Pamela Hill Institute

Offering regular discounts to loyal clients is a win-win strategy for the aesthetician. In the long run your aesthetics business wins, and the client wins also. The client wins because they save money and because they have been convinced to do business with a skilled, ethical and expert aesthetician – you – with their best interests in mind. You win because you ensure the strongest possible loyalty. You win because you keep your client coming back as a regular.

Regular discounts for regular clients just makes sense. Keeping current clients happy in every way that you can, even when it means taking a few dollars off of the total price, still means that they will be spending money with you much longer than those who come in, try the service and then don’t come back, possibly because a competitor has a discount coupon in the local newspaper or the back of the Yellow Pages.

When you figure up all of the costs of doing business, the cost of marketing – that is, of acquiring clients – is often the largest single expense. Clients are acquired through various efforts including referrals from other clients (probably happy clients or they would not be sending you referrals), advertising, and other promotional activities. There is a cost involved with all promotional activities, even those you do yourself, since your time has value.  

Anything you can do to keep a regular client with you, and keep them coming back, certainly costs less than acquiring a new client to replace them. Additionally happy regular clients tend on average to spend more money and increase the levels of service they desire. They also tell their friends, bringing in more repeat customers. With that in mind, offering a small discount, and making sure the client knows that you are doing so, as a way of showing your appreciation, will help you to buy even more loyalty from that particular client.

It never hurts to build the discounts you offer around special events in the life of the client. Know when your clients have birthdays, anniversaries and other special days. Use it as a marketing tool by sending out postcards to those clients right before the birthday, offering a substantial discount to come in within a few days of that special day for full service treatment and you’ll be amazed at the number who take you up on the offer, and at the amount of increased income you’ll receive.

Always find a reason, and keep the client happy.

Pricing is always a major question for the aesthetician. It is always necessary when pricing services to remain competitive, but still profit margins must be created and maintained. After all, while you may be frugal yourself and have a tendency to price low, remember that the services you sell are valuable. They benefit your clients. And, you have your own bills to pay and family to take care of. It is very important that you price services properly.

What price structure is fair?

Much of the answer to that question depends on the area where you live. Each market is different. For instance, Los Angeles and New York City have higher costs of living that cities in the Midwest and the south. People in those areas are used to paying higher prices. Also areas with booming economies and more money flowing tend to have higher pay structures than those areas that might be a bit depressed.

Have you checked out the competition?

One of the best ways to determine your own pricing structure is to find out what other aestheticians in other spas are charging for similar services.

That will enable you to determine an average price for services. Then determine how much time you need to spend with a client to perform a service and figure out what your average hourly rate of pay is. Of course the next step is to figure in your overhead and come up with a figure of fixed expenses that must be paid every month, every week and every day. Know how much it actually costs you to exist each day and how much extra you need to get ahead and you’ll know how much income to strive for. As an example, if it costs you $2,000 per week to cover all of your overhead and you work a five day work week, then you need $100 per day to stay afloat. If your hourly average is $40 then you need to sell at least two and a half hours of services daily to break even. That also means that if you sell five hours of services a day then you are $100 a head after paying all of your expenses. That can either be money in the bank to save for emergencies or a “rainy day” fund, or it can be money you use to pay expenses when you take a day off, or a vacation. Self employed professionals don’t have paid vacations and need to plan for those contingencies.

Check the competition and make sure that your prices are fair. Not too high and not too low, but most of all be fair to yourself in your pricing.

Bad news travels fast, and when you have a disgruntled client, as everyone who deals with the public in a service business will have at one time or another, then steps need to be taken to minimize the damage. There is an old saying that a happy client will tell three people they are happy, but an unhappy client will tell 30 people they are unhappy. Keep that in mind and remember that preventive measures are the best cure. If you believe a client is unhappy and may become disgruntled try to be proactive and take action before the problem becomes out of control.

Talk to the client and try to determine what is causing the unhappiness with your service. Many times this communication beforehand will prevent a small problem from becoming a large one. Proving that you genuinely want to see the client satisfied, even to the point of offering a reduced rate for the treatment received, a refund, or a gift certificate for a few visit next time may cost you less in the long run.

