The Pre-Visit Experience Glow-Up: How to Attract High-Value Clients Before They Even Book

Hello, my friend. Welcome back to The Modern Hair Stylist podcast. I am super excited to be here to talk to you about the pre-visit experience. Now, here's the tea, all right?

If you've been listening to my past couple episodes, especially the one where we dive into client experience, I've spoken a lot about how if you wanna stand out in today's day and age, the two most underrated places in order for you to really blow people away, to create a brand that people are willing to pay high dollars for, the two most opportune places and untapped places as far as potential goes is your pre-visit and your post-visit experience, right? 'Cause everybody thinks about the in-the-chair experience, everybody's giving a great in-the-chair experience, fancy amenities, scalp massages, all the things, but with the pre-visit and post-visit experience, a lot of stylists aren't yet thinking about how we can optimize the client's experience in those spaces. And so today, I'm gonna be talking about what a really great pre-visit experience looks like, particularly in today's day and age. Um, I just ran some really cool surveys right now for what clients are expecting in today's day and age, and there's a couple recurring themes when it comes to, they're looking for a personalized experience, they're looking for fast responses, and most importantly, they're looking for emotional connection as well, too.

And so in today's episode, we're gonna be talking about how you can create all of those things, match your ideal client where they're at right now, and, uh, teach you what that looks like. And today, I have Jodie Brown. What's going on Jodie? How are you?

Hey, hey. I'm good. I'm excited to be here. I'm excited that you're here as well.

Um, if you have tuned in the past couple episodes, you've heard Jodie on the pod. Jodie is here to prompt me, keep me on track, and share with me any of the questions that you have on your mind, because Jodie helps me on the marketing side of things, and she sees your guys' comments, your guys' DMs, and she has her finger on the pulse of what you want to know. And so she's here to make sure that I'm answering your questions. So thank you so much for being here with us, Jodie.

I appreciate you. Um, I just can't wait to dive into today's topic. This is gonna be so good, 'cause there's a lot of questions, a lot of conversation about this. Yeah, dude.

So tell me, where do you think we should start off with this conversation? So I think the first place to start is, what does that first amazing impression look like? What does a good pre-visit experience entail in 2025? So I think that people, first off, wanna feel seen and be heard, right?

Um, one of the biggest reasons why clients actually left their salon or their stylist recently in the past year was because they did not feel like they were seen or heard. And I think a great, easy way that we can really increase our efforts in making that happen and making that feeling be evoked in our pre-visit experience before they even book the appointment is by specializing and by understanding who your ideal client is and doing really deep research into figuring out what that looks like, so that when they're on your website, they're like, "Oh my God, I finally found somebody who understands me," right? And even though you're not necessarily there talking to them about this, right? They're able to go onto your website, and they see that you at least understand their problems from a static, non-personalized space.

So they're gonna assume that when you see that, when they see you, w- if they decide to come to see you, that you're gonna autom- automatically understand them from the get, and they won't have to worry so much about over-explaining their problems or issues or their desires, because you're exemplifying the fact that you already know what those things are. And that's really powerful in getting a new client to want to book with you. And then, we need to make sure that somebody has clarity around, number one, what price they're going to pay, because another huge thing that I got in this survey, which I'm not surprised about, is that a massive perception of our industry right now is that we've become way overpriced. Getting your hair done, and particularly getting it done well, is a luxury, right?

And so we wanna make sure that we are building trust within our pricing, and somebody has to be able to self-identify upfront, without talking to you yet, right? What is it that I would possibly be paying for what I want? And so we need to make sure that our service menus, wherever they are, are going to make sense to a client using client's language, maybe plus- possibly putting visuals out there as well. So we should have like before and afters as much as you possibly can, and doing the research, again, to figure out what is the client's language versus how I would describe this service.

So instead of partial foil or partial balayage, maybe your client would use the word highlights instead, and so therefore, we need to make sure that we're using that language, and that we're clear and upfront about our pricing as well, just in general. A lot of people will hide their pricing, or they'll create large ranges. Um, I'm gonna go as far as saying, like, in today's day and age, that little plus sign after that price is sometimes a trust breaker, because people have maybe- maybe, possibly, in the past, especially in the past five years, saw the number on a service menu, and it had the plus after, and then they go in, and it ended up being triple what they thought they were signing up for. Now, I get it.

Like, I know that that's really hard, right? I'm a hairstylist just like you. It's really hard to give somebody a super accurate quote upfront. Um, but the more that you can guarantee that this is more, this is a good idea of the price that you'll be paying, and in your copy, even on your service menu, saying that, "Do not worry, we will make sure that we're on the same page as far as what you will pay prior to us executing the service," right?

