5 Essentials of Customer Service
In any business, servicing the customer is of the utmost importance. In a school, it’s even more paramount. Why? Because you’re teaching the new generation how to interact with their clientele. Teaching through example, your students will learn how to properly answer the phone, take appointments, that they need to confirm appointments and also what happens in the business doesn’t stay there – it goes online eventually.
As a school running a clinic floor, you are offering your students the chance to ‘practice’ for the real salon environment. Here are the 5 essential rules of customer service to follow in a cosmetology clinic:
#1 – Be Easy to Work With
People are busy these days. You are, your staff are, your students are and so are your clients. Respect their time and offer services that make your school easy to communicate with. Make it easy to spend money with you and people will! Show your students that making decisions easy for the client will help attract new business and keep them. As simple as returning a phone call within the hour, confirming the appointment in their preferred communication method, offering appointment reminders and always replying ‘Yes’ when possible.
#2 – It All Starts with Listening
We go through the consultation a lot in the Nuts & Bolts curriculum, and discuss listening skills. Extending this to your front desk allows your students see this in practice and truly instills this as a business skill. Ensure your front desk team take the time to identify customer needs by asking questions and concentrating on what the customer is really saying. Teach your team and your students to listen to not only WHAT they are saying, but their tone of voice, body language, and most importantly, how they feel.
#3 – Communicate Effectively
Businesses have procedures to both protect their business, their team and their clients. Most of the time, this isn’t an issue. Some of the time it’s annoying. Those times are usually because they weren’t communicated effectively. Students will find themselves following steps, working their way through the process of the consultation the service and the checkout – practicing this routine and understanding the method. Your front desk team should practice the same discipline, ensuring things like promotions, booking requirements, etc are communicated clearly and concisely and that all correspondence is friendly and professional.
#4 – Appreciate Your Guests
Every time someone comes to your school, you were given the gift of their patronage. They had a lot of choices of where to get their hair, skin or nails done, but they chose your school. Teach your team to show their appreciation for the business; always use their name, engage with them personally through a compliment or a polite question that demonstrates sincerity and attention. People value sincerity and the best stylists will be those that demonstrate their genuine interest in the person, cultivating trust and a relationship beyond the transaction.
#5 – Welcome Feedback in Any Form it Comes
There may be no better skill in customer service than this one: The ability to accept and genuinely listen to feedback. No one is perfect, no business is perfect and the ability to say “I’m sorry, let’s fix this” is crucial to long term success in this digitally transparent economy. Open up as many avenues of communication as possible, listen actively, don’t be defensive and always follow through with your responses, implementing change where necessary.
