Kitomba blog

The importance of client retention and creating loyalty is more important than ever, especially in an industry such as hair and beauty which is highly competitive. Salon loyalty programmes are a simple way to improve this and can be easy to implement, yet incredibly effective.

Here we expand on why client loyalty matters to your salon, spa or clinic, and how Kitomba Loyalty can help accomplish this. 

Here’s why loyalty matters

Competition within the hair and beauty business can be fierce, so building loyalty amongst both existing and new clients is a great way to ensure your business is successful and trade is constant. Your client experience may be second to none, but what are you doing to keep those satisfied clients faithful?

• Hanging on to existing clients costs far less than acquiring new clients – new customers can cost up to five times more than the cost of retaining loyal clients.
• Loyal clients are 70% more likely to share your business with others through positive word of mouth – this increases to 77% if you are running a loyalty programme.
• You’ve got a 60-70% chance of successfully up-selling retail products or services to your current clients (compared to a 5-20% chance with new ones).

 

 

 

 

One way to ensure your clients remain loyal to your spa, salon or clinic, is the implementation of a loyalty programme. Kitomba’s Loyalty feature allows your clients to be automatically rewarded for their loyalty, as they earn Kitomba Dollars when spending money on your services and retail products.

So if you’re not already using Kitomba Loyalty, here’s how to get started!

Setting up Kitomba Loyalty

We know not every spa, salon, or clinic is run the same, so we’ve designed a loyalty system in our software that can be tailored to suit your business needs.

With Kitomba Loyalty you have the ability to make your salon loyalty programme the perfect fit for your business, and for your clients. You’re in control of:

How your clients earn Kitomba dollars

Choose whether they can earn their loyalty rewards from products, services, or vouchers. You also have the ability to control your Kitomba Dollars using your sales categories. 

You can even customise how many dollars per $100 spend for each appointment or purchase type, for example, you may want clients to earn more loyalty dollars on service spend rather than retail or voucher spend.

How your clients redeem their Kitomba Dollars

Here you have the choice of how your clients are able to redeem their loyalty dollars. You may decide to only allow loyalty redemption on service and retail, leaving out vouchers and concessions, or only allow this for services. 

You are also able to set the minimum amount of Kitomba Dollars needed to begin redeeming, and the set amount in which your clients will be able to redeem. For example, you may want to set the loyalty dollars to be redeemed in lots of K$5, with a minimum of K$50 to be able to get started.

Set your own expiry dates

How long do you want the rewards dollars to be valid for? The dates are up to you, choose how many months your loyalty dollars can be used for before they expire. Dollars are cumulative so only the oldest will expire at this set date. You may want to take into account your revisit period, or how many appointments you would expect your clients to have over this period. 

Setting up Kitomba Loyalty is easy – you’re in control of all the finer details, so once you’ve decided how you’d like your loyalty dollars to be earned and redeemed, follow the steps in our support guide to get started, or get in touch with our support team for further assistance.

Keeping up to date with client loyalty

 

Loyalty in Kitomba

We want to ensure you can quickly stay in the know when it comes to your client’s loyalty balance. That’s why Loyalty is available in both Kitomba and Kitomba 1 – easily accessible even when you’re not at the spa or salon!

You can conveniently view your client’s loyalty balance and expiry dates in their client card – each client’s Loyalty balance will be shown at the top of the client card, underneath their name. This will also show any Kitomba Dollars set to expire in the next six weeks, and the amount which will expire.

Loyalty in Online Booking

When it comes to loyalty programmes, one of the keys to success is having the capability to show your clients their progress. Being able to visually see their Kitomba Dollars adding up is a great way to continuously show them that they’re being rewarded. Knowing that they’ll be rewarded, and also enticing them back for repeat visits will add to their overall client experience. This is also a great segue into upselling, if you can see they’re only X amount away from being able to redeem their rewards, or you can see an amount set to expire, it’s a great way to push that product sale or recommend an earlier appointment. 

Your clients can easily see their loyalty balance and expiry dates in Online Booking. When your clients log into their Online Booking profile they’ll be able to:

• View their loyalty balance.
• Check if they have Kitomba Dollars expiring in the next 6 weeks.
• See their appointments, book new ones, upload and view photos, plus they can easily see your business blurb, opening hours and contact details.

Reporting on Loyalty

There’s a range of reports you can use in both Kitomba and Kitomba 1, to analyse and keep up to date with Loyalty.

Loyalty Statistics in Kitomba

See the total Kitomba Dollars all your clients have earned, redeemed, and expired. This report is best used to get an overall view of your loyalty programme, and can help you decide whether you need to widen the parameters of the rewards  – while it’s fantastic being able to set your own earning capabilities, if it’s not accessible by your clients these benchmarks may have to be reassessed.

Loyalty Details in Kitomba

Here you can easily see which of your clients have Kitomba Loyalty Dollars. You could use this report to segment your clients for targeted marketing campaigns – see which clients have not yet signed up, or even determine who your most loyal clients are. Think about targeting your clients who have dollars about to expire, or those close to reaching their rewards.

Loyalty Balance Report in Kitomba 1

Easily accessible from Kitomba 1, you have the ability to see total loyalty balances as well as loyalty earned, redeemed and expired for the business. The Loyalty reports will also tell you if the client has any dollars set to expire within the next six weeks, and if so, how many.

Marketing for Loyalty

 

Once you’ve got your salon’s loyalty programme set up, make the most of Kitomba 1’s client list to filter and easily segment by: clients with loyalty expiring, or clients with a loyalty balance ‘more than’ or ‘less than’. You can also refine the search by adding another filter such as clients who do not have a future appointment booked, or have not purchases a retail product.

Once you have your list created, you can customise the message you want to send! It’s important to send specific messages to targeted groups of people – the more relevant your message is to them, the more likely your clients are to read it and act on it. Tailoring specific messages will also make your clients feel valued and catered for personally, which will help retain their loyalty. 

Here are some examples of how you can segment your audience for targeted messaging.

Let your clients know their rewards are about to expire

Create a client list through Kitomba 1 to inform certain clients when they have points about to expire. They will feel valued that you’ve gone the extra mile to let them know, and this may prompt them to rebook.

Inform clients of their balance

Tailor messages for clients when they’re close to reaching their rewards, or entice future bookings by targeting groups who have dollars but no future bookings.

So get started with Kitomba Loyalty now and see what it can do to encourage and reward client loyalty and grow your business! To see more about how Kitomba Loyalty can work for rebooking your business check out our support guides, or if you’re not already a customer request a demo.

For more tips on improving client experience, visit our comprehensive guide to creating the best possible Client Experience at your salon, spa, or clinic.

Editor’s note: This post was originally published on 22 May 2017 and has been updated for accuracy and comprehensiveness.

Read next:

• How to build a client loyalty programme that works
• What salon and spa owners need to know about client loyalty 
• Personalise your client experience with Kitomba’s Client Card