Last September, Enrich Salons replaced their existing customer feedback process with Zenoti’s (formerly ManageMySpa) feedback capabilities. We spoke to Sachin Kamat, Director of Customer Engagement, at Enrich Salons to get the details.

What prompted you to make a change in your customer feedback process?

To start with, the overall issue with customer feedback in general is that 95% of your customers are happy with your service, but, these people aren’t vocal. On the other hand, there a few customers who are incredibly difficult to please and even when the issue is resolved– they tend to be overtly vocal. What we found at Enrich was that only negative reviews were popping up online and on our Facebook page, there just weren’t any positive reviews to make for a balanced view. So, this was the main driver for us, finding a way to effectively deal with negative feedback and give a voice to happy customers.

What was your old customer feedback process like?

Our existing process required customers to fill out a printed form at the reception desk. Each salon sent those forms to our head office. We would follow-up on issues that were reported. Beyond that, we had very little control over what we could do with the feedback because it was all physical cards. We had grown from 10 to 50 centers – this process just wasn’t working for us and we had to find something scalable.

How has zenoti’s customer feedback capabilities changed your process?

All our salons were using iPads loaded with 1 minute promotional videos for each service; the videos helped customers get acquainted with services and helped us to add on services to appointments. With Zenoti, we used their mobile customer feedback capabilities. So customers could enter their feedback directly into the iPads. This helped us a lot as we collected the feedback electronically, which made sharing the feedback on our Facebook page easy.

Secondly, the customers were filling out their feedback themselves. The salon mobile app has a screen lock feature, which reassures the customer that feedback would reach us as is. The app also helped us get the customer’s permission to share their feedback on any other online forum. The second point is important because, while it may sound odd, the customer’s typos and small grammatical errors actually add to the authenticity of the feedback when we share to our Facebook and Twitter accounts.

Other than using the iPads, customers can also submit feedback after they leave the salon – either from our website or the Enrich mobile app (both are integrated with our Zenoti salon operational software).

In the first month of our switch we saw our feedback collections grow from 8% to 15%, then to 25% and in January we were at 45% on average for each salon. We now collect feedback from more than 25,000 customers every month.

Can you share what you do with the customer feedback you collect?

We put a system in place where we a) took action on any issue that the customer reported and b) we got back to the customer to tell them what we’re doing based on their feedback. That second point closed the loop. The other thing is that now that we had the feedback electronically and permission to share it, we could review the feedback in Zenoti and then easily push it to our website, salon management software, Facebook page and Twitter.

Customer Feedback On Facebook: Once we put it on Facebook, we were able to get our own followers to interact with that post. And, also promote, highlight and boost those posts.

Have you seen any results from your new customer feedback process?

In our salon mobile apps, Zenoti has that beautiful feature where, like Amazon, you can see feedback on any particular service. I think that gives customers a great deal of confidence, as they see other people that came in for the service and liked it enough to post a review.

The feature also shows the customer name and location along with their feedback. That helped us as we expanded to new areas. In Mumbai anyone will know who we are because we have more than 30 salons. In Bangalore, people aren’t familiar with our brand.

Customer Feedback Displayed On The Webstore: When customers walked into a new salon and saw our services on the iPad, and saw feedback from customers in four other cities, it made them realize that they’re dealing with a chain, which gives us credibility. Apart from that, we also saw that the customer’s tone changes completely when they interact with us. Yesterday, I received an email with an issue.

This customer could not get a touchup because her color shade has been out of stock. We took care of it, and she immediately wrote back to thank us. She also mentioned that she doesn’t like to complain, but with Enrich she knows that if she brings things to our notice we are quick to correct them (this was the second time she was addressing an issue to us). When a customer knows you’re listening, they give you the benefit of the doubt.

Finally, I’ll just say that feedback is a two way street. Customers share worthwhile observations and suggestions, often they’re an early warning system for us – we take care of the issue before it becomes a problem.

Considering you have over 50 salons, how do you process all the feedback that you receive?

Each salon manager is supposed to review each feedback form. But Zenoti also sends an alert through SMS (text message) to the salon manager any time negative feedback is submitted. We also use the issue management in Zenoti – every negative submission is logged automatically for us and it ensures that we follow through on every issue through to closure.

Do you have any goals set for your customer feedback process?

When we started we didn’t set a single goal for collecting feedback. Rather than saying we want to hit 20% of customer feedback collection, our front desk was made responsible for collecting feedback from 100% of four categories of customers:- New customers- High paying customers- Customers that received a chemical treatment- Customers that had any make-over service. While all feedback is important, these four categories in our opinion, head the list.

The first because customers are making a first impression, the second is important because they are big ticket customers. Chemical treatments make the list because consultation and aftercare are important for the results to be as expected. With make-overs, customers sometimes get these drastic changes on a whim and it is important to establish that they like what they got done.

Do you have anything else you’d like to share around customer feedback?

Our employees are reacting positively to this new process. If a customer praises a specific staff member, we send out an internal email. It’s a great morale booster.

About Enrich Salons

Enrich Salons is Mumbai’s largest unisex salon with over 50 centers that span 5 cities. In the last year we successfully doubled our number of salons and are continuing that growth. Our customers appreciate the quality of service we offer, through high quality of training, our consistency in service and overall focus on customer satisfaction.

Visit Enrich Salon’s website at www.enrichsalon.com.

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