9 tips to boost you customer service standards in your business

Nergish Wadia-Austin, Founder of PHAB Standard Ltd, a British company that recognises and rewards performance standards in hair, beauty and nails, believes that great customer care results in a very pleasant experience for the customer but done well, a welcome side effect of those results is increased customer spend. Here are Nergish's 9 top tips to boost customer service standards in your business 1. Remind every member of your team that smiling and greeting each customer, at every visit, is the standard in your business. Anything less than this is unacceptable. 2. The reception telephone team should be armed each day with the cross selling sentence for that day based solely on the blank spaces in your appointment schedule. The same applies to all other platforms that allow customers to book appointments in your business. At the end of the booking process, an automated cross-selling sentence has to be designed depending on services booked. 3. If refreshments are served they should be served in clean cups/glass-wear/crockery. This simple rule is breached so often in so many establishments and creates an uncomfortable environment for the customer, who then immediately starts to questions standards of hygiene in your business. 4. The salon manager would be wise to role-play acceptable customer conversations with junior members of their team to prepare them for what is polite and appropriate conversation suitable in business. This will boost confidence and lower silly misunderstandings in the salon. 5. Completion of service is an area of customer service often not given a second thought. Customers book time with a hairdressing professional because they have a need. When the consultation is sloppy and rushed in content that is when the customer's original need gets forgotten or remains unaddressed. No matter how good they look when they leave your salon, when they get home their original need rears its ugly head and they realise that the professional they paid their hard earned money to, didn't actually solve their problem. That is why customers don't complain but also don't return! 6. Washrooms, toilets, cloakrooms need to be constantly monitored for cleanliness and vigilantly supervised. There is nothing more off putting than a disgusting facility. 7. Offering a re-booking service with a plan of what wonderful things await the customer on their next visit to you is far more effective than the paltry 'would you like to make your next appointment?' question. 8. Always ensure the customer knows how to enhance/care for/change/adapt their look before they leave your business. To leave that up to them is unprofessional. They will undoubtedly try and do that by either going on the Internet or to their local drug store, or worse yet to your competitors thereby risking losing them as customers. 9. Invite all your customers to bring their family/friends/work colleagues to you should they ever have any issues or concerns about their hair-care, skincare or nail-care (depending on the services your business provides) which is an easy and simple way of attracting new recommended customers. For tips of how to implement great customer service habits or to book Nergish Wadia-Austin for an energetic, revenue generating training session with your entire salon team, call her on +44 (0)208 840 9070 or email her on [email protected]