5 Reasons to Focus on Client Retention—Not Just Client Acquisition

As an esthetician or spa owner, you may be concerned with filling your books. If this isn’t something that happens consistently for you, there’s a HUGE need to make it consistent asap! This is because, unless your main source of income comes from product sales, education, or something else, your business is probably dependent on seeing clients and performing services, right?

But as you’re working so hard to fill your books, we highly recommend you focus on one particular type of client, and that is REPEAT clients!

Repeat clients? Don’t those just naturally rebook? Should you really be putting any energy in rebooking repeat clients when there are so many potential NEW clients out there?

When we talk to estheticians and work with them in our one-on-one coaching program, we usually find that they are spending a ton of time and energy on finding new clients when they have a huge database of clients they have already seen but never rebooked! One esthetician we talked to had 10 regular clients but a database of over 300 past clients! She was asking us for help in finding new clients, but she needed to start with rebooking the clients she’d already found.

If you can relate and you’re looking for ways to make more money in your spa by rebooking existing clients, keep reading!

In this article, we’ll show you 5 reasons why you should focus on booking REPEAT clients more than booking NEW clients and how it will help your spa business grow!

Ready to fill your books AND your bank account? Read on!

1. Returning Clients Buy More – Seriously. A returning client is more likely to buy product, upgrade their services, and include add-ons than brand new clients. In fact, existing clients are 60-70% likely to purchase something (think retail products!) and new clients are only 5-25% likely to do so. Why is this the case?

New clients don’t know you yet and they don’t have as much reason to trust you. Sure, they trusted you enough to make an appointment and get a treatment, but they don’t have a reason to trust you beyond that. You’re still on trial. They still need to feel out the situation and be certain that you’re going to be a good fit and your advice is going to benefit them and their skin. Why should they take your word for everything just yet?

Existing or repeat clients, on the other hand, have plenty of reasons to trust you and your recommendations! They’ve chosen to return to you for a reason! They see you as the expert and the person who is going to guide them to the skin / lashes / brows / hair removal of their dreams!

Think about it with these two scenarios—

First, let’s say you’re checking out at the grocery store and you strike up some small talk with the cashier. As you’re chatting, he recommends a restaurant in town and says you should check it out.

Or in this scenario, you’re talking to a friend you’ve known for a long time and he recommends that restaurant in town and says you should check it out. 

In which case are you MOST likely to actually go to the restaurant and try it? 

In the second scenario when someone you trust, whose opinion you value, recommends it, right?

It’s the exact same with new or returning clients trusting your recommendations and buying products or packages from you.

2. Returning Clients Cost Less to Book – Studies show that attracting a new client is up to FIVE TIMES as expensive as rebooking an existing client. HOLY COW! How can that be true??

When you’re focus is on client attraction, you’re spending more money on marketing, right?

You’re probably paying for Google or Facebook ads.

You’re probably spending lots of time (with a lower monetary return) on booking consultations.

You’re probably taking time to create a TON of content for social media focused on inviting people to book with you.

Marketing costs money, even organic (meaning not utilizing paid sources) marketing. This is because you are spending your valuable TIME on client attraction practices. 

Let’s break this down a little more—

Suppose you are offering $125 60-minute facials, but you also offer a $45 30-minute consultation.

If you’re focus is on client attraction, you’re going to have quite a few consultations booked. Possibly looking at either MORE consultations than actual facials, or an equal number of the two.

Assuming you have an equal number of consultations and facials booked at 40 hours a week, you would be performing 26 consultations (totaling $1,170) and 26 facials (totaling $3250) for a grand total of $4420 in service revenue.

Now, let’s look at this again assuming you have all repeat clients and aren’t needing to schedule consultations at all.

40 hours a week would allow for 40 60-minute facials, totaling $5,000 in revenue sales.

That is $1750 MORE than in the first scenario where you’re taking time for $45 consultations!

Do you see how it truly costs more to not focus on rebooking existing clients?

3. Returning Clients See Better Results – As a licensed esthetician, you know that clients will not see drastic changes or be able to maintain results if they only come in one time. You understand how essential it is for a client to stick with a treatment plan and keep coming back at appropriate timeframes so they can see consistent improvements.

So how can a client see consistent improvements if they come once and never return?

Not only will you lack amazing before and after photos or transformative case studies to post on your social media and website, but your skills as an esthetician will suffer.

Think about it – If you only ever practice entry level peels because your clients only ever come one time then ghost, you won’t be confident in performing mid- or high-level peels or services should you ever have the opportunity.

The first treatment generally is not as corrective, aggressive, or transformative as the 2^nd, 3^rd, 4^th, and so on. If you only ever do first treatments, your skills, and the clients’ results, will suffer.

4. Returning Clients are More Likely to Leave High Quality Reviews – Piggy-backing off of the previous point, your returning clients have more reasons to leave you a great review.

If a client visits you one time, she may leave a review about how nice you were, how clean your studio was, or how comfortable she felt in your space. This is fine and dandy and very much appreciated, but it isn’t as compelling as a review left by a client who has been coming to you for months or even years. 

The reviews left by consistent, returning clients are more impactful. They describe the journey, the results, the way their lives have been changed through your services.

Which type of review do YOU think will generate more bookings?

5. Returning Clients are More Likely to Send Referrals – When clients have stuck around and seen the results you can provide, they are more likely to tell their friends and family about you.

It’s similar to the previous point about high-quality reviews—If a client doesn’t have firsthand experience with the way your services or products can transform their skin, why would they refer their loved ones to you? 

They need to know that the people they refer will not be disappointed and that they will see incredible results. But they can’t know that if they haven’t experienced it for themselves. And they can’t experience it for themselves if they don’t rebook and keep coming back to you.

To recap, when you focus on rebooking existing clients more than just constantly looking for new clients, you are able to make more money in your spa, save more money in your spa, give your clients better results while you perfect your treatment skills, and generate more reviews and referrals.

If you want to know HOW to increase your client retention so you can turn those one-time clients into LIFETIME clients, you need to check out our best-selling course, Keep Your Clients! This course covers everything I did to take my client retention in my own spa studio from less than 15% to over 90%! Click here to check it out now!

Stay Spa Strong,

M'Lisa