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Retaining Clients
One of the posts I see on facebook quite a bit is, “do you have any advice for retaining clients?” or “how do you get clients to reschedule?”
Some of the advice is about making sure to approach the client after the massage and ask about rebooking, while others say it is about discounts, packages, and deals. Another common post is about needing good bodywork, which is also something I hear from the therapists I work on. Things like, “I did go to get my arms worked, but you know how that goes, you say I need arm work, they spend 5 minutes on each arm and are off to other areas.”
At some point each therapist becomes a client. The question we should ask is “what do I want from a massage therapist.” Client retention and whether or not a client rebooks a massage is based on whether or not the client got what they came for.
One way to achieve this is to chose the correct therapist.
If I need specific arm and hand work, I am not going to go to a therapist doing primarily full body massage. Often a full body therapist is driven by an internal rule that the whole body must be touched. If my desire is for an hour of arm and hand work, this will frustrate me. I will not get my needs met, I will not be rebooking, and the therapist may end up feeling like they failed.
When I need a full body massage, I am looking for flow, even pressure, and a therapist who does not get lost in my tight muscles. I am not going to book a session with a rolfer or thai therapist. Sometimes it is not the work you are doing, the client is simply in the wrong place.
But if we as bodyworkers cannot identify what type of work we need, how do we expect our clients to do that. Have an honest conversation with your clients. If they seem not to be happy with the treatment, ask them “what type of treatment were you looking for?” This is a question they may not be able to answer, but if the question is never asked you will never know if they have an answer to it.
And, if you feel that you are lacking skills or are becoming bored with your current repertoire, take a class. Learn something new. Classes give you all kinds of things from the new modality to an anatomy review to a revisit of things you had forgotten from your basic training to interaction with other therapists. https://efullcircle.com/
