Dealing with customer expectations: Tips for successful communication as a lash stylist

As a lash stylist, you offer a service where customer satisfaction must be the top priority. Almost all of your measures to promote your sales must therefore be aimed at increasing customer satisfaction.

52% of all customers switch to another lash stylist after just one negative experience. And 13% of all dissatisfied customers tell more than 20 people about it.

So what makes a happy lash extension customer?

When what was expected was achieved or even exceeded! So managing customer expectations is the most important thing to have happy customers and a thriving lash business.

There are three phases a customer goes through:

1. Before the treatment 2) the treatment/purchase of your service 3) after the treatment

Before treatment:

Make sure that the customer does not create any expectations that cannot be met.

Here are some examples:

• For example, don't post photoshopped eyelash pictures on your website or Insta feed
• Don't make unrealistic statements about how long your eyelashes will last.
• Don't claim that you only need 1 hour for a new lash set when it actually takes 3 hours

This list can practically be continued endlessly. With each statement you make, try to think about what a customer might imagine.

Before the treatment, actively seek conversation and try to find out exactly what the customer wants and whether there are any discrepancies between his ideas and your offer. If so, explain again in detail what result she can expect.

Of course, you don't have clairvoyant abilities and therefore can't predict 100% accurately what your client imagined in terms of her eyelashes and your performance. In addition, your customers often don't know exactly what they want and that can change over time.

To avoid disappointment, talk to your customers regularly about what exactly they want, what they imagine beautiful eyelashes to be and, for example, explain why a certain effect suits them better than others.

During treatment

It's best to ask again while you're having your eyelashes extended whether anything hurts, whether it's cold or whether the bed is uncomfortable. Try to anticipate every eventuality and fix it as quickly as possible. If you have the impression that something is not going as your customer expected, speak up yourself and offer an honest and detailed explanation. This is almost always better than waiting for the customer to bring it up herself.

After treatment

Try to find out whether the result is what the customer expected. Because if that's not the case, you may still have the opportunity to improve it a little or at least explain why the result differs from what was expected.

Give tips to ensure maximum durability of the eyelashes and let your customers know that they can contact you at any time if they have any questions or problems.

96% of dissatisfied customers will not complain to you and 91% will simply not come back. So use every opportunity to identify such an “unsatisfied customer” and turn it into a satisfied customer.

You can use the following methods to find out more about your customers' ideas and wishes:

Active listening:

Listen carefully to your customers and use confirmation questions to ensure you understand their expectations.

Clarifying questions:

Ask clarifying questions to better understand your customers' needs. This helps to avoid misunderstandings and misinterpretations.

Examples show:

It's best to show which eyelashes your customers can expect using photos or videos before eyelash extensions. Under no circumstances should you show someone else's eyelash creations here, only your work. Ideally, eyelash effects that would also suit the respective customer.

Be open to feedback:

By giving your customers the opportunity to evaluate you, your work, your studio, etc. and asking for their feedback yourself, you will learn very well what you can improve and quickly eliminate certain “pain points” of your customers and be able to provide your service quickly and effectively improve.

If you e.g. If you have a super uncomfortable lounger and don't actively ask if it's comfortable, no one may ever tell you that lying on that lounger for 3 hours is actually very uncomfortable.

Even though it's not always nice to hear what you're not doing well, it's absolutely necessary to accept these suggestions from your customers.

As a rule of thumb, you can assume that the dark room for negative customer feedback is always 7 times higher than expected.

So if e.g. 4 of your customers say that your working hours are not well chosen, then 28 of your customers actually think so.

To briefly summarize, unhappy customers are always those who get a different result than they expected, so in order to have as few such customers as possible, try to find out as precisely as possible what they imagine and, if necessary, bring their idea as close to reality as possible.

Either by explaining to them how exactly you work, that the desired effect is not possible, or by finding out exactly what they want and you implement exactly that.

Finally, it should be mentioned that you have to work just as actively on your customer satisfaction as you do on your skills as a lash stylist.