Getting new customers is one of the main goals of any barbershop. But filling your schedule isn’t just about attracting new people: you also need to get those who have already visited your business to come back and book frequently.
If you are wondering how to increase customers in a barbershop, you need to work on three aspects: visibility, experience and loyalty.
In this guide, you’ll find practical strategies to get more bookings and get more out of your customer base.
1. Make it easier for them to find you on Google
When someone searches:
“Barbershop near me”
“barber in [city]”
“Male haircut in [city]”
Google can become an important gateway for new customers.
So keep your Google Business Profile up to date with:
- Address.
- Schedules.
- Telephone.
- Photographs.
- Services.
- Reviews.
- Link to book.
In addition, it encourages satisfied customers to share their experience. A barbershop with good photographs, up-to-date information, and reviews builds greater trust before the first visit.
2. Use Instagram and TikTok to showcase your work
The barbershop is a particularly visual sector.
Don’t just post promotions. Show what you know how to do.
You can create content about:
- Before and after.
- Transformations.
- Degraded.
- Beard arrangements.
- Maintenance tips.
- Trends.
- Common mistakes in hair care.
- Day by day of the barbershop.
- Personality of the professionals.
The goal is to get a person to think:
“I want my hair cut there.”
Always add a clear call to action to make it easier for them to book.
3. Make making an appointment easy
You’ve managed to get a person to discover your barbershop on Instagram.
He likes your work.
Want to book.
But he has to call you, you don’t answer because you are working and he decides to look for another barbershop.
You’ve lost a prospect right at the end of the process.
Online bookings allow customers to check availability and request an appointment without relying on a call.
If you want to learn more about this strategy, check out our guide to commission-free online bookings.
Thus, this post remains focused on attracting customers, while that page specifically works on search intent related to booking systems.
4. Turn the first visit into a second
Attracting a new customer is just the beginning.
The real opportunity comes when that person returns periodically.
If someone is satisfied with their cut, try to make booking again as easy as possible.
You can ask him at the end:
“Do you want us to prepare your next appointment?”
You can also use your customers’ information to carry out loyalty actions and maintain the relationship after their visit.
The goal should not only be to fill the agenda this week, but to build a portfolio of recurring customers.
5. Reactivate customers who haven’t returned for a long time
Before you invest all your effort in attracting new people, look at your own customer base.
There are probably people who visited your barbershop months ago and haven’t returned.
They already know your business.
They already know your service.
And it’s probably easier to get them back than to start the relationship from scratch with someone who has never heard of you.
You can run campaigns to communicate:
- What’s new.
- New services.
- One-off promotions.
- Changes in the barbershop.
- Availability.
- Special campaigns.
With Wilapp’s Marketing Pro you can work on communications through WhatsApp and email to keep your client portfolio active.
If you want to dive deeper into this strategy, check out our guide on how to automate WhatsApp messages for customers.
6. Create a referral program
Word of mouth is still especially powerful in local businesses.
If a customer is thrilled with their barber, they can probably recommend them to friends, family, or peers.
You can incentivize those referrals through a referral system.
For example:
“Recommend our barbershop to a friend and get a head start on your next visit.”
The promotion should be simple to understand and attractive enough for the customer to want to share it.
The goal is to turn your best customers into prescribers for your barbershop.
7. Offer an experience that people want to recommend
You can invest in advertising, social networks and promotions, but if the experience inside the barbershop is not up to par, it will be difficult to build loyalty.
The experience begins before you sit on the couch.
It includes aspects such as:
- Easy to book.
- Punctuality.
- Attention.
- Environment.
- Cleaning.
- Advice.
- Final result.
- Easy to make an appointment again.
The combination of good service and a good experience increases the chances of getting repeat customers and recommendations.
8. Reduce missed appointments
Getting more bookings is not much use if part of the customers do not show up afterwards.
A no-show means that you have reserved a space in the agenda that could have been occupied by someone else.
That’s why, in addition to attracting customers, you need to protect the bookings you’ve already made.
Automatic reminders can help you keep the client informed before the appointment.
If you want to go deeper into this part, check out our article on what to do when a client doesn’t show up for their appointment.
You can also check out our guide on programs to send appointment reminders on WhatsApp.
In this way, those URLs work specifically on searches related to no-shows and reminders, while this post continues to focus on how to get more customers for a barbershop.
9. Take advantage of hours with less demand
Not all hours have the same occupancy.
Maybe on Friday afternoons you have the full agenda, but on Tuesdays at certain times there are many gaps.
Instead of launching general discounts, you can take specific actions for those slots that you really need to fill.
For example:
- Promotions limited to certain hours.
- Campaigns targeting inactive customers.
- Loyalty advantages.
- Communication of available slots.
- Actions for specific services.
This way you use promotions strategically instead of getting the customer used to always expecting a discount.
10. Get to know your customers better
The more a barbershop grows, the more difficult it becomes to manage information using only WhatsApp, a diary and memory.
Centralizing your customer data allows you to better understand the relationship they have with the business.
For example, you can detect:
- Regular customers.
- Customers who have not come for a long time.
- Services performed.
- Frequency of visits.
- Appointment history.
This information can help you design better loyalty and recovery strategies.
Attracting customers is fine. Getting them to come back is better
Imagine two barbershops.
The first one gets 30 new customers every month, but practically none return.
The second gets 15 new customers, but a significant part of them repeat periodically.
With the passage of time, the latter can build a much more stable agenda.
So, when thinking about how to get more customers for your barbershop, don’t just measure how many people come in for the first time.
Also measure how many return.
How can Wilapp help you grow your barbershop?
As the number of customers increases, so does the work required to run the business.
More customers mean more:
- Reservations.
- Quotes.
- Data to organize.
- Reminders.
- Collections.
- Invoicing.
- Communications.
Wilapp allows you to centralize different management areas so that the growth of the barbershop does not imply multiplying administrative tasks.
You can learn about all the functionalities in the Wilapp management software.
This page should concentrate the overall business intent related to the program, while this guide answers specifically how to increase a barbershop’s customers.
Frequently Asked Questions About How To Get More Clients In A Barbershop
How to attract new customers to a barbershop?
Work on your Google presence, create content on social networks, get recommendations and make it easy for anyone who discovers your business to book easily.
Which social networks work best for a barbershop?
Instagram and TikTok offer many possibilities due to the visual nature of the sector. The before and after, transformations, tips and videos of the process allow you to show directly the quality of the work.
How do you keep customers coming back?
Offer a good experience, facilitate the next booking and maintain communication with your customer portfolio without being invasive.
How to recover old customers?
You can identify customers who have not been there for a long time and make specific communications through WhatsApp or email to remind them of your business, present news or encourage a new booking.
How to fill the free spaces of a barbershop?
Analyze the time slots with the lowest occupancy and carry out specific actions for those times instead of applying general promotions.
Conclusion: more customers and, above all, more repeat customers
Increasing a barbershop’s customers isn’t just about posting more content or launching discounts.
You need to build a system that allows you to:
Attract → Convert → Build Loyalty → Get them to come back.
Improve your presence on Google, show your work on social networks, facilitate bookings, get recommendations and work on the relationship with those who have already trusted you.
And when your client portfolio starts to grow, use tools that allow you to manage it without unnecessarily increasing administrative work.
With Wilapp you can centralize clients, appointments, agenda, communications and management to spend more time on what is really important: growing your barbershop.
