The health of your salon and spa team is a much-discussed issue at present. There are certain actions that salon and spa owners and managers should consider keeping in mind at the time of team and staff management during coronavirus. The initial priority should be producing COVID-19 guidelines for your team to follow.

• Communicate with Team

First, it is required to communicate with all your team members to report to the respective location at their scheduled time. You may need to take the assurance from the respective employee on their re-joining. Communicate with your salon and spa team in advance that anyone who exhibits symptoms will be sent home immediately.

• Training for Team

Provide adequate training for all your salon and spa team members on preventing contamination, when they join back.

• Your Salon and Spa Policy

Ensure that your salon and spa sick leave policies are flexible and consistent with public health guidance. Introduce a policy for team members who arrive sick, or who become unwell during work hours.

In case of shutdown extends for your salon and spa business, you can consider the past performance of your salon and spa staff to calculate the pro-rata basis compensation.

• Flexible working of your Staff

If you find low client footfall even after your business operation resumes and all your staff joins back, you may implement the forced leave policy and operate with the minimum number of required staff.

• Travel guidelines for your Staff

Institute staff travel guidelines, such as notifying the manager when planning to travel and providing health assessment upon return. Ensure all salon owners/managers should comply with the above actions and practices.

• Roster plan for your Staff

Many salons and spa maybe experiencing high client footfall and it is required for them to plan to cater the client rush. Plan and divide the responsibility for e.g., there will be one person only who will be doing the head wash, others will be making the cuts. Ensure that you rotate the job of each staff.

• Important Mandate for your Staff

Make it mandatory for all your Employees to follow the hygiene and sanitation at all the time. Prepare your standard of hygiene on a chart and paste on the salon wall or place a tent card so that all visitors can be aware of them. Ensure that you have enough disposables gloves, mask, etc. available in your stock

The health and wellbeing of clients who visit your salon and spa is also a much-discussed issue at present. There should be a list of actions that salon and spa owners, managers and other team members should consider regarding client management and communication for their salon and spa.

• Client Communication

Communicate your clients to postpone their appointment ahead of time if they are feeling unwell

• Schedule Reminders

Posting a reminder on your salon’s Facebook and the Instagram page or adding it to the SMS appointment reminder SMS that clients receive from your salon and spa management software on your reopening date and times

• Client Convenience

Install no-touch disposable containers in the workplace. Work with your salon and spa team to develop unified answers to questions and queries that clients may have. For example, what to say when asked what precautions your establishment is taking regarding the safety of clients, or what to say to a client who is concerned about a nearby client’s health.

• Prepare Handouts

Prepare a handout on your hygiene and sanitation standards and hand over to the client to review. You can also make videos on your hygiene and sanitation standard and post it on your official Facebook or Instagram page for your client review. It is also strongly recommended that you have these client guidelines in writing, in case a customer requires further information.

• Take Feedback

Ensure that you take feedback or comments from your clients who walk-in and take services. Review those feedback and work on gap areas, if any. Make sure that you have enough stock of disposable including masks, sanitizers for your customers

Don’t try to take all the thoughts, responsibilities and planning alone. Your salon and spa team, your colleagues and your family are there for you. If you feel confused, reach out to them. They can help you cope with the unpredictable business of your salon and spa.

Prepare your salon and spa COVID-19 game plan

Although we can’t predict what will happen in the upcoming weeks and months, together with your salon and spa team, plan for how your salon or spa will deal with COVID-19.

What you need to do immediately

• Communicating with your salon and spa clients
  When communicating with clients, whether in the salon or through SMS marketing use a warm, positive tone.
• Keep communication crisp
  Explain that your business is taking the necessary steps and precautions to keep everyone safe and healthy while they are in your salon.
• Assuring your salon and spa revamp
  It is a best practice to have the SMS ready to go in case bookings start to dip, and you need to reassure clients quickly.
• Project your salon and spa business when it will be fully operational
  If you are using salon and spa management software, you can review client due services that identify which clients are due to be back in according to their regular booking patterns and this provides you with the means to secure their next appointment.

