Salons provide clients with a wide range of services, including hair styling, manicures, pedicures, body waxing and makeup artistry. As a salon owner, you can spark competition between your employees and motivate them by hosting occasional salon contests. Keep the contests friendly and fun, and use them to encourage your salon employees to always do their best work when serving the salon's clientele.

Best Customer Service

Providing salon clientele with top-notch customer service is a must, if you want to ensure that you get repeat appointments and referrals. Make customer service a priority among your staff by hosting a contest for the best customer service.

Create a small survey, printed on postcard-sized paper, with several questions clients can answer about their overall salon experiences. Questions may include the following: Did your service provider greet you with hello and a smile? Did your service provider listen to your concerns and needs? How helpful was your service provider in helping you select your services for the day?Rrate your service provider on a scale of 1-10. Would you return to the salon for future appointments?

You can also ask clients to leave additional comments about their experiences in a blank section on the card. At the end of the week or month, review the feedback and determine which of your employees provided the best customer service.

Increase in Clientele

The number of clients coming into a salon for a given service provider depends on how much experience the provider has, how long she has been with the company, her marketing efforts, the services she offers and her customer service. Encourage your employees to increase their clientele by hosting a contest that measures the percentage increase in clientele that employees have on a monthly basis. Before you start the competition, take a look at how many clients each served the month before, so that you have an accurate starting point.

Highest Retail Sales

Beyond getting services at a salon, clients have an opportunity to purchase retail products such as:

  • shampoo
  • conditioner
  • nail polish
  • makeup
  • hair accessories

Encourage your salon workers to suggest retail products to clients based on their hair, skin or nail care needs. Keep track of each employees' retail sales and award a prize for highest sales and most improved sales, depending on which services they provide.

Most Upsells

A client who enters your salon for a wash and trim, can leave with a wash, trim and color treatment, if your team is skilled at providing thorough client consultations and upsells. Upselling helps salon employees increase their dollars per transaction. A waxing specialist can upsell a client getting an eyebrow wax to getting a lip and eyebrow wax, and a manicurist can upsell a client from a simple manicure to a deluxe one that features nail conditioning and growth services. Hold a contest and award salon staff members who achieve the highest percentage of upsells in a week or month.

Best Customer Makeover

Partner with a local non-profit whose aim is to prepare underprivileged men and woman with the resources they need to go from job seekers to employees. Challenge your salon employees to get into teams with at least one hair stylist, one makeup artist and one nail technician. Designate each team to help one of the nonprofit's job seekers achieve a new look that's appropriate for job interviews. Work with a nearby clothing boutique for clothing.

Select a day and time for each individual to arrive for their services and give each team the same amount of time to work with their clients. When clients arrive, take several before pictures of each one. After their makeovers, take additional pictures. Use poster board to hold the clients' before pictures. Have the executive staff from the nonprofit select which makeover is the best. Award members of the team that does the best transformation.