A Great Consultation Will Reconnect You to Clients

Vivienne Mackinder is a leader and innovator in the hairdressing profession, a guest artist, session stylist and educator, former Artistic Director for Vidal Sassoon and former US International Creative Director for Trevor Sorbie.  She now devotes most of her time to HairDesignerTV.com (HDTV), an online training that offers a collection of hairstyling tutorials that support individual hairstylists or entire salon teams, pursuing the highest level of professional excellence and mastery.

My Five Star Consultation speaks to each client individually. It helps you determine where your client lives in the new, Covid-19 landscape.

My consultation form can be added to a website and clients can fill it out online or while they are waiting for their stylist.  It speaks to what our clients will be craving when they finally get back into our chairs. Even our established clients should be answering these questions because everything has changed.   My form asks about budget, time, and commitment. How important are these things to our clients? Right now, I am certain these have become a priority.

Then we speak to their lifestyle, fashion sensibility, and sensuality. Does the client want her hair to whisper, scream or shout? Does our client want to be classic, edgy, or trendy? Does she want to feel sexy, boyish or feminine? My three wheels of fashion help a client figure out what they want their new image to be. I believe that a lot of clients will feel differently than they did before the shutdown.

Now is your opportunity to offer them change; not in terms of inches but in terms of what suits their lifestyle.

Many of our clients will want to feel pampered. A great consultation can do that. By asking what they need and want and actively listening to them we can show them that we care, we want to help them, and they can still trust us. 

We can also discern what they have been doing to their hair since we last saw them. Have they colored or cut their own hair?  We must not judge them if they have. Even if they have found a stylist that was willing to do their hair during quarantine, we must show them that we a) we understand and b) we are grateful they are back in our chair.

We need to also take into consideration what other things have changed since we last saw them. Perhaps they have gained weight and are feeling self-conscious. Maybe they took this time to get fit. Examining their face shape and giving them a balanced hairstyle that fits their body type is hugely important. Maybe they are going to work from home permanently. Maybe their office has changed their dress code and they can be more casual in the office.  

Whatever may have changed, the care and consideration you show them will be a reassuring constant in their life and will go a long way to re-establishing connection.

Vivienne Mackinder   Founder of HairDesignerTV.com

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