A consultation is the action or process of formally consulting or discussing.
A lot of us have heard of a consultation with a mechanic, lawyer, real estate agent, etc.
Many people will call multiple similar places of business in order to get estimates and then they will usually go with the lowest estimate. Because of the time that a consultation takes, some businesses charge a consultation fee.
You may have noticed that I used to offer a free virtual coffee, and then began charging $25. I then raised this to a $299 consult call. What I found was that the people who really wanted to talk to me would talk to me. When my consultation aka virtual coffee was free or $25 we had a high cancellation rate. When it was $299 we had a 0% cancellation rate.
I would suggest that you offer consultation grooms to first-time clients and again when the pet hasn’t been groomed in 8 weeks or more. These pets may be matted, have fleas, have tangles, have lost their pattern, etc. I need to make sure that this new person aligns with my business.
In the beginning I highly suggest any new person you give them their very first consultation for no additional fees, or a small fee (perhaps no more than 10-20% of your service price).
Let’s say that your goal is to charge every 4 week client with a Shih Tzu $100. Therefore, I could make the first consultation groom start at $120 depending upon the time, care and attention that the pet requires. If the client then chooses to rebook for 4 weeks I will give them a $20 discount (so the price is back to $100). I effectively charge them that $20 consultation and then if they rebook they will pay $100 for their next appointment. Note: this is just one option.
Another option is to charge a consultation fee, and then apply it for when they come in for a grooming appointment. You could say that you’re going to look over their pet, and it’s x amount of dollars. And then at that time you like me and I like you we can go ahead and book that appointment, and that fee will be applied to your grooming appointment.
A client who books this appointment is actually interested in creating a long-term relationship. Do you want people who want to create long-term relationships and do you just want anyone? Remember, there’s no wrong answer here. But if you want to build soulmate clients, if you want to build a business where you are growing long-term relationships of a select clientele, you need to start doing things differently.
How much should consultation grooms be? This varies wildly depending upon how much you charge.
You have to consider how much time that consultation is really going to take. Now I love when people say that it’ll only take 5 minutes, but that’s simply not true. Just taking their information takes more than 5 minutes. To thoroughly go over a pet, and communicate the long-term needs and wants for a haircut can take anywhere between 15 minutes and 30 minutes. You want to make sure that you are communicating properly and that you can meet their needs.
So you can charge 10-20% of the groom price, or however long the consultation takes. For example, if I charge $100 an hour, then I would charge for a consultation anywhere between $25-$50. If you charge double for clients on an 8 vs 4 week schedule- aka $100 for 4 week, $150 for 6 week and 200 for 8 weeks you can always charge clients $200 and limit them to only 1, 2 or 3 consultation grooms a year to make sure they aren’t taking advantage of you.
There’s never been more pets than right now. This is because so many people got a dog or cat during covid. So we are getting burnt out from doing these consultations and not accounting for our time and money.
How would you begin to implement this?
I would book this as your last appointment of the day, that way you can groom the pet start to finish or be able to make sure that you have extra time. If an average pet takes you 1 hour then I would schedule an hour and a half. And I would charge them for it!
You could say, “Just so you know, this is a consultation groom. What we will do is we will groom your pet start to finish in order to see how they handle the grooming process to make them more comfortable with the grooming salon/mobile. It’s realistically going to take us anywhere between an hour and an hour and a half, hence the extra fee. However, once the groom is done we will be able to give you a better estimate for the following grooming appointment and any grooming appointments beyond that.”
This is a great way to deter people from shop hopping and allow you to attract clients to actually commit to you.
Remember, it’s totally fine if you’d rather not offer a consultation groom, and just want clients to come in for that first time and you hope you blow them away. If they are your soulmate client, they absolutely will stay.
Today’s podcast was sponsored by Group Mentoring. This is where you can join a private community of like-minded savvy pet professionals. You can have your questions answered and listen to other questions from the group that you may not have considered. We offer the Business Workshop Library as well as quarterly live masterclasses and workshops as a bonus for joining Group Mentoring. If you’d like to sign up, go to savvygroomer.com/group.
Thank you all so much for listening to this podcast, What is a consultation groom.Be sure to visit me at SavvyGroomer.com to see my current opportunities to work with me in growing your pet grooming business plus more free resources for you to learn. See you in our community on Facebook - Savvy Pet Professionals! As always, Happy Grooming!
