How to Announce a Salon Price Increase Without Losing Clients

Price changes in the beauty industry come as a natural thing to do from time to time. They are necessary, especially if you deliver high-quality results on top of all the costs the industry sets. Also, it’s important to keep in mind that the cost of living is going up every year.

 Most economists anticipate inflation remaining persistently high throughout 2022 and likely beyond. With the high prices here to stay, those of you who hesitated to raise service prices might want to change your mind.

If you think it’s time for a price increase, it shouldn’t be something that affects your night sleep because you’re afraid of losing clients. Yes, some of them will probably leave, but this will offer you the perfect opportunity to select your clientele. 

It may seem difficult to announce the price change, but if you’re doing it right and with confidence in your ability to deliver only top-notch services, your clients will understand the situation.

Let’s see how to announce the price increase in your salon and how to determine when is the right time to do it.

Clear Signs It’s Time for a Price Increase in Your Salon

If you’re constantly improving yourself as an expert in your trade, you should be confident when you’re raising the prices for your services. 

But maybe you’re not sure it’s time for it just yet.

To draw a clearer picture of your situation, ask yourself a set of questions to determine if the time for a price change has come.

• Do you have any new certifications received after completed courses?
• Are you using more expensive products due to the quality of the services you want to deliver?
• Did you just purchase excellent equipment to meet your clients’ needs?
• Do people know about you through word of mouth recommendations, and you feel like you’re busier lately?
• Are your clients offering you way too generous tips? 

If you recognize yourself in these situations, but you’re not at all happy with your income, guess who deserves to give themselves a raise? 

Now, let’s break down the clear signs.

1. The cost of living increases 

Every year the cost of living increases, which means that all the products you’re buying and the rent you’re paying are also going up. While you hear now everybody talking about inflation, you feel it just when you fill your shopping cart or when you want to plan something. You’ll immediately realize that, from month to month, you pay more for the same products. 

But what inflation really means? It means that your country’s currency has lost purchasing power as the cost of essential goods keeps rising. 

In the latest months, people from all over the world face price increases in all domains, and everybody has to adapt to this reality. What do you have to do to keep up with the actual economics? Well, first of all, to increase prices in your salon. Later in this article, you’ll see how to do it correctly to avoid losing precious clients. 

2. Your services are quite unique

If you noticed your clients are asking for a particular service, and they’re very happy with it, you might be offering something quite unique in your area.

To have a clear perspective of your current situation, you need to do a little bit of research to see what the competitors from your area are offering.

If you discover that other salons don’t have that service that is in high demand in your salon, it means you’re delivering an exclusive, valuable service, and you can start thinking about changing your price list.

3. You’ve improved your services and equipment

The prices that were relevant a year ago may not work anymore. This doesn’t mean you started on the wrong foot, but that your services improved, and maybe so is your equipment.

It’s only natural that you gain experience with time, especially when you’re constantly working towards it. Courses, seminars, newly learned techniques — all of them are added to your experience, meaning you deserve recognition. 

If you see your education as a valuable investment, you should definitely expect something in return. 

An improvement is also considered if you started changing your salon equipment, switched to pricier products that offer excellent effects, employed more people, expanded your services list, or started offering niche services as we’ve seen previously.

So, if you find yourself being afraid of asking for a higher price on your services, remember that you invested your time and efforts into delivering quality customer service.

4. You’re feeling exhausted as the demand is way higher than what you can deliver

It can be a very stressful situation trying to book all the clients that contacted you when you don’t have enough time for them.

If the demand is higher than what you can deliver, it may be a problem. If you have a big waiting list that makes you agitated, then it’s clearly the best time for a price change.

You may ask why. Well, the high demand for your services means that you are delivering something valuable at a small price, and people know about it, trying to book an appointment with you.

You should feel proud of it, but you also have to think about creating a balance between work and personal life.

So, the only thing left to do here is to increase the prices on your services. Although this will make you lose some clients, it will also demonstrate that you are in the expert league now.

Besides, you may not even lose those clients, but maybe they’ll just book an appointment more rarely, which will keep the situation balanced.

5. Your business is experiencing financial losses 

Your business needs constant monitoring to see if they’re any financial changes. You should find a tool that fits you best and run reports to get statistics regarding your income.