The more that we can create that trust around the price and give somebody some good clarity and help them self-identify accurately what price they'd be paying upfront, the better and the more likely we will get them to actually book. And what will support that even more is the next step and the other thing that we're trying to create, which is personalization. And personalization makes somebody feel like they are- are, uh, they are being heard and taken care of. It makes somebody feel like they're not just a number, that they're actually being taken care of in exchange for this high price and this commitment that they're making with you, right?

And it's really hard for people to trust other people with their hair, particularly right now in today's day and age, where they may have been burned before, right?Right. And especially if they're budgeting a lot of money to do it. And so that personalization, right, that making it so you are getting the information and making somebody feel seen and heard to be able to create a personalized experience is really powerful.

And what I've been teaching for years and years and years is digital forms for you to be able to do this, right? So an upfront digital form that will have them fill out a couple questions that will allow them to share their concerns with you, their pain points, their desires, all the things. And what is really powerful that you can do with this form and that you can kind of guarantee upfront is that you'll be able to give them a really close to accurate quote if they go ahead and fill out this form, right? The same way that somebody would DM you and ask you, 'cause this is oftentimes, we've all experienced this.

We get the DM and it's like, "How much is it gonna be," right? Mm-hmm. You being able to just give this person one clear place to give you all the answers that you need to be able to share with them what they would pay is really powerful, it's streamlined, and it's easy. I know for me, I'm somebody who has 16 tattoos total.

I just had to count that out for my, for my 27th birthday post 'cause I did- ... 27 facts about me, so if you want to check that out on my Instagram, you can. Um, but as somebody who has gotten tattoos a lot in the past, I've worked with a lot of different tattoo artists, and I cannot tell you how infuriating it is for me, as a customer, to ha- have to email somebody and answer 10 different questions and manually have to type out all of that stuff and format it and all the things, right? I've had tattoo artists, like, on their Instagram stories say, "If you're going to inquire, make sure that you answer these 10 questions in your email."

And I'm like, "Girl, I could just fill out a form. Like, please." Like, where it just brings me step-by-step, it's super streamlined. And the way that I teach forms, it has conditional logic so it's only showing the things that are relevant to the client, and also, we're creating a form process that is an- a great user experience to go through, because there is a right and wrong way to create a form.

There's a form experience that is not going to be fantastic. It's way too long, it doesn't have the right type of elements, you're making the client do a lot of work. But then on the flip side, there's ways that you can make forms super fricking easy and actually really fun and enjoyable to go through. Like, a lot of my students get really creative, and, like, they'll put, like, images in there and they'll be like, "You're almost done.

You're doing a great job so far." And so there's really great ways to make this, this, this touchpoint where you can get this really valuable data that you're gonna use to create that personalization to make it a fun and easy user experience, and that's gonna be very important in 2025. And when you can get this information, then you can very accurately, in a streamlined way, give this person a personalized quote. You can even include, like, "I saw that you have this before picture.

I love what your ideas are for your after, and I think that we'll definitely be able to get you a result," or something like that, right? But you're not gonna be able to do that until you get all the information that you need, and having a digital touchpoint, such as a consultation form, is going to allow you to set up systems on the backend that allow you to do this stuff in the easiest, most streamlined, automated way possible. So it's beautiful because you're still creating a personalized, high-touch, convenient DIY service, but you're able to do it in a way where you're not sacrificing all of your time and your life, and simultaneously, you're matching consumers where they're at as far as what their expectations are as far as response time goes. So I have a statistic here.

In 2024, 83% of call centers noticed an increase in customers' expectations around response times, furthermore looking for their issues and inquiries to be solved at any time and on any day. Wow. Which is wild, right? Right.

And so you need to have systems in place that is- that are going to allow you to get back to these people quickly, and there's no way that you, as one human being, are gonna be able to be on, all the time, on your phone, getting back to these people, you know, in a timely- in that timely of a manner. Or you may get unorganized and you may miss these things, especially if you're an ind- an independent stylist, right? You'll get the email in the morning, you'll start working behind the chair, you'll forget that you got that email and you never got back to it, and then that person went to the next person down the street, you know? So that is what a great pre-visit experience looks like, and there's even things after the person books that we put into place that really blows the client away and builds even more trust and emotional connection before they even walk into the door.

