By Melanie Haber
Do your customers know all the services you offer? Do they feel like you charged appropriately during check-out? It is important that your customer understands that what you do is far beyond just giving a dog a bath. It is also important that they feel they got more than what they paid for during check-out. Here are some great ideas for getting customers to buy more services at check-in and see how well their money was spent at check-out.
CHECK-IN – Grooming Menu
Oftentimes it is really busy when checking in pets for their groom; however, this simple trick will lower your customer’s perception of wait time, increase their perception of value, and help you make more revenue for each transaction. Many of you have heard of the “Grooming Menu”, some of you may not. A grooming menu is a list of all the services you provide to customers during their pet’s visit that they can read at check-in; using them correctly and presenting them with a professional appearance gets you more services per pet. It also lets the customer know you have a professional arsenal of services other than just bathing or cutting hair, and gives them something to look at while they may be waiting for the customer before them to check-in.
What you want in a grooming menu:
- A list of all services, including those that are priced with the routine groom. For example, if you always include a nail trim, face cleaning, sanitary cleaning, ear cleaning, and conditioner with every groom, you need to make sure the customer knows EVERYTHING they are getting. You aren’t just “WORSHING a DAWG” for heaven sakes, you are performing a professional pet service!
- A place about the quality of the products you are using and why you use them.
- The prices of each service that will be in addition to the standard grooming fee.
- List the highest valued services first. These are what you recommend for every pet. We never place the cheapest services first because those are the ones the customers will choose.
- Note an area for “What we recommend for EVERY pet.” The customers only know what YOU tell them. As a professional it is your responsibility to let them know what is best for their pet.
- A list of therapies you offer such as, allergy therapy, ozone therapy, parasite treatment, bacterial infection treatment, fungal infections, hair-regrowth, itchy pet problems and the list can go on and on.
- A list of ancillary services. These are services that may or may not be associated with grooming but you can certainly charge for. (Yes, you should be charging for these!) For example: brush the teeth, bows and bling, massage therapy, nail painting, tinting or dyes, facials, extended stay for those that are working late, play time with others, extra potty trips, dremel or filing the nails, straight through fees for those that want to wait while you groom, early drop-off service, pick-up from your home service, night-before drop-off.
- Check boxes next to the prices for the customer to make their selections; this also gives you a record of what was agreed upon.
- A place for extra notes or needs—or if you do want to throw in a freebie, this is where you can write it.
- A place for the date, pet’s name and owners name, and contact phone number.
- A place at the bottom for the customer to sign their approval of services agreed upon.
- These grooming menus can be paper copies that you make for each pet so you can keep them on file for future reference or reusable laminated menus that you can mark on with erasable markers that can be wiped clean after use. However you use, it is important that you let your customers know all the extras you can do to pamper their baby at check-in.
CHECK-OUT – Setting up the best receipts
Once you do a fabulous job on grooming the pet, it is important that the customer not only sees what a great grooming job you did, but also understands what a great job you did. One way to do this is by increasing their perception of value during the checkout process with professional line-item receipts.
When checking a customer out, it is always wise to present them with a receipt showing each procedure that was done for their pet. Oftentimes it is just easier to note the fees as GROOMING but you and I both know that a lot more goes into a “groom.” Some grooms are basic baths and others are extensive scissor work. If you do therapies, this adds in almost 20-40 more minutes to the grooming process and your customers need to understand the value of all the steps it takes. Here are some examples of how to present a receipt with a high perception of value. And if you can personalize it, that makes it even more appreciated.
Basic Bath Simplified Version for a short coated pet – Today “Joey” received:
- Cleansing Bath
- Hydration Treatment
- Pedicure
Basic Bath Extended Version – Today “Joey” received:
- Cleansing Bath with Lemon Shampoo
- Hydration Treatment with Lemon Balsam
- Blow Dry
- Pedicure with Dremel
- Ear Cleaning
- Eye Cleaning
- Fanny and Fold Sanitation
Full Service Groom Version – Today “Emily” received:
- Cleansing Bath
- Hydration Treatment
- Blow Dry
- De-Matting 20 min
- Hand Scissor work 40 min
- Pedicure with Dremel
- Ear Cleaning
- Eye Cleaning
- Fanny and Fold Sanitation
Full Groom with Therapy Version – Today “Emily” received:
- Cleansing Bath
- Ozone Therapy
- Allergy Therapy
- Hydration Treatment
- Blow Dry
- De-Matting 20 min
- Hand Scissor work 40 min
- Pedicure with Dremel
- Ear Cleaning
- Eye Cleaning
- Fanny and Fold Sanitation
When you lay out the line items of services you perform during a basic bath, it really looks like much more than what the consumer thinks of as a “bath.” Full service grooming receipts will knock your customer’s socks off with all the services you provided. It is really important that you give details on what you do to increase the perception of the value of the work you do. It also gives a much more professional feel to you personally. You are a professional; now let your customers know it! They only know what YOU tell them. If you act like you are “just giving a bath” that is all they will want to pay for, however, if you can turn that bath into a cleansing and hydration treatment—that will allow you to charge more and communicate to your customers that you are qualified.
Finally, the main message here is about communication. If you tell your customers all that you offer and then put it into writing with grooming menus and detailed receipts, you will increase your reputation and bottom line.