If all of your preventive actions fail and the client is on the street bad mouthing you and your business, then you may loose some potential clients. However, people will still come in and if anyone should ask about the disgruntled client then honesty tempered with diplomacy is the best bet. Just let anyone who asks know that you are obligated not to go into detail about the treatments received by any client as that would be unethical and you respect your clients’ privacy.

However, you and the client apparently disagree and despite your best efforts are unable to come to an understanding. Then remind the person who is asking that you have many clients who are quite happy with the service and even have references available for anyone who wishes to view them.

It is simply impossible to please everyone and if you are staying busy there will be the occasional client who is not happy. That cannot be avoided totally. Just do your best, remember to always be polite and to never loose your cool. If you act as a total professional those who know both you and the client are likely to give you the benefit of the doubt about the incident. Then simply move on. Life is too short and there are many more clients out there to serve.

Whatever happens, always keep your cool with spa clients. There are so many reasons for this it is hard to count them all, so just look at a few of the major reasons.

First you are, above all else, a professional. Reacting with emotion, letting a client rattle your cage and gate you upset will do nothing to solve whatever problem is arising and casing a client to act in an inappropriate manner. The only way you’ll be able to settle the client down and have a discussion about the problem, and then hopefully find a resolution that will satisfy the client, is through keeping your head and holding your own emotions in check.

Remember that reacting to an upset client by being upset yourself will just make most angry clients more angry. That leads to escalation and it could create an unpleasant scene that other staff members or other clients could see, and that does you no good whatsoever. It looks unprofessional and it could lead to lost business. On the other hand, if other staff members and clients see you handle an upset or irate and irrational client  in a clam, soothing and professional manner then you’ve turned a negative into a positive and have created a win-win situation. This will improve your reputation as someone who can keep her head.

One of the largest expenses of any business is customer acquisition through marketing efforts. It is bar far less expensive to keep current customers happy and staying with you than it is to have to advertise and promote to acquire new clients. If an irrational and emotional client causes you to be the same and loose your head, you and the spa could loose other clients, costing you a bundle for replacements.

Also, if the client leaves angry she will undoubtedly tell her friends how rude “you” were, now how unreasonable she was. By being logical and reasonable and keeping your cool, you may be able to turn around the unreasonable client and keep her as a customer, or at least keep her from speaking ill of you to others.

Also you will be setting a positive example for other staff members. Younger clinicians will look to you for leadership after they see the effective methods you use to handle an unreasonable client, and that will help the entire business.

As a clinician you will eventually have a client with sun damaged skin. Those sun worshipers who have suffered the ill effects of too much solar exposure visit the offices of dermatologists every year, and many of them will also be visiting spas, and asking for your professional advice as an aesthetician on how to handle their sun problems. One of the effective methods for treating sun damaged skin is IPL, or intense pulsed light treatment. IPL is a fairly new and non-ablative technique, also known as photo rejuvenation.

Intense pulsed light treatment works through delivery of pulses of high intensity broadband light. This is different from laser light which is narrow band. As a non-ablative treatment it does not damage the skin surface. Instead the intense light pulses are delivered deeper into the dermis, leaving the surface area of the skin, the epidermis, untouched. Different versions of IPL that are available on the market target different structures of the skin. The PhotoDerm VL targets vascular lesions including vascular birthmarks and spider veins. The PhotoDerm PL targets pigmentation lesions including age spots and melasma. The PhotoDerm HR and the Epilight target hair for removal. The thermal effect of intense pulsed light also invigorates production of collagen, which leads to improvement in wrinkles.

The advantages of intense pulsed light therapy are that it does not damage the surface of the skin, an improvement over dermabrasion and laser resurfacing both. The recover time needed is so minimal it is almost non-existent. Treatments only take between 30 and 45 minutes, and patients can apply makeup before leaving the clinic and return to work or normal activity the same day. Also pain with IPL is minimal, again unlike both laser and radio frequency resurfacing, which both require topical anesthetic. Additionally, with IPL a larger area can be treated at once with laser treatment.

When using intense pulsed light several treatments may be required to see the effect the client desires. Best results are obtained with four to six treatments, and they should be spaced three weeks apart. There are sight side effects including transient redness and either increased or decreased pigmentation in the treated area. Minimizing exposure to the sun will minimize the side effects however.

As the popularity increases and the benefits become more obvious, more clinicians will look into offering IPL treatments for their clients.