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Grace Duerre owns an eight-station hair-styling and manicure
salon. She's been in business for seven years, but recently she was
struggling with scheduling issues and staffing problems.
"I have four commissioned cosmetologists and two independents who lease
stations from me. After our receptionist went back to college, we really
had problems. You see, everybody has different preferences for the time
it takes to perform a service for a client. Some people like to have 45
minutes to do a cut and style and a full two hours for a color. Other
people want more time, some need less.
"What was happening
was that when the phone would ring, everyone would wait for someone else
to answer the call so they wouldn't have to excuse
themselves from their clients. If you want to make someone feel
neglected, leave
her three or four times during a haircut to answer the phone!
"Anyway, whoever answered the phone would schedule appointments for
other stylists according to their own preferences. Unfortunately, that
really didn’t work for us. The stylists were unhappy because their
scheduled appointments gave them too much or too little time between
customers. The clients were dissatisfied because the stylists were
either on the phone or the stylists were obviously rushing to fit in
their next appointment.
"You see, part of the appeal of coming to a salon like ours is that you
can just let someone else do all the rushing, all the worrying—so you
can just relax and enjoy the experience. The largest portion
of our clients are women and they have so little 'down time' as it is, they
just want to be the center of attention during their entire appointment. A salon depends on service. When the stylists are not paying attention
to their customers and are worrying about their schedule,
the phone, and the next appointment, we don't make patrons happy."
Grace had two problems. She needed to improve customer service in her
salon by improving the scheduling for each stylist. She also needed to
cover the long hours her salon was open (10 am to 9 pm, Monday through
Saturday) without adding significantly to her budget and overhead.
She would have to hire at least one full-time receptionist and two part-timers to cover the evenings and weekends.
To address this, without adding additional staff, Grace
hired a telephone answering service and forwarded all her calls to them. She helped
them develop a
scheduling grid for each stylist, ensuring that everyone's scheduling preferences were met for every service. Within
a week, all calls were being professionally handled by the answering
service.
"I would never have believed that this decision would have meant so
much," Grace said. "I think maybe you get a little 'numb' to the stress
associated with being understaffed. It was only after our calls were
sent to the answering service that I was really struck by the peace in the salon. Even our
customers noticed. One admitted how unhappy she had been the last time
she was in. What a difference this change has made!"
Learn more about telephone
answering services and discover how they might be able to help you.
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