A salon receives four extension enquiries a week. Each one is offered a consultation, which takes forty five minutes.
Two of the four are never viable. One wants a result her own hair will not support, and one has a budget that covers the fitting and nothing beyond it, which means the extensions would be removed within months.
That is an hour and a half a week spent establishing something that photographs and three questions would have shown.
1. Ask for photographs at the enquiry
Current hair, from several angles, plus a picture of the result they want. This answers more than any description.
2. Ask about hair history
Previous colour, bleaching, chemical treatments and any recent damage, which determines what is safely possible.
3. Ask what result they want
Length, volume or both, and how dramatic, since the answer changes the method, the quantity and the cost considerably.
4. Explain the methods and what suits whom
Different attachment methods suit different hair types, and clients arrive having seen one method online and assuming it is the only one.
5. Explain the fitting cost as a range
With what moves it, principally quantity and length, which is the pricing discipline in treatment price questions every salon receives.
6. Explain the maintenance schedule
How often they must return, what happens at each visit and what it costs, which is the part that decides viability.
7. Explain the annual cost honestly
Fitting plus maintenance plus replacement hair over a year, which is frequently several times the figure the client had in mind.
8. Explain the home care requirement
Products, brushing, drying and sleeping, which clients underestimate and which determines how the result holds up.
9. Explain the removal position
What it costs, how it is done and what the hair looks like afterwards, which nervous clients need to know before committing.
10. Explain the patch test and preparation requirements
Where relevant, with enough notice, since a test required forty eight hours beforehand cannot be arranged on the morning of a fitting and is the commonest reason a long appointment is lost at the door.
11. Explain the time commitment
A fitting is a long appointment, and clients who did not know cancel or arrive unable to stay.
12. Take a deposit on the consultation
For long appointments in particular, since a consultation that becomes a fitting is a substantial slot.
13. Say honestly when it is not suitable
A client whose hair will not support what they want should be told kindly and offered an alternative, rather than fitted and disappointed.
14. Explain the first two weeks
Tenderness, sleeping differently, learning to brush and style around the attachments. Clients who know what the settling period involves are considerably happier than ones who find out and assume something has gone wrong.
15. Qualify before the forty five minutes
An assistant that gathers photographs, asks about hair history and the desired result, explains the methods and the annual maintenance cost and states plainly when something is not suitable turns four consultations a week into two worth having. The nervous client handling sits in new clients nervous about their first treatment, the timeline expectations in timeline questions that decide which builder wins, and the sector approach in ai receptionist beauty salons. See features, start at try, and the sector view sits under beauty salons.