Answer · A short answer
How many clients do you lose without noticing?
Usually more than you think, and they leave in three quiet places: enquiries that were never answered or answered too late, clients who left without booking their next visit, and regulars who slowly stopped coming. None of them complain, so none of them show up as a problem. You can count all three for your own business in about a week.
Lost before the first visit
Missed calls with no call back, Instagram messages answered the next day, web forms that sat over the weekend. Each was someone ready to book. Most never contact you again.
To count it: for one week, note every enquiry, where it came from, when it got a reply and whether it booked. The ones with no reply, or a late one, are your first number.
Lost after the first visit
A new client comes in once, is happy, and never books again. Nobody asked them to, or they meant to and forgot.
To count it: take the new clients from two or three months ago and check how many have been back. Here is an example: if 40 new clients came in and 15 have returned, 25 are not lost for good yet, but they will be soon if nobody gets in touch.
Regulars who drift away
The hardest to see. A client who came every five weeks now comes every eight, then every twelve, then stops. Each visit still looks normal.
To count it: list clients who used to come regularly and are now well past their usual gap. That list is the people to contact first.
Fixing all three
The first is fixed by answering fast, on every channel, with a way to book. The second and third are fixed by asking for the next visit at checkout and following up with the ones who did not book, timed to the service.
Then keep counting, every week, so the losses stay visible.
Six steps to answer every enquiry within a minute. Read the playbook.
Keep reading
- BreakdownA book that fills itself
- ToolWhat empty chair hours cost you
- PlaybookEvery enquiry gets a real answer within a minute
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