It’s not because you’re a stylist, therapist or a hairdresser that it means you feel the most comfortable when meeting new people. Outside of your work, you still have dominant and less dominant personality traits that make who you are as an individual. This, sometimes, can translate into feeling awkward when having to start a conversation with a new client. However, in a research we conducted amongst New York salon-goers, we found that the majority of women (65%) favoured a chat with their hair or beauty therapist. Your chair is a special place, a place that makes people look and feel like a million dollars. Let’s make sure you have the right conversation starters on hand to learn more about who’s giving you 100% of their trust for that one or two hours.
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25 Conversation Starters That Don’t Have Anything To Do With Weather
Where some salons choose the “quiet chair” route (a service making it possible to select an appointment free of small talk), I believe that if you have the right tools, you can make the most of out of these appointment chats. Now in fairness, you should also be able to gauge if a client doesn’t want to talk, and if that’s the case, by all means, you should try to respect that too. However, in the cases that your customer shows receptivity, you shouldn’t have to talk about the weather; which is probably the world’s number one small talk topic, but gets you absolutely nowhere.
Below you’ll find 25 questions that will help you learn a bit more about your clients. Some will spark interesting chats, some are more casual and some are simply to get to know the person’s hair and beauty routine more. All of them are starting points in the relationships you’ll build with your customers over the course of the treatments they’re booked in for, giving you a proper chance at rebooking them later on and turning them into a loyal, regular client.
15 Get-To-Know Your Client Conversation Starters
- What are two or three things that you like and don’t like about your hair?
- What, in your (hair or beauty) routine takes up too much of your time?
- Where do you get your hair and beauty information on trends and such?
- If you had an extra $100 to spend on yourself every week, what would you do?
- What do you do to get rid of stress?
- What is one of your favorite smells?
- Are you working on something exciting lately?
- That is an interesting line of work, how did you get into it?
- What was the best part of your day, so far?
- What job do you think you’d be excellent at?
- If you opened a business, what kind of business would it be?
- What are some small things that make your day better?
- Do you think products can be beautiful? What makes a product beautiful? What is the most beautiful product you own?
- Tell me about your oldest friend? How did you meet them?
- What are you looking forward to in the coming months?
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10 Random Questions About Travel/Music/Books/Movies/TV Shows
- What song always puts you in a good mood?
- Where is the most interesting/beautiful place you’ve been?
- What do you consider to be the most underrated/overrated TV show/movie?
- What city would you most like to live in?
- Which movie do you wish you could forget all about so that you could experience watching it for the first time again?
- What’s the last TV show you binge-watched?
- Where is the most relaxing place you have been?
- Do you like documentaries? What’s the last one you watched?
- What was the last book you read?
- Who’s your go-to band or artist when you can’t decide on something to listen to?
Related | The 7 Most Annoying Habits That Salons Have (According to Clients)
Three Topics You’re Better Off Avoiding
Like Marianne Mychaskiw highlighted it in her past InStyle article, “the role of our hairstylist can get blurred with that of our therapist—a point we often forget until we’re midway through rehashing all the gory details of last week’s Tinder date gone awry during a double-process color treatment.”
While some topics are great to discuss, others, well… let’s just say you’re better staying away from. In the same article, hairstylist Claudio Lazo recommended “following the same standards as you would when meeting your boyfriend’s parents for the first time.” Aka, steer clear of the following:
- Politics
- Religion
- Finances
The thing is, you don’t want to be dragged into a neggy vibe. Your clients come in for an experience, and getting to talk about something that is known to put people uncomfortable won’t do you or your business any good. Keep it light and positive, get them to open up with some of the above conversation starters and redirect the mood if and when needed. Most importantly, be you!
Related | The Salon Survey: One Of The Most Effective Ways To Find Out What Your Clients Want
Got feedback? What conversation starters do you use when meeting new clients? Let us know either in the comments below or tweet us @ThePhorestWord! (Pssst! We’re on Instagram too!)
Thanks for reading! #LetsGrow