What you might have to do in a worst-case scenario

• Upskill your salon and spa software knowledge
  You can utilize marketing and management tools from your salon and spa management software that will help you to rebook clients, increase revenue and lead your team when you are fully operation.
• Cross Training of your salon and spa team
  Preventive cross-training of your team on various disciplines can come in extremely handy if your manager absents themselves from the salon and spa for an extended period.
• Financial Reporting
  Keep a close eye on your financial reporting — particularly on profitability, stock levels, vendor balances. Invoay Software users can easily find this information in the Reports section of their Invoay back-office web page.
• Multi-branch management
  You can’t be everywhere at once. It is recommended that you provide location managers with the authority to take appropriate actions when/if needed. List out possible management scenarios and decide what decisional authority you can delegate and what that should look like.

Invoay software users can keep their team up to date with scheduled changes by using the Invoay Pocket Mobile App. Make sure that all team members have downloaded and set it up on their phones.

Closing a salon and spa business is never an easy decision. And closing for something so drastically out of your control can be very difficult. As the coronavirus COVID-19 situation intensifies, we find that more and more businesses are having to temporarily shut their doors for the betterment of their community.

• Create a marketing plan
  When your salon and spa doors will open, the to-do list never ends, it can be challenging to sit down and work out your salon and spa business marketing strategy for the next few weeks and months.
• Set Reminder days for each service
  You can use this time to review the reminder in days’ time in your Invoay software. Fixing this will help you to remind automatically to your clients when the business will regain.
• Provide online consultations
  Why not start providing online consultations, or even use social media to share tutorials? Product recommendation videos, detailing why you like this or that product and how it can help your clients also, tend to be very popular.
• Redesign your logo and branding
  Give your salon and spa brand a fresh new look and feel? There quite possibly isn’t a better time than now to do that! Consider what kind of message you want your salon and spa business to convey, and work with a designer to help you bring that emotion into shape.
• Plan services combo packages
  Your customers will want (and in many cases need) their favorite services even though your doors are closed! With your salon and spa management software you can innovate the packages offer, here are some of the example:Create Fixed Packages: This can be a combination of multiple services with an expiry date. During these hard times, you can make a better offer on services combo of more frequent services.Create Deal Packages: You can offer extensive range in different categories of your salon and spa services and the client can choose a set number of services out of them.Create the permutations of different customer preferences and train your team of stylists and beauticians on pitching the customized services packages. For example, a Custom package of 3 to 5 sitting on Repairing HairTo promote packages, you can send SMS campaigns to your clients with an online link or number where your customers can contact and make a booking for these packages.
• Plan and promote Prepaid or Membership Wallet
  Encourage your clients to buy prepaid cards to use in your salon and spa when you open. Make the most of lockdown holidays by creating various offers . You can plan for the different slab of the prepaid wallet or membership wallet. For e.g., if the client pays you Rs 5,000 they will get load value of Rs 7,500 or if they pay Rs 10,000 they will get load value of Rs 15,000 or so on.
• Plan your salon and spa reward memberships
  Now’s the time to activate those things you’ve been meaning to do but never found the time! What better time to get to start the Reward program you’ve been thinking about forever? You can take help from your salon and spa management software and get set up with these things over the coming weeks.
  Your clients will want to get enrolled in these loyalty reward programs when your doors will get opened! Wherever possible, plan on the promotion and training of your staff members.
• Get active on your social media
  As most of your clients will be spending lockdown time on their social media, this is the best time to become more active and available on your social media pages. Plan and host Facebook or Instagram live videos on home regimes, tips, promotions, etc.
  Make use of your social media and increase your reach with your clients and get more clients by answering their queries online and providing consultations.
• Take training and learn new skills
  You can make use of this time to learn new skills like leadership, management, team handling, communication skills. Make use of website udemy, cousera, upgrads. Enroll yourself in the podcast of motivational speakers and take business tips from them.
• Communicate with you team
  Make sure that you make communication with your team on a daily basis. Make a WhatsApp group of your individual team and keep them posited with positive quotes. Avoid posting viral videos or content that create negativity in them.
  Share the list of watch videos that can motivate them. You can make use of technology like google hangouts and make sure that you connect with your team at least 2 times in a week in a conference video call. Ask for positive things and changes an individual employee is making in their day to day life.

Give them positive assurance and share openly your current situation. Plan finance distribution with all your employees