How to bring your salon out of the COVID-19 crisis

With lockdown restrcitions lifted for hairdressing and salons on July 4th 2020, most businesses within the industry would have been open for a while now, doing their best to adapt to a new way of working.

In this blog, we share how you can adjust your salon operations to remain as efficient as possible in the present time.

1. Communicating with clients

Although all your clients will probably be desperate for some normality, some will be quite relaxed about coming back to the salon, but others will be very nervous given the current situation, that’s why it is important to stay in touch with your customers.

Use social media to show what changes you have introduced with protection to ensure the safety of your clients. You could offer clients a virtual consultation using, for example, FaceTime or WhatsApp. This would mean less time in the salon for the client and would save valuable staff time between appointments. Offer the advice you’d give in-person, online.

2. Make all appointments pre-booked only

To ensure you abide by government guidelines, only accept clients via a booking system. This will allow you to keep numbers of clients in the salon at one time low to maintain social distancing.

3. Consider cancellation fees

With salons being closed for 3 months, there is not a shortage of clients wanting to get their hair done again and with limits to the number of people allowed in salons and social distancing measures in place, the last thing any hairdresser will want is someone not showing up to their appointment. You could put a temporary cancellation fee in place until social distancing measures are eased further.

4. Vulnerable people

You could consider offering vulnerable clients a service at their homes, especially if they are reluctant to venture out to the salon. Or perhaps you could set aside the first hour or two of the day for them and reassure them that there will have been very few people in the salon after it was sanitised the night before.

5. Communicate with your salon team

Ensure that staff understand your new protocols and procedures and that they’re comfortable with them. Make them feel welcome to discuss any areas of concern – good staff morale feeds through to clients.

6. Opening hours and shifts

To work within the guidelines and to make up for lost income during the lockdown, you might need to extend your opening hours. You will also need to deep clean of your equipment and surfaces in between clients meaning you cannot fit in as many clients as before.

About Protectivity

Protectivity is a specialist in niche commercial, leisure and lifestyle insurance. We cover thousands of individuals and small to medium size businesses across the UK, including hairdressers and barbers, offering a range of tailored insurance products to protect our customers against unforeseen events

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