Onwards & Upwards

Louisa Webb writes on how you can prepare your clients post lockdown.

Louisa Webb

Managing Director, Louisa Webb Business Solutions, brings over a decade of invaluable executive-level experience in the skincare and beauty fields. Her mission is to enable clinics and service providers in this industry to overcome business challenges and deliver outstanding, measurable and sustainable results, both commercially and in the delivery of services.

Being a consultant for aesthetic clinics, I get asked this a lot: “What do I need to do to prepare my clients in this new world we live in today?”

Welcome to a world where everything seems to have changed. Yet at the same time, if there is one thing you need to do, it is prioritising your clients and ensuring they come first, more now than ever before. Too often, clinics are constantly worrying about how they will survive, rightly so, but without your faithful clients and ensuing they are at the forefront, you will not have a business to worry about.

Protocols and preps

As an initial starting point, it goes without saying, you need to ensure you are adhering to the guidelines in terms of safety protocols to protect both the clients as well as staff. But what about the ‘actual’ business: what are you doing to prepare your clients really?

Owing to the lockdowns, online consultations became the number one service, but are you still ensuring these are followed up even with the doors open? Can clients buy skincare online through your own website to avoid them being in the clinic for too long? In addition to the regular treatments that you had on offer pre-lockdown, what services have you introduced or decided to introduce to the clinic to ensure you keep your clients coming back for more? Have you continued with your business plan despite the set-back, or are you holding back even more, which could prevent you from growing and even spring boarding over the finish line at year end?

Despite what you think as a clinic owner, there is huge demand, even more so since lockdown, due to clients having more time to research for the latest procedures and devices. If you are not investing in them, maybe they would not invest in you and will end up taking their hard-earned cash to another expert? I have seen this happen more than once already.

Focus on technology

Do not hesitate to invest in technology. Believe it or not, the demand is there, and clients want the best of the best. The question here is, have you invested in the latest? It is never too late!

Having worked with clinics even during the lockdown, you would be surprised at how many are investing in additional sites, new staff, more lasers, weight loss devices and skin rejuvenation equipment. These are the clinics that do not want to stand still in the storm but choose to ride the wave of the increase in these types of treatments – even more so since the first lockdown! In fact, the ‘virtual’ effect has created a surge in all things skin, due to people feeling over exposed to online video meetings.

Analysing demand

Even before the lockdown was lifted in some parts of the country this summer, interest in plastic surgery was already bubbling over as people were isolating. In June last year, a survey conducted by the American Society of Plastic Surgeons (ASPS) of more than 1,000 consumers found that 49 per cent of those who have not had plastic surgery indicated they are open to cosmetic or reconstructive treatment in the near future. Another ASPS study published the same month found that 64 per cent of the US plastic surgeons had seen an increase in their online consultations since before COVID-19 began.

Based on conversations with aesthetic medicine practitioners, there is not just one reason for this surge, but rather a convergence of some of the pandemic’s most mundane but ubiquitous traits: plenty of time spent at home, empty calendars, less socialising, face mask mandates, and the Zoom and similar virtual platforms.

Retail growth

Not only are the consumers demanding result driven treatments, but the surge in online sales for skincare has also risen.

Sona Abaryan, a retail expert at European data collector Ekimetrics, has said retailers have notably seen growth in skincare product consumption throughout the pandemic. “As remote working is here for the long-term, people are more focused on selfcare,” she explained. “And so, consumers are investing more in skincare products rather than makeup and fragrances. In fact, there has been a 200 per cent increase in skincare in the last six months in the year 2020.”

Personally, I have seen more clinicians invest in skincare products than ever before to ensure they have enough stock to offer their patients. I have seen many more setting up their own e-commerce portal to ensure they can offer a fulfilment service for the patients, when previously this was a challenge to get doctors or medics to invest in products as an add on service.

IN CONCLUSION

In summary, what are you waiting for clinicians? The demand is there from the consumer, and the manufacturers want your business. We need to pull together to make this happen, not just to help the failing economy, but to assist our faithful clients and ensure they stay with us and help keep your business afloat and even boom. Onwards and upwards!