Put down the purse: pick up an experience

“What’s the ultimate question you’d ask your salon customers? Is it perhaps, ‘How likely is it that you’d recommend us to your family or colleague?’ And what, do you think, would influence their answer? Price: tick. Service: tick. People: tick. Results: tick. Yes, you’re right, it would be all those things, because boiled down together they form a sticky glue that’s called their experience with you…

So first things first, exactly what’s included in a customer experience? The best definition I’ve seen comes from the Branding Strategy Insider website: “a series of integrated actions that work together to lift a transaction beyond the everyday. These actions should be so specific to the spirit and values of that brand that they are immediately recognisable.”

The important aspect to understand is that ‘the experience’ is often the only way customers’ differentiate between brands, or (in your case) salons. Why? Because it’s seldom the simple service itself – a cut, colour or curl – that really distinguishes you from another salon in your suburb. More often, it’s everything else that wraps around the functional act of going to your salon.

So, why is it that an experience counts so much? It comes down to science and psychology…”