If you lose clients from your client base, you have to attract new clients to replace them. That’s a good reason to focus on client retention, of course. Beyond that, however, your client base is a source of so much other value to your practice, including filling up your schedule, online reviews and word-of-mouth promotion.
Silver & Gold
The Girl Scouts have a campfire song I remember from my childhood, which includes this phrase: “Make new friends, but keep the old. One is silver and the other gold.” That wisdom is also solid for building a healthy practice.
New clients may be silver, but existing clients are gold. A healthy client base is a balance of silver and gold. How do we create that?
To start, let’s talk about this all-powerful thing called a client base. Who qualifies as “in” your client base? Based on my experience, it’s anyone who has paid you for a massage in the last 12 months and who you reasonably expect to return. That means there is some guesswork in calculating the size of your client base.
Clients leave us for a host of reasons, many of which have nothing to do with our skill as a massage therapist.
I had a client who was an undergrad at a local university. She had a trigger point in her shoulder that acted up at exam time. She was part of my client base while she was a student because exams were always going to happen. When she graduated and left the area for a master’s degree program, she left my client base because I didn’t have a reasonable expectation that she would return for massage.
How many clients do you need in your client base? My rule of thumb is that you need four to eight clients for every hour you wish to fill on your schedule.
For example, if you routinely want to fill 15 hours a week, you need 60 to 120 clients in your client base. That’s a conservative number, but if you don’t have any other data to work with it is a place to start.
Your client base is not a once-and-done. It is, like a body of water, always moving. So take a look: How big is your client base? How much bigger would you like it to be?
When you first start, your time, energy and money are acutely focused on attracting new clients to build your client base. That’s your silver.
There are so many resources (websites, coaches, articles, books) on the client attraction side of marketing that I’m not going to go into that in this article. I will say this, though: As your client attraction efforts solidify and you begin to approach your ideal client size, it’s time to start re-balancing your energies and putting more attention and effort to the client retention side of marketing. That’s your gold.
Common wisdom is that it is significantly less expensive to retain a client than it is to attract a new client. I have seen numbers ranging from five times to 25 times as expensive to attract a new client as it is to retain an existing client. That’s a compelling argument!
Filling Up Your Schedule
Many of our regular clients have a regular schedule. Once a month. Every three weeks. When they wake up with a kink in their neck. That doesn’t mean they’re coming as often as would be most beneficial to them.
Take a look at your regular clients. In your professional opinion (you know them and the issues they bring to you), do you have clients who would benefit from receiving bodywork more often? Rather than every six weeks, for example, every four weeks? Would that help them get closer to the goals they have?
Are there clients who would benefit from a few sessions in quick order (maybe weekly for a month rather than every six weeks) to help them get ahead of a chronic problem?
Are there clients who would be able to get to a better place if they had a few 90-minute sessions (or even regularly had 90-minute sessions) rather than 60-minute sessions?
Not every client would benefit from more work, but if you think through your regular clients, there very well may be those who would see improvement from a little more work than they are currently getting.
You shouldn’t make this decision just to fill your schedule, ever. When you are looking at your clients, look through the lens of your own experience and professional wisdom. When you talk to them about it, offer it as a suggestion and explain why. They might say yes; they might say no. But you have gone one step further in your professional therapeutic relationship with them when you offer them the benefit of your experience and insight. That’s why they come to you, after all.
Don’t automatically assume they can’t afford it or don’t have the time unless that has been a point of conversation with them before.
Reviews and Word of Mouth
Someone who has been seeing you for two years is going to give a more powerful endorsement of your work than someone who has seen you once. So, yes, ask for referrals and reviews. But don’t be overbearing.
Because we have all learned the value of online reviews, we can be relentless in asking our clients for online reviews. And we can get very frustrated when we don’t get them. Remember, though, that our clients don’t owe us reviews or referrals. They are a gift.
I get a request for online reviews from everyone I do business with. I had an outpatient gynecological procedure and they asked me to write an online review about my experience. (I didn’t, because that was just too weird for me.)
We, and our clients, are inundated with these requests. Your request is just one more. Consider being selective about your requests for reviews. Perhaps only send a request once a month to a select group of clients rather than automatically sending a request to every person every time you see them.
Trying New Things
Have you taken a continuing education class to learn a new modality? You know how exciting it is to return to work ready to put these new skills to work.
If you like to practice more before you include these new skills, consider asking some long-term clients to let you practice. They have the experience with your work that allows them to give better feedback.
If you have a healthy therapist-client relationship they may also be able to tell you about what’s not working, which is easily as valuable as knowing what is.
Relationships Build Client Retention
Apart from doing stellar bodywork, how do you create enduring relationships with your client base? With customer service founded in hospitality and respect.
I have two definitions for marketing: one for client attraction and one for client retention.
The client retention definition is “making it simple for the people who found you to stay with you.” What makes it simple for people to stay with you? Great customer service comes from a mindset of hospitality. You are inviting your client (or potential client) into your massage home, your massage practice. Whether your massage home is brick-and-mortar or mobile, customer service is about how you create an experience of hospitality.
The more a client feels seen and cared for, the more likely they are to return.
It’s not just about the cucumber water, hot towels and expensive sheets. It can be as simple as making it easy to find the bathroom or having a place for the client to hang up their clothes. It could be as business-centric as making it easy to book (and re-book) an appointment or having a strong referral network.
Great customer service is all the things you do, large and small, to create a healthy and warm relationship with the client. Virtually every aspect of your relationship is an opportunity for great customer service. What can you do to make your clients’ experience more hospitable and welcome?
In the end, we need both new clients and established clients. It’s easy to see the advantage of attracting new clients, but never underestimate or take for granted all that comes with an established client base. Time and energy spent on client retention is time and energy well spent.
Author’s note: Special thanks to Gail Russo for her exhaustive database of Girl Scout knowledge.
About the Author
Kelly Bowers is the owner of the Healing Arts Business Academy. She is the author of four books: “The Affordable Massage Handbook,” “The Accidental Business Owner,” “Can I Deduct That?” and “Between Doormat and Diva.” She is a regular presenter at national conferences, an instructor in professional training programs and an NCBTMB-approved provider of continuing education. You can find her on Facebook, Instagram and YouTube. She lives in Durham, North Carolina.