Nadine Dilong It’s no secret that the next two weeks will be hectic for salons and medispas as literally everyone’s trying to look their best on Christmas. Whether it’s fillers and anti-wrinkle injections, facials, or manicures – getting these treatments done before Christmas is high on everyone’s priority list in mid December.
The Christmas rush means, as a salon owner or practice manager, you need to be as organised as possible to make the most of the busy days. Chances are, your business will be open right until Christmas followed by a few closed days, or if you’re lucky, maybe even one or two weeks of a break for you.
If that’s the case, make sure you remember to prepare for the shutdown by doing the following:
1. Do a final stocktake of any retail products and injectables. Remember that open vials of many injectables will expire within a week, so make use of any remaining product.
2. Send out e-mails and/or post on social media to let you clients know when your business will be closed.
3. Pre-schedule a few posts on social media. No one expects you to put up as much content as usually between Christmas and New Year, but a post here and there will keep your clients happy and the engagement high.
4. Double check with staff the days they’re taking off work after Christmas and make sure you have enough staff on opening day.
5. Turn on answering machines and automatic e-mail replies with information on your closing dates.
6. Make sure wages are paid before Christmas, or let staff know if the date they’re getting paid in December will be different than normally.
7. Inform cleaners of your closing down dates and arrange a “thorough” clean before opening if needed.
8. Clean out your fridge.
9. Make sure plants are watered.
10. Create a backup of your servers and turn off all computers. There’s nothing worse than coming back to a whole lot of IT issues after the break.
Most of all, try not to take any work home with you. The beauty industry is especially stressful in December, and in order to offer the best customer service for the year to come, everyone needs a break to recharge both physically and mentally.
