Business
Positive
Reviews 101
By McKinsey McCallum
O
btaining consistent positive reviews from
clients can seem like a frustrating and often
daunting task. But, thanks to the advent of
technology, more resources are available to
help you as a salon or spa owner create an environment
of professionalism and customer service that can assist
in obtaining those consistently positive reviews from
your clients.
One of the largest obstacles in attaining reviews for
your salon or spa is more often than not, simply getting
clients to participate or take time from their day to
complete a survey or leave a review. An effective way
you can you help encourage your clients to participate
in surveys is by offering a complimentary gift or
percentage off of their next visit. While this probably
seems a fairly simple concept, gifting clients’ items
such as a sample size product goes a long way towards
making a client feel as if their time is valued. If we
consider that each client is asked to take a customer
service survey at almost every store they shop at,
offering a complimentary gift or percentage off services
for surveys completed, prioritizes your salon or spa, and
significantly increases the amount of survey responses
your business will receive in the long run.
While customer surveys are vital to you as a salon
owner in improving the overall experience of your salon,
there are often false impressions that customer survey
responses cannot be used for much else. However,
customer responses from surveys can and should be
displayed on your website under something such as a
testimonials or a “what our friends say” section of your
website. Survey responses are an easy and effective way
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for potential clients to evaluate the customer experience
your salon or spa is able to offer.
Getting clients to take a customer survey is in reality
the second step; the first should be making sure you
have a survey that is ultimately working towards the
benefit of your salon. Here are a few tips that not only
help you create a survey that is accessible and easy for
your clients, but also works towards eliciting those
positive comments.
Keep it simple! Be concise and straightforward
with your questions to avoid confusion on the
part of the customer. Keeping your survey short
and easy to complete will also encourage your
client to not only begin the survey, but to actually
complete it. Rarely do people complete 30-minute
surveys unless there’s a bottle of champagne and
a paycheck at the end of it.
Ask one question at a time. Pelting your client
with question after question within the same
section often results in half hearted answers from
clients who in reality just want to get the survey
over with for that complimentary lip balm.
Only ask questions that work towards your
goal. If the goal of the survey is to evaluate your
salon or spas customer service, then only ask
questions that explore that. It is easy to want to
ask a million questions to try and evaluation every
aspect of your business, but ultimately, having a
clear purpose for your survey will help you obtain
the answers desired from the client.