We know how delicate the situation is for hair salons and beauty professionals in general. Today, Gouiran Beauté wants to help you find alternatives to implement: Call & Collect, digitalization of the sales area, social media... Let's break down the possible solutions together, in addition to government aid.
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We are particularly concerned by the situation, which is why we have already written an article on the aid granted to beauty professionals in the face of the lockdown at the end of 2020. Discover the solutions we offer without further ado.
Call & Collect
A simple way to continue maintaining your customer relationship, Call and Collect will allow you to sell your products to your regulars. For those unfamiliar, the concept is simple. Your customer contacts you on your phone line, orders the products they need, and comes to pick them up directly from your establishment.
Why is Call & Collect so interesting?
With Call & Collect, you will continue to generate revenue while maintaining the privileged relationship you have with your clientele. What's more, your customers won't just come to pick up a product; they will undoubtedly come to seek your expertise along with it!
Interestingly, the sale of your products will not be taken into account when calculating government aid. Not to mention that your customers will remain loyal to your establishment and avoid ordering from large retailers.
The good sides of Call and Collect
- Additional revenue not taken into account in the calculation of various government aids
- Allows for maintaining a privileged and regular connection with your clientele
- Retain your clientele to prevent them from turning to other competitors who continue to sell
Our advice for implementing Call & Collect
We advise you to organize your Call & Collect in such a way that you take calls and prepare orders in the morning, and dedicate the afternoon to handing over orders. This makes it easier to manage your Call & Collect and avoid being overwhelmed. Don't hesitate to give your customers specific pick-up appointment times to further optimize your organization.
Disseminate the information to your customers as widely as possible: talk about it on your social media and update your Google My Business listing (more details below). Many businesses organize Click or Call & Collect, and customers often have difficulty knowing who does or doesn't. So don't neglect any platform to inform them as best as possible!
Does your salon have a page on Pages Jaunes (Yellow Pages)?
Currently, Pages Jaunes offers a free solution to quickly and easily set up Click & Collect within your business. This can be a good way to quickly make this service available to your customers.
Social media, what about it?
Most of you are already on social media. Why not consider opening an Instagram and/or Facebook page for your establishment?
You will be able to communicate directly with your clientele daily and offer them daily content. Creating interaction with people who like your work will only amplify their desire to come back to you, whether for advice or to purchase beauty products.
Some tips for growing on social media
More important than posting often, you will need to post with a certain regularity. Because we know you don't necessarily have the time, we advise you to publish at least 1 post per week and then maintain that rhythm.
You should prioritize visual content more. The results of your services are perfectly suited for social media and are very popular.
This is the best advertising you can do online, and know that Instagram is perfectly suited for disseminating this kind of content.
And because all these solutions are interconnected, why not integrate Click & Collect into your social media strategy during lockdown? For example, by asking your customers to place orders via Facebook Messenger.
A perfect time for your digital transition?
As for your Google My Business page...
For those who are not very familiar with this term, it is nothing more and nothing less than the directory offered by Google. It allows you to enter:
- a geographical location
- a postal address
- a telephone number
- your opening hours
- a redirection link to your website if it exists
- a form for your customers to leave reviews
The main advantage, as you will have understood, will be to gain even more visibility on the web. If you have not yet filled out your Google My Business listing, we invite you to join the Google My Business homepage and let yourself be guided.
Do you have a Google My Business page? Here's how to best utilize this tool during lockdown
The Temporary Closure option
Google has perfectly adapted to the crisis we are experiencing today. The company has developed new options on Google My Business pages, such as temporary closure. This option allows you to display that the establishment is temporarily closed due to the health crisis.
It should be noted that during the first lockdown we experienced, many people were lost on the search engine. Which establishments were open? Which were closed? Very few professionals had thought to mark their establishment as closed during the lockdown.
Special COVID-19 posts on Google My Business
If we are doing Call & Collect, this option is very interesting. It allows you to provide information on what is being implemented within the company during lockdown, and therefore, why not highlight your Click or Call & Collect again if you are setting one up.
Example here, with your Gouiran Garosud store:
Automation, a time-saver but not only
At a time when 98% of 18-24 year olds own a smartphone (source: Statistica), wouldn't it be a good idea to expand your presence on the web? Offering online booking once the lockdown is over would be a real plus. The advantages would be numerous, even though barely a third of salons offer this.
First of all, this would certainly reduce no-show appointments in addition to gaining a certain digital visibility. What's more, it will save you precious time. Not to mention connected young people who will prefer to use a digital portal for their appointments.
Without necessarily investing in a website, there are many companies that handle these services. From automating online appointment booking to emailing, from reminder SMS messages to satisfaction surveys, you are sure to find a digital solution that aligns with your vision.
In conclusion
We are perfectly aware that times are difficult. Please know that at Gouiran Beauté, we do our utmost every day to ensure you can carry out your passionate activity, which has connected us for so many years, under the best possible conditions. As you have seen, many ways exist to get through the lockdown as best as possible. We hope our advice helps you find the most suitable solution for your salon.
