How do you turn your front desk into a profit center?
How do you turn your front desk into a profit center?

Front desk employees are one of the most valuable aspects of your business. Your front desk should do more than just answer phones, book appointments, and ring-out clients. If that’s all that they do, then they are a cost center: an employee whom you pay to perform tasks. A productive front desk employee is a profit center: an employee who generates revenue for your business. But, how do you turn your front desk into a profit center? The answer is easy: education.

You must educate your front desk on business growth. And no, that does not mean to educate your front desk on sales. In order to generate more sales, they need to know HOW. How do salons and spas grow? They grow by using a forward focus on the growth indicators. If you haven’t heard of them before, you are in the right place. The following six growth indicators are all that you need to focus on in order to see your bottom line drastically increase:

  • New Guests Per Month
  • New Guest Retention
  • Repeat Guest Retention
  • Frequency of Visit (FOV)
  • Average Ticket
  • Productivity

Below is a summarized action plan for your front desk that includes important tasks that they can perform every day. For a detailed and hugely informative version that can be printed, please click here to download. If followed and executed weekly, this plan will drastically improve the health of your business. If you are using Millennium software, these methods and reports are already built into the system. Provide this to your front desk and educate them on how growth using these strategies is possible.

TUESDAY

  • Up-sell Tuesday – Up-sell at least 5 items (e.g. suggest a 90-minute massage instead of a 60-minute massage).
  • Call clients due in this week and book their appointments.
  • Call clients who cancelled last week and reschedule them.
  • Pre-book at least 50% of appointments – pre-booking is key!

WEDNESDAY

  • Cross-sell Wednesday – Cross-sell at least 7 items (e.g. add a pedicure to a manicure appointment).
  • Send “We Miss You” emails to clients who have not been in for 3 months.
  • Send new client welcome emails, which helps client loyalty.
  • Pre-book at least 50% of appointments – this should be done every day.

THURSDAY

  • Add-on Thursday – Aim to add on at least 8 services (e.g. add aromatherapy to a massage).
  • Contact clients who have gift cards about to expire.
  • Pre-book at least 50% of appointments.

FRIDAY

  • Package Friday – sell at least 5 packages & book corresponding standings.
  • Missed opportunities – a report to see why clients could not be scheduled.
  • Call new guests to verify their experience and remind them of your referral program.
  • Pre-book at least 50% of appointments.

SATURDAY

  • Bundle your top selling products with your worst selling products.
  • Cross-sell market to your guests – which departments have they not experienced?
  • Follow up on no-shows.
  • Follow up on pending or waitlisted clients.
  • Pre-book at least 50% of appointments.

For a more detailed and printable version, please CLICK HERE.

For reprint and licensing requests for this article, Click here.

Originally posted on Modern Salon

Read more about