But that's, like, the very first and foremost of, like, what an awesome pre-visit experience looks like right now. I love how you outline, too, 'cause I think always the contrast as stylists, especially independent stylists who have a million things on their plate and they're- feel like they're juggling things all the time, right, and then they hear about these client expectations, the beautiful thing that you've outlined throughout this process is that it's not about you necessarily being available all the time. It's about creating the systems to facilitate this really consistent experience. Sure.

Yes. Yeah, so that way, you're not sacrificing your entire life because what about you? Like, what's the point at the end of the day, right? Like, are you gonna be acting out of scarcity just to, like...

S- so, like, you have to be on your phone and, like, you're gonna have to stop whatever you're doing with your family to be able to write out, like, a couple paragraphs to this person in the DMs just for you to get ghosted? Like, is that the type of business that you're trying to run? Like, is it really worth it for you at the end of the day, right? So maybe, like, you get a client and, and because you, like, don't have any of this stuff set up and you did it all manually, right?

But maybe you don't because you never got back to them or you chose to prioritize your personal life over that. Mm-hmm. And therefore, you miss out on that client, and there's a world where you can have the best of both worlds. Like, you can have both the boundaries.

You can have the personal life that you focus on, and you can keep up with these customers' expectations in a professional, beautiful way that is great for the client and for yourself at the same time.I love that. I think anyone who is an independent stylist pre-automations being available, myself included, has definitely forgotten to get back to a client, so. Totally.

So, okay. I, I see a lot of these conversations happening surrounding digital forms specifically, because this is something that has become a conversation in our industry, right? So where, where do we, what do we say to the independent stylists who're thinking, "Okay. Either I've implemented a digital form before and it didn't go super well, or I'm scared to put that..."

Like, for someone who sees it as almost like a roadblock for a client booking, maybe they're scared to implement that process. Like, w- how do we, how do we ensure that doesn't happen? Yeah. As far as a, like, let's say, a consultation form, like a required consultation form upfront being a roadblock for getting a new client to go through your process, right?

The tee is, is that number one, the data doesn't lie, surveys don't lie, right? So like, ah, last year we ran a survey and we asked 500 women across the United States from all different locations. Small towns, big towns, all different ages, even like four- 54 plus. And 95% of these people who go to salons to get their hair done specifically, said that they'd be willing to fill out a digital consultation form prior to booking their first appointment if it was going to give them an accurate quote of what they'd be paying upfront, right?

And so, that's exactly what you're trying to do. You're trying to make sure that you and the client are on the same page, that they're booked for the right amount of time for things, because your client wants to be booked for the right amount of time, and they wanna make sure that, you know, that they are budgeted for what they're gonna be paying for, right? And, um, so people are willing. People say absolutely that they're willing to do it, and I have countless of students right now who have digital forms as their upfront required process, and these are ranging from super average businesses where they're not really that specialized and they just do general hair services, versus super niched down people who are getting between 10 new client requests a month to 96 new client requests in a quarter.

Like, the forms do not stop these people from getting these client requests. But I think that the difference is, maybe if you have put digital forms into place and you weren't seeing new clients, right? Maybe the difference is it's your marketing- Mm-hmm. which is the tough fucking news.

Like, it's the tough love. The tough love is, and I, we, we talked about this the, in the past couple episodes, about like, pinpointing, like where is the constraint, right? What department is it that's causing these issues? And if you don't u- understand the data, you don't know how to read the data, then you don't know actually what's causing it, right?

But if you're not getting new client requests and maybe your theory is, is that it's the form, well, have we taken a look at your marketing to make sure that you're actually niched down enough, that you're speaking to your clients in the most optima- optimized way, your potential new clients, that you know what to say and how to say it to get them to want a book with you? And I think that that's the difference. Like, I see these people who have, like, a digital consultation form upfront, especially like some of these extension specialists who have like tons of questions on their digital form. Like, it's a long form, right?

Um, those people, they have the, the, the, the sa- the similarity between all of them who are getting tons of new extension requests, they all know how to market their extensions. They know how to market their services. They know what their potential new clients are thinking when they go onto their Instagram page, and they have posts and content and things on their website that are directly speaking to those thoughts, before they even talk to them, right? And that's the difference.

So a lot of the time, it's more of a marketing issue than it is a, oh, I have this r- big roadblock that's stopping people from booking with me. And again, like, maybe the disconnect is that we have not created a great enough pre-visit experience to make somebody desire to book with you enough to want to go through that, right? Because what does it mean when you have a client who is not, deciding not to book with you because they have to answer a couple questions upfront? Like, do you really want that client?

Is that really setting you up for a great, longtime relationship with this person? Is this person really just looking for the first person that they can find and book and just easily step all over? Right. You know?

