Clients who return routinely are the pillar of your successful spa or massage practice. But how can you turn those occasional clients into clients recurring ones? Here are a number of ways to keep clients coming back on a regular basis and ensure a steadier and predictable revenue stream for your business.
Educate: The first and most fundamental change in your business model is to become your client’s wellness advocate or educator. Find out what your clients’ health and skin care concerns are and become a resource for information through your own knowledge and through articles and referrals. Make recommendations for self-care at home. Teach you clients about self-care, which can include exercise and conditioning programs to do at home and stress management techniques to relieve tension and aid relaxation. Where clients are seeking relief from injuries or chronic conditions, including head and neck pain, back pain, and fibromyalgia, instruct them how to care for their injuries or pain. If appropriate, refer them to specialists for additional advice and treatment.
Individualize: Customization is the name of the game these days. Clients are seeking skin care and massage treatments unique to their particular needs. Getting to know a client’s needs is at the heart of providing a customized experience and that process begins when a client calls in. During the call, ask a series of questions to determine what services will be best for a client, what upgrades will be both beneficial and enjoyable, and not the least important, what therapist will be best to fit those needs and mesh with the client’s personality. In this way, the therapists themselves become part of the customized experience.
Offer incentives: Give clients reasons to want to come back often. Consider an incentive like a customer loyalty program as part of your marketing campaign. It will help clients who are experiencing some changes in their finances. A good customer loyalty program is based on giving your clients what they want and not on promoting more products and services. Before you even begin your program, talk to your best customers to understand what they value about your service. Find out how well they understand your complete offering and how they view your competitors. Once you have this information, you can better fashion a loyalty program built around the services your clients request and what products they purchase. Options for your loyalty program include:
- Accumulating points to apply for future services or product purchases.
- Discounts on select treatments.
- For example, after a certain number of massages or body treatments, clients are entitled to a free facial massage or pedi-treatment.
Keep in touch: Don’t let your client forget you. Send an email or text to inquire about them and keep them up to date on the activities and offerings of your spa or massage practice. If you blog, send them your latest post, and also encourage them to follow you on your social media channels to keep strengthening the relationship.
Your goal is to encourage clients to make your treatments part of a regular wellness regimen. That helps them as well as your business.