Beautiful Britain Report 2017 Beautiful Britain 2017_Report_WRF2_Spreads | Page 6

CUSTOMER LOYALTY IS CLIMBING Winning customer loyalty continues to pose challenges, however there are encouraging signs that we can be more optimistic in 2017. Over a third of you (36%) feel that customers have been willing to spend more money this year, and six out of ten don’t feel that loyalty is any harder to achieve than it was a year ago. This is a slight shift from last year, when over half of you (52%) found loyalty much WHO HAS THE MOST LOYAL CUSTOMERS? harder to come by as customers shopped around for the latest deals and took advantage of vouchers and discount sites. REMEMBERING WHAT MATTERS Value for money remains important to customers, and treatment prices continue to be correspondingly competitive. However, price isn’t the biggest driver of customer loyalty, developing a good relationship is. Our findings offer an important reminder that we work in an industry where success is often determined by how we make people feel. The benefits that visiting a hair and beauty professional can have on mental as well as physical wellbeing has been given added focus in recent times, and the relationships you build this year will be key to making sure that customers come back time and time again. appear to be the least loyal, with 38% of respondents in this region telling us that they’ve seen loyalty decrease rather than increase. A trend towards a lack of loyalty has been a recurring theme over the last few years. But a fifth (22%) of you told us you think this behaviour has declined in the last year. Over half say that customers did not become less loyal in 2016. BARRIERS TO LOYALTY The West Midlands has seen the biggest drop in waning customer loyalty, with a fall of 32%, while the North East registered the second biggest decrease of 29%. Northern Ireland’s customers Our results show that its competition from other businesses, rather than online vouchers or discount websites, that provides the biggest obstacle to achieving customer loyalty. This is a particular worry for barbers – almost two thirds (62%) feeling that the threat from competition has gone up following the recent upsurge in industry popularity, compared with 50% of salon professionals and 44% of mobile workers. TOP DRIVERS OF CUSTOMER LOYALTY Good relationship 59.3% Convenient location 22.5% Value for money 54.5% Good reputation 15.9% SEEING INCREASED COMPETITION FROM OTHER BUSINESSES Barbers 62% B  eing happy with the previous results 52.9% Mobile workers 44% Salon professionals 50% CUSTOMER LOYALTY IN THE UK (THE PERCENTAGE OF PROFESSIONALS WHO SAY IT IS HARDER TO COME BY) REGION 6 East East Midlands London North East North West Northern Ireland Scotland South East South West Wales West Midlands Yorkshire & Humber 2016 55% 52% 45% 55% 62% 76% 58% 44% 55% 39% 57% 58% 2017 40% 36% 35% 43% 44% 49% 42% 35% 36% 47% 41% 46% 7