'Cause that's not the kinda client that I want in my chair. And maybe you're in a space in business where that's something that you absolutely need and want, like maybe you just need a client in and you'll do whatever you possibly can to get them in there. Fantastic and good for you, like pop off. But a lot of us aren't necessarily in that circumstance, and if we- Right.

create a strong enough marketing funnel, if we create a strong enough desire for somebody to book with us, and we create systems that allow us to have a personal life and to make the client experience better, and the systems are set up with the client experience in mind, right, such as a digital form, and that digital form has the right elements, it has, it, a- a- asks the questions in the right way, it's personalized, all the things, then you won't have any issues. And I have countless of testimonials and examples of why it's done way more good than bad. Yes. Oh my God, I love that.

Great marketing, it's not just about attracting the right clients, it's also about filtering out the wrong ones. And I think that's dead on. So when it comes to the client experience then, like i- you know, I feel like the, the common theme here is it's starting way, way, way, way, way before they're sitting in the chair, right? So what is that, like, first touch point of that client experience?

Is that when they hit on your website? Like, i- what do we really need to be thinking about in terms of creating a stellar, like-... from the jump experience with us. Yeah, I think it comes down to when they first hear about you in one way or another, whether that be word of mouth, whether that be Google search, and that's why you have to think about, like, every level of the client journey.

And there's different things that can be said and shown at every level of tho- that journey. So, like, I have a small container mastermind with, like, my, with, like, 10 high performers within my program. These are stylists who are doing really beautiful numbers in their business, and they have really great work-life balance, and they've dedicated a lot of hard time, energy, and effort to get there. And a lot of that hard time, energy, and effort was making it so they created a really badass client journey for these new potential clients, right?

And that's why they're getting tons of new client requests every month, you know? And we actually just, literally right before recording this, we just went over the five levels of awareness to remind us of, like, every single part of the client journey as far as a new potential client, and if they decide to book with you or not, they need to be told and shown different things along the way to fully trust you. So if you create, number one, if you create a really badass client experience, right? If your client experience is absolutely next-level and word of mouth is one of your biggest marketing channels, then your client is going to do the work for you and share with Suzie, "Oh, my God.

Hunter has the most badass fricking salon experience I've ever experienced, ever. And it, yeah, it is a little bit pricey, but the experience makes it worth it because my hair is fricking awesome all the fricking time. And when I go there, it's like I have an entire spa experience," or something like that, right? And so, like, that's an example of what needs to be said and heard the very first time that you're talked about or that you're made aware of, you know?

And creating a next-level client experience is a beautiful way to do that. And so I'm really excited to be sharing with y'all that we are doing a client experience glow-up party where we're going to be, over three days, helping you build a recession-proof client experience. And this is going to be one that particularly matches these recent surveys that I did and really meeting these people where they're at, and it's gonna be brand new. So whether you've been a student of mine for a long time or you're brand new to me, we have brand new information for you that you are going to absolutely want to be privy to, and that will make it so you have a business that is unshakable and where the client experience is doing the work for you.

So if you wanna join us, you can go to hunterdonahue.com/party or you can send me a DM @hairbyhunty and you can use the word "Party," um, or you can check the, uh, the link in the show notes, wherever you're listening to this, and I'd love to see you there. I love this. I think this is gonna be the funnest, funnest way to refine and optimize and bring your cha- bring your client experience into 2025, so super excited.

Hell yeah. Uh, the whole point of it s- of it being a party was, like, I think there's a, there's a lot of doom and gloom right now, obviously. Right? Yes.

Like, the news is insane, and the messaging out there is insane. And all we're hearing about is tariffs, recession, like, all scary shit. Mm-hmm. And instead of business building out of positivity and hope for the future and wanting to create greatness for ourselves, we're building businesses out of scarcity and urgency and fear, and that is never...

And this is shown, like, in psychological studies. That is never the way that you can create long-term sustainability in action and growth and motivation. It's always going to be with positivity that we see long-term sustainability as far as staying motivated and getting the damn thing done. It, I mean, you can even look at, like, parenting studies as well, too.

Like, it's m- like, like, negative reinforcement is much less effective than positive reinforcement, right? And so I wanted to create something fun. I wanted to create something that created hope and positive motivation, and I want it to be the best learning experience possible, and that's exactly what it's gonna be. So I hope that everybody enjoys.

I'm super excited to see you there. Thank you so much for being here with us today, Jodi. We appreciate you, my friend. And listener, thank you for tuning in, and I'll catch you in the next one.

So much love. Peace out, girl scout. Bye-bye.

End of transcript. © 2025 Hunter Donia LLC.