It’s boomtime, and we have certainly earned it. The beauty and aesthetics industry was brought to a halt thanks to COVID-19, but clients have not been shy about filling up the appointments that were finally made available to all of Australia on 1 June.
Interestingly, this surge of activity gives us a unique opportunity to look closely at the data surrounding our clinics and our specific offerings, and to make scientific evaluations regarding both. This article will give you some guidelines on how to use easily measurable data points as the basis of your decision-making.
1. Percentage of Appointments Filled in Non-Peak Hours
If a particular treatment is booked solidly for weeks on end, but only during peak hours, you can assume that clients are happy to wait for a treatment or make a regularly scheduled appointment. If, however, you have a treatment that is consistent, even during nonpeak hours, then people are willing to prioritise the treatment over their daily schedule. This aids in future planning because if you add an additional resource for a treatment that only thrives during peak hours, you will only experience the uplift during that time. The solidly booked treatment, that doesn’t necessarily have a “peak,” time is likely to be far more profitable.
You can then combine this information with :
2. How Many Appointments Do You Turn Away?
And which treatments are they turned away for? At what times? When you combine these two questions you will have an understanding of how much additional money you could make by expanding particular treatments. Also, keep in mind this is without any additional promotion or marketing of your expanded business.*
Opportunity = Bookings Turned Away x Cost of Treatment, Benchmarked Against Available Times
*Importantly, this is also an important tactic against other clinics in your area – if they can’t get an appointment, where else do they go?
3. Who Are Your Clients?
And why do they come to you? Understanding this will help you with clinic marketing and promotion, but more importantly, defining what additional treatments you can introduce based on the demographics of your client base. Also, it’s the perfect time to gather the information; we are asking our clients more questions than usual before treatments, why not add two more?
- Why do you come to our clinic over competitors?
- What additional treatments would you like to see introduced?
Putting together some measures and creating data that is easily measurable in your clinic means that you can make better decisions. What else can you measure?
