How to make clients feel special during consultations

I’m a newly trained beauty therapist. How can I make clients feel special during a consultation?

Consultations are the key to successful treatments and vital to ensuring your clients achieve their desired results. Consultations should be conducted, whenever possible, in a quiet area of the salon for privacy, and actions such as smiling, making a personal introduction and maintaining eye contact will make all the difference because they show you are taking control of the situation.

During the consultation, remember to ask the client what they want and don’t want, giving them time to think about the results they want to achieve, and discuss the long and short-term results so that they know exactly what will happen. This is important because it’s about managing expectations, never creating unrealistic ones. You will also need to ask questions about their lifestyle – diet, homecare and previous treatment experiences – as well as discussing their medical history because this information will allow you to make the best and safest assessment of what they need.

However, the most crucial thing to do is make it personal. Using their first name in conversation, appearing interested and being able to listen to their worries will help create an exceptional, memorable experience. And remember, what clients hear, see, smell, touch and taste in the salon will affect their opinion on how the session went and whether they will come back for another treatment. Clients are a salon’s greatest gift so you have to make sure to deliver on your promises. If you’re consistent and attentive they will return again and again.

Sara Shoemark is owner of salon chain Glow Beauty and offers consultancy for new or underachieving salons. She will speak about consultations and how to make customers feel at ease during the new Salon Therapist Skills seminar programme at Professional Beauty London on Monday, February 29.