase the cultural literacy and sensitivity of their employees. Education will help them adjust their customer service behavior. We need to familiarize ourselves with the cultures we serve and learn about their values, attitudes, and norms. Their perceptions, how they see the world, are based on their culture. Many people believe that different means wrong. We cannot assume our “common sense” is everyone’s common sense. If we make judgments about people and do not make an effort to see beyond stereotypes, we will be unable to provide our customers with exceptional service. Realize that everyone is different in some way. None of us sees the world in exactly the same way. The bottom line is that everyone should receive respectful, fair treatment. We should be polite and conduct ourselves professionally. Character traits to develop are open-mindedness, tolerance, adaptability, a sense of humor, curiosity, empathy, and respect.

Bad Leadership

Often a leader is assumed to be all-powerful. As a leader, we exercise power, authority and influence in the ways that do harm. How? A leader may or may not hold a formal position of authority; position is not the point. Rather, it is the leader as protagonist that matters. People in a state of nature are not, in usual sense of the word “good”. This is not to insist that people are bad but rather that relied on to behave well. Leaders are like everyone else. They-we- behave badly for different reasons, and they-we-behave badly different ways. A city in which corruption has long been tolerated is more likely to be defrauded by it elected officials and string tradition of good government.

Why do leaders behave badly then? The leaders’ traits and character play more important role in their behaviors. Traits once considered of paramount importance such as intelligence, are viewed as having fuzzy and imprecise denotations. It is now widely agreed that to emphasize the leaders. Traits are to emphasize other important variables, such as the situation, the nature of the task at hand of course the followers. Why people behave the way they do. Greed-Greedy leaders crave more-more success, more money, more power or more whatever, such as sex. This is not to say that all leaders who aspire to have more are bad. In some measure, rewards such as money and power are simply the benefits expected from hard work. Rather, when leaders’ appetite for more is excessive, it is likely to intrude on their capacity to exercise leadership for the common good. When leaders are unwilling or unable to control their desire for more bad leadership will be the result. Greed is likely to be most pernicious when in entails a hunger for power.

Unlike traits which are viewed as amenable to change, character is more permanent condition, fundamental and fixed. Character is embedded in who we are; it is who we are. As the word is commonly used, we also presume that to know a person’s character is to know his or her moral compass. The connection between character and leadership is easiest to make an extreme. Unless followers are pressured or coerced into going along with bad leaders, they resist them right? Wrong? We know full well that bad leaders of various kinds abound that their followers usually follow, even when they know that their leaders are misguided or malevolent. Why? The answer to this question matters, because we can’t expect to reduce the number of bad leaders unless, we reduce the number of bad followers. Followers have their most basic human needs which attract them to follow bad leaders.

The quest for safety, for self-preservation, is arguably the strongest of our basic needs.

Before anything else, we seek food, shelter, and protection from harm. Followers follow bad leaders not only because of their individual need for safety, simplicity and certainty but also because of the needs of the group. Group[s go along with bad leaders often provide important benefits. Followers’ dedications to bad leaders are very bad, as opposed to only somewhat bad. Followers who knowingly, deliberately commit themselves to bad leaders are themselves bad. Bad leadership falls into two categories; bad as in ineffective and bad as an unethical ineffective leadership fails to produce the desired change. For reasons that include missing traits, weak skills, strategies badly conceived, and tactics badly employed, ineffective leadership falls shorts of in intention. Unethical leadership fails to distinguish between right and wrong including corruption, callous, and evil acts.

This is a very big fact that without followers, nothing happens, including bad leadership. Together leaders and followers can bring out the best in people, as in say, the civil rights movement; or they can amplify what’s worse in people and leaver murder and mayhem in their wake. Obviously this finding has moral implications. Leaders and follower share responsibility for leadership, bad as well as good. Finger pointing- “He did it!” – will no longer wash. None of us is off the hook. We cannot stop or slow bad leadership by changing human nature. No amount of preaching or sermonizing, no exhortation to virtuous conduct, uplifting thoughts, are wholesome habits will obviate the fact that even though our behaviors may change, our nature is constant. Rather, it is that leaders are likely to change only when they decide it’s in their interest to do so. Bad leaders will not be good leaders unless they calculate the cost of bad leadership as greater than the costs of good leadership. Bad leadership will not, cannot, be stopped or slowed unless followers take responsibility for rewarding the good leaders and penalizing the bad ones.

Is working hard at work worth doing?

It is hard to fail, but it is worse never to have tried to succeed. By Theodore Roosevelt.

Recently a good friend of mine Suparna lost in her offer to be promoted for a Manager’s position. Last month an opportunity for me to bid for a campaign in a major company fell through. Also Last month I had a proposal rejected by a sponsor and everyday folks around the world sense the sting of frustration when things don’t work out as expected. Too often though when our hard work fails to produce what we have put our effort for, we focus on the failure.  People call it “waste of their effort” implying that because they did not accomplish the objective they set out toward—whether it be the business deal they had worked so hard to bring home or the job promotion that was given to someone else despite their hours of overtime—that their effort was of no value.

But that is not true. There is a saying Nobody cares how much you know, until they know how much you care.

You do yourself a disservice when you approach hard work begrudgingly. There is little in life more rewarding than working hard at work worth doing, regardless of whether you always produce the result you want.

Working hard toward a goal or vision that inspires us, regardless of the outcome, always holds intrinsic value. What matters far more than what we get from our hard work and effort, is who we get to become because of it. It is only human to feel disappointment when we don’t achieve something we’ve worked hard toward. But our hard work and effort is never wasted. It truly is one of life’s deep joys to “work hard at work worth doing.”  And working hard toward something that fills you with purpose and passion is always work worth doing— whether it be fulfilling a long held dream, building a business that fulfills an unmet need or, closer to home, writing a book to help people be more courageous in their working lives.

Today the word “work” has come to mean something to be avoided as much as possible for many people who approach hard work begrudgingly. But there’s value in work. Not just for the money you can earn, but from the person you get to become through it. Hard work draws out talents and capacities that may otherwise have lain dormant.

I don’t know what challenges you face right now. But I will bet that in order to meet them successfully it will require you to do some hard work.  Work isn’t always “fun”. Sometimes it can be a grind. But that does not diminish its intrinsic value.

So let me ask you, where is your life calling on you to work harder at work worth doing? Whether it’s the inner work of transforming the way in you’re living your life, or the outer “roll up your sleeves and set your alarm early” work, always keep forefront of mind, that nothing worth doing has ever been done without good old fashioned hard work.