If the result shows your business is stagnant or even losing money, you know it’s time for a price adjustment.

Know How Much You Should Increase the Price List

Once you know for sure it’s time for a change, you should determine just how much you have to increase your service prices. 

Here are a few things to keep in mind.

1. Make an honest evaluation of your business

You have to consider all the aspects when raising your prices, starting with the status of your business. To make it more simple, ask yourself a few questions:

• Do you deliver excellent value to your customers demonstrated over and over again through positive feedback?
• Do you feel like you’re considered a competitive business?
• Are you offering services other salons don’t?

To get the most accurate and honest business evaluation, let yourself be guided by your clients’ point of view. Suppose you noticed they were satisfied with your services, gave you only positive feedback, and even recommended you to their close ones.

In that case, it means you deserve to be compensated for your involvement in great customer service.

The way your clients perceive your business will help you get a clearer picture of how much you can raise the prices.

Also, be sure they are willing to pay more if they feel you’re delivering only top quality services.

2. Perform a local market research

It’s essential to analyze your area’s economy and your competitors as well. See how they are doing and compare your service prices with theirs. 

Keep in mind that you can make this comparison only when another competitor is very similar to your business.

If you’re offering something they don’t, you’re already delivering a unique selling proposition, making your business more valuable.

You should also consider weekly and annual working hours, the current minimum wage, and other financial aspects that may help you set a price increase relevant to you and your clients.

3. Know your audience

The most important thing to consider when increasing your prices is your audience. Like I mentioned earlier, it’s most likely some of them will leave, but you have to avoid at all costs to lose too many customers because of a price increase.

Consider creating your buyer persona to see just how much your customers are willing to pay. 

When creating your buyer persona, you should keep in mind a few essential aspects: demographics, behavior patterns, the most required services, average money spent, and their motivation. 

4. Don’t make drastic changes

If you didn’t make the necessary price changes regularly, don’t make one radical change to make up for all the financial losses. 

You should gradually increase your prices, maybe by 10% at a time, until you’re reaching the proper price range.

To avoid this kind of situation, perform regular financial analysis using the right tool for reports.

How to Announce a Price Increase in Your Salon

There are a few simple but vital things to consider when you’re about to contact your clients to let them know about future price changes. 

So, let’s see how to tell clients about a price increase in an effective way.

1. Communicate with confidence

When announcing the price changes, you should be short and clear, showing transparency to your clients. 

Your announcement should come with an explanatory note, no matter the communication channel. 

You should tell them how the higher prices come with high-quality services and how they’ll get the best value out of it.

Even if they show their frustration about it, you should keep your confidence and carry on with the process.

Losing ground in this discussion may send the wrong message, and your customers can even have reasons to doubt the quality of the services you were talking about.

2. Make the announcement in advance

Price changes may have a negative impact on a few of your clients, making them choose another salon, but a prior announcement will surely help. 

You should ensure your customers know about the price changes for at least one month before applying them. This helps them rearrange the appointments according to their budgets. It may even convince them to book an appointment earlier before the prices change. 

You can make the announcement in person, allowing your customers to ask you some questions, or via email, message text, or through a booking app, like Goldie, that allows you to send mass messages and make things move faster and easier. By the way: you can download it for free from the App Store or Google Play.

Make sure your message is clear, and it contains the exact date of the prince change.

Besides sending a mass message to all of your clients, you should display the price changes in several other places.

• Your salon;
• Your website;
• Your booking portal;
• On social media;
• On business listing pages.

3. Make yourself available for further discussions

There will probably be clients who will ask you several questions regarding the price increase, maybe even trying to convince you it’s not the best time to do it.

You should stand your ground and thoroughly explain why they’re wrong and why it’s high time to change the price list.

When you put the focus on quality, the clients that value it will understand your reasons.

It may help if you’re preparing yourself for a list of possible questions your clients will address you. 

Wrapping Things Up

Raising salon prices is inevitable, and so is with losing clients, but this shouldn’t stop you from doing it.

Think about this: a price increase will set apart the clients who were there for the price from those who are there for the quality.

In time you’ll create the best customer base for yourself, with only loyal clients.

When you decide it’s time for a change, the only thing left besides delivering excellent services is to learn how to tell your clients about a price increase with full confidence in yourself.