Webinars can be effective at so many things, from providing education to introducing new products and services. However, one of the key benefits of webinars that is often over-looked? Customer service. This year, webinars have become a key venue to providing service to our estheticians and clients, from giving them new e-commerce options to provide service to their clients to reaching out to find out their needs. Right now, developing customer service skills is the most important thing any business can do. Here, I’ll break down what it takes to provide great customer service through this easy, affordable medium.
The Importance of Customer Service:
According to a recent study by American Express, US consumers say they’re willing to spend 17 percent more to do business with companies that deliver excellent service, up from 14 percent in 2014. As a group, Millennials are willing to spend the most for great care (21% additional), followed by men (19%), all key target groups for increasing your client base.
Estheticians, spa and salon owners should look to partner with companies that not only provide the best products and services, but also provide the very best customer service via regularly scheduled webinars. These can have multiple benefits:
- They keep estheticians, spas and salon informed on the latest products, research and ingredients.
- They provide education in skin and skin care science and technique.
- They can offer incentives such as discounts on new products.
- They provide access to key members of the company, industry experts and even the founders of the company themselves.
- They provide a forum for clients and customers to give feedback.
Here are some key points to look for in the webinars of your skin care partner to assure you are getting the very best customer service.
1. Access to Company Leaders
A webinar is a live, online, and educational presentation during which participating viewers can submit questions and comments. In essence, a webinar has all the benefits of attending a live seminar without travel. In this, material is presented, usually in a PowerPoint, and audience members can ask questions of the presenter.
Webinars should be conducted by company heads or other key people within the organization.
Webinars usually run for approximately 30-35 minutes, with an additional 20 minutes for Q & A. This is when the client or customer has direct access to the founder, able to ask questions directly, receive invaluable advice and be inspired!
The national average of webinar attendees is 158. I can report from personal experience, however, that with my own webinars attendees are consistently 300+.
The keys to creating a successful webinar include:
- Providing substantive content that your customer can use.
- Providing a timely topic appropriate to the season, and to the newest innovations.
- Regularly scheduling webinars to be at the same date and time each month to assure clients of regular content and contact.
- Always providing enough time for a Q & A to interact with the webinar presenter
- Keeping the information to the point.
- Always making sure the equipment and platform is up to date and working efficiently.
- Properly promoting the upcoming webinar with weekly emails to your customers, as well as always following up.
- Always educate! A webinar is not just for sales and trouble shooting. It is the greatest opportunity to share information and knowledge with the next generation of spa and skin care salon owners!
2. Immersion in Company Story, Mission and Accreditation
Businesses can now reach out to their clients on a global level, in all the countries where they do business to tell their brand story. Research shows that messages delivered as stories can be up to 22 times more memorable than just facts. Webinars provide a means to both visually and orally tell a brand’s story, helping to immerse the client in the company mission and DNA. This is an opportunity to learn the story on your company’s founding, the bio on the founder, and learn what makes this company successful; what sets them apart.
Does the company use sustainably harvested ingredients, have any awards, is accredited by an international organization that measures excellence in manufacturing? All of this should be clearly delineated within the first stages of the webinar to assure the client that they are engaging with a service representative that has qualified for the highest standards in operation.
3. Provide You with the Latest Information
Webinars should provide interactive platform for providing information on the latest advances in your brand, as well as provide in depth information about ingredients and their benefits. Here, spa and salon owners and estheticians can be kept abreast of all the newest, most important launches, as well as provide all the information on ingredient benefits and study results.
This is especially important if the ingredients are not as well-known, or are on the cutting edge of biotechnology, such as sustainably-harvested seaweeds.
4. Brand and Esthetics Education
One of the most important services a webinar can provide to their clients and consumer is by offering monthly demonstrations of the latest, most innovative facial and body treatment protocols. While regular attendance at educational classes via trade shows or company conferences is a must at least twice a year, webinars offer spas, salons and esthetician monthly training without having to incur the costs of monthly travel. These can both introduce the esthetician to the latest techniques, or can help reinforce the information they originally received during a class.
With these, an expert at the treatment, whether the actual creator of the protocol or a highly trained educator is on line, talking the client through each step, and available to answer questions afterwards.
Webinars can even provide testing with immediate results to help the esthetician qualify their strengths. These can even include additional incentives of discounts or free products for participating for the customer, added additional value to the customer service!
5. Business Training
Webinars can provide exceptional customer service to clients by also giving essential business information and advice to the spa and salon owner, or even the freelance esthetician. Important marketing data and research is provided to help enhance individual businesses, and are part of an exceptional customer service package.
Webinars can help salons and spas define their clients as well as give them the skills to exceed their needs. They expose undeveloped markets to new and innovative practices, as well as provide information on federal and state laws that affect their business.
If the company founder is moderating, this is also an opportunity for him or her to inspire her customer with their own story. Helping businesses be successful is part of an overall mission for the best of professional skin care companies. By helping individual business, the industry benefits overall.
6. Provide Incentives and Discounts…and FREE PRODUCTS!
As if the webinar education wasn’t enough value, true customer service can be provided by offering discounts and free products to clients for signing up. This is a valuable to both the customer and the company, providing targeted sampling to help educate the clients as well as demonstrate the product’s effectiveness.
This is also a great opportunity for your business to highlight special promotions. This is why monthly webinars that adjust to seasons and special events can be an especially win-win service.
7. Get Direct Access to the Company or Organization
Studies show that for 45 percent of millennials, a key factor is consumer satisfaction is to be part of the innovative process. They expect brands to build relationships with them, to listen to them, and to engage with them.
The Q & A portion of a webinar is the consumer and client’s opportunity to engage directly with the company, provide feedback as well as give their input on future developments. This engagement can be further nurtured in follow up email blasts and forums. Being part of the process in development, as well as being acknowledged for input is a key marker for a successful business going forward, and webinars provide a major gateway for this.
8. Strengthening Partnerships with Customer Service
With business to business services, partnerships are what make or break a business. Webinars not only provide a great way for potential clients and consumers to sample what your company has to offer, but also provide a way to retain and strengthen existing business partnerships, providing the host of services described above. Finding new and innovative ways to educate through webinars, creating a monthly schedule and providing diligent outreach and follow up via email regarding webinars has now become essential to creating successful and long term partnerships.
