For those of us who work in the beauty industry, we have faced challenges like never before over the last 12 months, and we have been forced to look for new ways of working. Many businesses have been utilising online video calling, such as Zoom or Google Meet, to keep in touch with colleagues and clients. Some may not know that beauty businesses, like Aesthetics Lab of which I am a co-founder, have also been able to use these services, and we’ve seen real benefits as a result. Being able to keep in contact with our clients this way was vital during the last year. Hopefully, the areas highlighted below show you that other beauty businesses can also benefit even as lockdown eases.
Clients feel comfortable
One of the most important aspects of our job in the beauty industry is to ensure that our clients feel comfortable, whether this is during treatments or just a consultation. We understand that these processes can be stressful and challenging for some, and that’s why we always try to make our clients as comfortable as possible.
Using online video calling, we can carry out consultations with clients from the comfort of their own home. Clients told us they felt very comfortable doing this, and they welcomed the added flexibility of being at home with no need to take time off work or arrange childcare. Our online video calls are all secure and are done through our CRM system. This encrypts and safeguards the consultation, and this is obviously very important.
Having this as an option from now on can allow clients to still speak with our experts even if they cannot come into the clinic for an in-person consultation or would rather carry out the consultation from home.
Fewer people need to be in the clinic
From a business point of view, using this technology will be really helpful as we start getting back to in-clinic operations. By carrying out video consultations, we can reduce the number of people in-clinic, making it a safer environment, while also increasing the number of consultations we carry out in general. Doing this, we are not constrained to the number of rooms in our clinic, and we can have our consultants provide video consultations from their own homes.
Some may be concerned about the level of advice we can provide without seeing our clients in person and getting hands on to assess their skin. We have been able to work around this thanks to the video quality being good. We also ask clients to send high-resolution pictures of the areas of concern before the virtual consultation so we can see and advise better.
Reduce travel needs
One of the other key benefits for both clients and staff to using video consultations is that it reduces travel needs. We used video consulting very rarely before the pandemic, mainly for clients who lived abroad and wanted a consultation with our Doctor or practitioner before travelling to us. It has also been used in our industry by aesthetic doctors who live outside the UK but travel into London to carry out treatments with residents here.
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Aesthetics Lab has benefited from this, and we see no reason why other beauty businesses couldn’t look into it and hopefully benefit as well!
By Tania Zahoor Rashid
Author Bio – Tania Zahoor Rashid is one of the co-founders and directors of Aesthetics Lab, an award-winning cosmetic clinic based in Primrose Hill, London. Tania set up Aesthetics Lab with her business partners Marsha Starcevic and Kristina Hutchins. Before her current job, Tania studied economics and accountancy at City, University of London and went on to run multiple companies in several different industries.
