Where's adam.sand?

[eileen]

I think he's selling cars but not certain.

[peach]

Sunsally, you fail to mention all of the negatives of not taking appointments. ie customers piling into the store at 5 pm and standing around in your lobby for a hour waiting for beds, along with periods of time where no one is there, dissatisfied customers who pay for higher level packages but never get to use them. Treating everyone as though they are the same type of customer when they are not, etc.

If your equipment is homogenous (the same) then appointments don't matter, but who runs a salon like that anymore?

You can do both (appointments and walkins) and have the best of both worlds-appointments get priority over walkins, but if you are late, you forfeit your slot to a walkin, if there is one. The last priority in a functioning business with people in front of you is always the phone. We make something easy into something hard.

[sunsally]

Originally Posted by peach

Sunsally, you fail to mention all of the negatives of not taking appointments. ie customers piling into the store at 5 pm and standing around in your lobby for a hour waiting for beds, along with periods of time where no one is there, dissatisfied customers who pay for higher level packages but never get to use them. Treating everyone as though they are the same type of customer when they are not, etc.

If your equipment is homogenous (the same) then appointments don't matter, but who runs a salon like that anymore?

You can do both (appointments and walkins) and have the best of both worlds-appointments get priority over walkins, but if you are late, you forfeit your slot to a walkin, if there is one. The last priority in a functioning business with people in front of you is always the phone. We make something easy into something hard.

People will always pile into the store at 5pm - it is a popular time to tan in many salons. Telling them they can get an appt at 2 instead doesn't help if they work.

It is a VERY hard balance to let people know "we take appointments", but then answer the phone only as a last priority.

Ditto to cancelling them out if they are late (what defines "late" - 1 minute? Two? What about the walk-in who comes in 5 minutes BEFORE the scheduled appointment? They wait while looking at an unused bed.....)


If customers are "piling up in the lobby for an hour", it is either:
1. Busy season - ALL beds are full - customers understand -- "it is busy season and you picked our busiest time of day"

2. Poor customer mgt by staff. If there are HIGHER level beds available - upgrade them. If there are LOWER level beds available - ask if they prefer to go there in order to get in and out faster.

Like other topics, you may be one of the handful of salons out there doing most things differently than what typically leads to the best success for every OTHER salon. But I still wouldn't recommend appointments as a rule of thumb.

Even though this thread - and my advice - is 2.5 years old - I stand by it.

[peach]

I've been doing "things differently" now for 22 tanning seasons. Peak times are peak times-it is how you manage them; having 20 people pile into your store at once is NOT manageable. I would much rather my employees have 15 appointments and 5 walkins than 20 people who all have to be sorted and needs identified separately. Instead, if 15 people already have packages, they can be put in beds quickly and efficiently, giving you more time to spend with 5 walkins who probably need your time to SELL THEM SOMETHING.

The fallback argument always seems to be that walkins get whatever beds are available-which to me is crazy. Why have upgrade packages if you are going to give the upgrades away?

As a customer, if I saw upgrades that I paid extra $ for being given away everyday in a salon that I went to, I would be more than ticked off.

PS- doing things "the way everyone else does them" may not be the best strategy when you are trying to compete in a tough economic environment.

[sunsally]

Originally Posted by peach

I've been doing "things differently" now for 22 tanning seasons. Peak times are peak times-it is how you manage them; having 20 people pile into your store at once is NOT manageable. I would much rather my employees have 15 appointments and 5 walkins than 20 people who all have to be sorted and needs identified separately. Instead, if 15 people already have packages, they can be put in beds quickly and efficiently, giving you more time to spend with 5 walkins who probably need your time to SELL THEM SOMETHING.

The fallback argument always seems to be that walkins get whatever beds are available-which to me is crazy. Why have upgrade packages if you are going to give the upgrades away?

As a customer, if I saw upgrades that I paid extra $ for being given away everyday in a salon that I went to, I would be more than ticked off.

PS- doing things "the way everyone else does them" may not be the best strategy when you are trying to compete in a tough economic environment.

If 20 people walk in at one time - you still have to 'sort' them. "Who has an appointment"? "Hi - what is your name?" etc etc

Additionally - walk-ins don't get "whatever bed is available", for free.

ANYONE has the choice - at ANY time.

HERE is what we have available - NOW. Here is the cost on that to you.

HERE is what is NOT available - and how long it will be.

Every individual makes a decision - time vs. money.

I can spend more (upgrade) to get in now vs. waiting. Or I can get less "value" (e.g. go in a lower priced bed than what I have pre-paid) to get in now vs waiting.

Some people value money more, others their time.

Within that, those that do NOT like to wait also realize.........I should pick a time OTHER than the busiest time of the day for the salon.


In reality --- when you take appointments, they tend to be at fixed times....e.g. on the half hour for a 20 min bed. So at 5:00 you have a bunch of people all trying to hit that "deadline" and piling in at once.

With walk-ins, some are naturally going to arrive at 4:45, 4:50, 4:55, 5:00, 5:05, 5:10,...... In fact - the person that arrived at 4:45 is probably already out and the room is READY for the person who then shows up at 5:10.

There have been plenty of real-life examples done. Salons who HAD appointments and switched to ALL walk-ins saw more customers and made more money over the comparison time period.

[peach]

If people wanted the upgrade beds, they would have purchased the upgrade packages. It is poor customer service NOT to have the equipment ready for customers when they want them to the extent that you can. The "first come first serve" approach usually doesn't make anyone happy in busy season; it really makes your 500k salons look pretty unprofessional. I will let the Sun Tan City and the Palm Beach Tan's herd people in and out like cattle and force customers to buy things they don't want. I have chosen to be different-I think my customers will appreciate that in the long run. And if they don't, I guess the marketplace will let me know. I don't think you can ever go wrong by allowing the paying customer to have a choice. That is our policy.

[Neon Beach]

Originally Posted by davidjsmithct

what ever happened to Adam? Last I heard he was doing that salon app...

[peach]

Adam, you are some kind of urban legend, man! A couple more thoughts on the subject of taking appointments:

As the indoor tanning business contracts, there will be more salons fighting over fewer clients. And all clients are not the same. So, in the future, for salons to "win" in their markets, they will need to distinquish between year round tanners and seasonal tanners. They will need to cater to these year round tanners, and make all tanning customers feel special.

Having "one size fits all" processes for running your stores is a methodology of a by-gone era of the tanning industry when tanners were plentiful and salons were few. The "No appointment" process is such an old school method. The tanners of today, are super busy-if they tan in a salon, they will expect the salon to work around THEIR schedule-not the other way around.

If every time they walk into your door, they are being told to wait, or buy something else (after they have already bought their package), they will eventually either; 1) go outdoors as soon as possible, 2) go to another salon, or 3) Buy their own bed. In other words, they will find some alternative that is convenient for THEM.

SO, being an independent salon owner, I do not want to imitate these old school ways of running a tanning salon. And I am glad that my competition continues to do these and other things that make it easy on the salon owner but do not create an experience that makes a customer feel special.

[Neon Beach]

Originally Posted by Neon Beach

hehehe

[mmurra]

We did appointments for 15 years, dropped it, and with 15 years without appointments, never looked back. We will bump our regular tanners into the next available better unit when it makes sense for us to do it, but not all the time. We get a lot of upsells on subsequent visits by bumping people, similar to how some airlines do it.