Setting Up Memberships for your salon

[divalou]

Hi There;
We are looking to set up a membership scheme, as in the customer pays £XX a month and gets £XXX amount of services.
Has anyone else set up a scheme like this?
Do you know how to go about doing it?
Ever encountered any problems with it?

Thanks
Lou

 

[tog]

sounds a new and interesting idea! the only prob I can think of is that during busy months like june/july/aug when therapists and clients are off on hols you might have to get your 'members' to book their month's treatments well in advance to ensure that they get booked in ok, otherwise they could start complaining that they've paid their money and not been able to book their treatments.
And I guess perhaps you'd have to do a minimum membership of maybe a year, set up by direct debit. Presuming they would be getting a discount on the price of their treatments, if they cancelled their direct debit before the end of the initial year you would have to put in place a penalty charge due to you.
Maybe you should do an initial trial run with a limited no. of memberships for a few months to get it up and running and see how it goes. . .
Good luck!

 

[Lynne Baker]

I'm thinking of this also!
My first step is to find out from my business bank how one goes about setting up direct debits!
I was thinking of having a number of bridal packages, the cost of which can be spread over x number of months prior to the wedding. I wonder if anyone else has done anything similar!

 

[number1kitty]

I tried it years and years ago probably before its time. I charged £30 for the bronze £45 for the silver £62 for the gold and £85 for the platinum. That basically bought hours of beauty treatments that could also be broke down into 15 mins. The bronze was limited to certain days whilst the platinum was for any time.

For example the Silver package allowed clients 2 hrs of treatments in a month but only in the week 9-5.

The platinum allowed a client 4 hours of treatment in the month anytime.

I had about 40 regulars on the scheme from regular waxing, facial to nails clients.

I found most cancelled as they didnt use the full benefit of it.

I had a VIP membership that clients bough a £20 membership card and this allowed them 10% off products, 15% off treatments monday-wednesday, 50% off last minute appointments (which we text to them if we are free in the day and if the book in its half price) and they also get a free birthday treatment too.

That proved much more popular.

kate

 

[wooboo]

It should work just fine but there are a couple of accounting things that you need to be aware of:

1) You can’t take the money out of the business as such until you have supplied products or services purchased under the scheme or the scheme lapses. This is all to do with revenue recognition and paying tax. Make sure that any scheme has a clear start and end point so that delinquent users (pay 3 out of 12 months and you never hear from them again) do not block the scheme up.
2) You need to be clear about how you would return any money collected if the person withdraws from the scheme (or can they?) You wouldn’t expect to keep all of it but you would expect to keep a % of the profit you would make when they had their treatments. So you may want to operate a scheme where if they terminate within the 1st 3 months then they can have a 95% refund and then say a sliding scale after that to the 12 month mark at which point they can only get say 50% back or nothing at all spending on how you want to work it and how fair you want to be.
3) If you have a large takeup you may want to think about opening an interest paying account and parking the money received under the scheme into that account and calling it down when it is used. This way you get to earn a bit of interest on the money too and the bank will love you.

 

[divalou]

thanks for all your advice!

 

[Blue Rose]

So Divalou,

Did you go ahead with a membership scheme in the end?

 

[divalou]

still thinking about it atm, been side tracked you know how it goes, but really this time of year would have been perfect for selling it as people take up Gym memberships as new years resolutions dont they!

 

[chazz!!]

I will be starting up my own beauty room in feb at a gym and would realy love to hear how this goes x

 

[joe90]

There is a spa in a hotel in Rochdale, Lancashire that does this. My friend is a member and uses it regularly. There are stipulations though - for her £40 per month she gets unlimited use of the spa plus 2 treatments per month.

Can't remember the name of the hotel though.