It’s starting to feel a lot like Christmas, which means it's busy season for barbers. As clients fill up your schedule to ensure they look fresh for family get-togethers, you’re probably just trying to keep your head above water. 

But there are things you can do during the busiest part of your year to ensure you’re successful now and after the new year when things quiet down. Let’s take a look at what you should be doing today as a barbershop owner.

5 Things Barbers Should Do This Busy Season 

1. Offer Gift Cards

Gift cards are a must-have item for barbers during the holiday season. Why?

First, gift cards help ensure future loyalty–if a customer has money to spend at your shop, why would they go somewhere else?

Secondly, gift cards help your loyal clients hype your shop up to their friends and family. Giving a gift card is the ultimate referral tool and helps ensure new clients will find their way into your establishment. 

During the holidays, use gift cards as incentives to boost sales. Try deals where people get $10 gift cards as a bonus for every $50 in gift cards. Or, bundle a gift card with retail products to create the perfect grab-and-go gift for customers that don’t know what to get the dad who has everything.

2. Adjust Barber Scheduling

Busy season is called busy season for a reason–it’s wall-to-wall appointments and walk-ins for many shops. It may be time to create seasonal hours to accommodate your barbers and clients’ needs.

If you notice mornings are quiet and evenings are full up–and people are still calling to get a time slot after work–it may be time to shift your schedule to start later in the day and end later at night.

3. Better Customer Communication

When things are extra busy at the shop, it can be weird and stressful for both regular and new clients. Clear communication is key to set expectations for everyone and ensure the best client experience.

You’ll want to ensure you’re sending out messages to communicate things like:

• Changes to shop hours
• Changes to shop booking and no-show policies
• What days the shop is closed for the holidays
• Special offers for gift cards and retail items

The hardest part about good communication with customers is ensuring they get the message. Sure, you can post a note on Instagram, but how many of your clients are actually going to see it? And you could text all your clients, but do you really have the time?

With SQUIRE’s Engage tool, you can quickly communicate with all of your shop’s clients from the platform. You can keep everyone up-to-date over text with one quick message to everyone–or just some. 

4. Share Shop Booking Links, Not Just Individual Links

Barbers that are promoting themselves on social media often share their personal booking links. This can be a problem during busy season when barbers are most likely to have a full schedule. That’s because it looks like the client can’t get an appointment and will go looking elsewhere to find an appointment that fits their schedule. 

But, if you share the shop’s booking link when you use SQUIRE, clients can book with their preferred barber or easily find another barber in the shop at a time that works for their schedule. This helps keep clients loyal to the barber (and the shop) instead of driving them to your competition at a critical time of the year. 

5. Reduce Your Busy Work 

Busy work during busy season can feel like a waste of time for barbers and drag you down quick. After a full day of cutting hair, there’s nothing more frustrating than having to spend hours on commission reports. And there’s nothing more annoying than having your phone blowing with text messages from clients looking for an appointment in the middle of a cut with another client.

Get yourself a barbershop business management system like SQUIRE and get back more free time during busy season to spend with your family. When Mark-Jason Solofa switched to SQUIRE, he got back up to 10 hours each week he used to spend doing commission reports and payouts. And with SQUIRE handling your booking and customer communication, you won’t be constantly fielding calls and answering  text. 

Make the Busy Season Better with SQUIRE

Get into the holiday spirit this busy season without letting the busy season break your spirit. Give yourself and your barbers all the tools you need to thrive this holiday season. Get a demo today.