December 09, 2021 — Lilian
December is the busiest month of the year. Many customers plan last-minute appointments and it’s nice and busy in the salon. At least, that's how we would have liked it! This year's holiday season will also be different than usual. We are limited by the current corona measures and the future is still uncertain…
But one thing is certain, we are definitely still going to celebrate it!
This year, your regular customers have shown that they still love coming by for that wonderful back massage or facial. The holiday season is therefore the perfect time to put these customers in the spotlight and thank them for coming in (for example, after the lockdown in May). How about…
1. Thank-you gift with discount
Do you send out newsletters? Or do you sometimes send some customers a personal message via Whatsapp or Instagram? Send your most loyal clients a message thanking them for making appointments in the past year. Add a discount of, for example, 25% off a treatment that they can use again in the coming year, and you can wish them a happy new year of course!
2. Schedule a new treatment for the new year
Did you have more time this year and were you therefore able to complete a certain course? Or are you planning to introduce new treatments in the new year? Let your regular customers get acquainted with these new treatments by giving them the opportunity to be the first to book them in the months of January and February. This will ensure that your agenda for 2022 is already filled.
3. Double discount
Word-of-mouth advertising is still proven to be the best advertising for your salon. Do your regulars recommend a new customers? Then give them both a discount. This can be a one-time thing, but you might be able to get a lot more out of it!
Perhaps there is a true influencer in your customer base who wants to recommend your salon via social media. That's a great way to get new customers.
Unfortunately, we are limited again by the current corona measurements. The uncertainty of whether a lockdown will happen again is causing tension and stress for many people. It may sound crazy, but you can take advantage of an unpleasant situation.
1. Think of a morning offer
With the salons closing at 5pm, there will be a lot of customers who won't be able to schedule appointments after working hours. Can you start earlier? If you can change your opening hours, give your clients the chance to come in the morning.
Think of a special "morning promotion" in which you temporarily change the name of existing treatments to make them even more attractive: "Facial Massage" can become "Good Morning Facial" and a facial can become "Anti-Stress Facial" to start a new day without worries.
2. Create Christmas presents
If your customers can't come to you in the morning either, you can accommodate them by putting together some Christmas presents. That way, they can pop into the salon even during a short break to do some last-minute Christmas shopping.
For example: a small package containing a gift voucher and a product, or one with several testers of new products or give 1+1 free on products from a certain supplier that you would like to get rid of. Win-win!
At the end of the year, our support department always receives many administrative questions via chat. Which makes sense since you want to get everything sorted before the champagne is popped open on the 31st of December.
I have collected the most frequently asked questions for you. Maybe your question is among them, so you can get started right away! If your question is not listed or if you have another question, please let us know.
"As of January 1st, the prices of my treatments will go up. Can I enter this in advance?"
You can easily change the prices of your services in the overview of all services in your account settings. If you change the price of your service, it will be immediately visible in your account.
You can choose to do this on the last day of the year or duplicate these services, change the price and then set them to 'not bookable online', so that they are ready for the new year.
"What happens to the appointments where this treatment is already scheduled?"
If you change the price of a service, the appointment remains in the calendar but the price of the service automatically changes to the new price when you make a price change. So you can already schedule these appointments for the new year without issues.
Nowadays you can add a short message of 40 characters to the booking widget. To set up the notification, go to Info > Promotion > Online booking settings. You can, for example, insert the following notification: Please note price increases as of January 1st.
Do you use the description of services to give extra information about the service? This is shown under the name of the service in the booking widget. You can also choose to indicate here that the treatment will have a different price as of January 1st.
“Can you help me with a price update of my products?”
You can update the prices of your products manually one by one, but you can also choose to import a file via the product page. In that case, you first download the product list via the data export page in the settings, then you adjust the applicable columns in this file. Column "G" is the price, column "H" the purchase price and your current stock you may adjust in column "M".
Once you’ve done that, you may save the file and send it to support@salonized.com, so we can update the products in your account based on the ID number (the ID number created by Salonized for each product). It is important that you do not make any changes to the file, otherwise we will not be able to update it. "Where can I find the automatic stock update?" Did you know that on 1-1-2022 we will perform an automatic stock update in your account? This will be in the file 'Products' and can be downloaded as XLS or CSV file via the data export page in your account. In the last columns you can find the current stock and the value of the stock.
Of course, this is only the case if you have enabled stock management of all products and entered a stock.
"Where can I block off the holidays in 2022"?
Besides the fact that we already automatically add the new year's holidays to your account, on the 'Absences' page you can plan all your employees' holidays, leaves and regular breaks here.
"Can I schedule my regular customers for the whole year?
Certainly! You can use the 'Repeat Appointment' button when you create the first appointment of a series in the calendar. The frequency is per day, week or month and can be repeated up to 12 weeks. The repetition can be stopped after a number of times or on a specific date.
Hopefully you can work with these tips and the December month will be a pleasant, loving time in the salon. And don't be too hard on yourself 😉 You have done really well this year!
Lilian is always up for a laugh and is therefore like a breath of fresh air in the office. She is available to answer your questions about online scheduling software every day. She also likes to give you tips about improving your company in her blog posts.
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