Rules and regulations are changing from day to day. While some states are under shutdown, others are still up and running. Maintaining social distancing isn’t really possible in a salon, but there are a lot of steps you can take to run a safe and positive establishment and make sure your salon stays afloat during social distancing.

Provided you can still open your salon, you will have to adjust to running it in coronavirus mode for a while. That may not be easy, and business might be slower than usual, but this difficult time is exactly the time to deepen your relationship with customers who are still coming in. Here are 4 proven and tested ways to do exactly that.

1. Take all precautions needed. Put up signs urging customers to wash their hands with soap when entering the salon. Place hand sanitizers at the front desk, seating area and at every station.
   
   Wipe down any surfaces, doorknobs, computers and chairs with EPA-registered cleaning products and disinfectants that are recommended by the CDC.
   
   Clean surfaces every hour and before and after each customer. Distance your chairs from each other, remove  items that could spread the coronavirus, like magazines and books.
   
   If your salon has multiple employees, don’t let them all work at the same time. The less people in the salon at any given time, the better. Regularly wash not only towels, but also aprons and capes.
   
   To know exactly what to do, make sure you carefully read the CDC cleaning and disinfection recommendations.
   
   And last but not least, place a sign on your front window, letting people know your salon follows all coronavirus health instructions.

2. Communicate your efforts. Let your customer base know exactly what your new employee guidelines are and what precautions your salon is taking. Let them know you’re making it safer during the coronavirus pandemic.

You can do this by emailing your mailing list, like UK hair salon The Hair Movement did, while hair salons were still open in the UK. Benjamin Shipman, owner of The Hair Movement, sent out a detailed email to the salon database on the salon’s position regarding the virus.

“We have been extremely transparent about the measures we have taken and this has increased guests’ confidence, which thankfully means that we have not yet experienced a negative impact on the overall bottom line,” he said. “It’s business as usual, but run in a slightly different way. We listen carefully to our guests and their concerns, and try to put measures in place to mitigate those concerns. It’s our job to instill confidence in our guests, letting them know we are doing our part to keep them healthy.”

3. Send the sick home. Make sure employees, as well as customers, stay home if they’re even remotely under the weather. Make it clear to your clients that if they are sick or have recently traveled outside of the country, they should reschedule.

Also, ask clients to not bring anyone with them to their appointments — the fewer people in your salon at any given time, the better.

This will let your clients know that no one who is feeling sick will be in the salon when they come in. The same rule should apply to your employees. 90% of professionals admit to coming in sick at least sometimes, even with cold or flu symptoms. 33% always go to work, even when they’re under the weather. This behavior needs to stop.  

4. Help your customers reschedule. Make it as easy as possible for your customers to reschedule if they aren’t feeling well. Before the coronavirus, many clients would show up to a hair appointment even if they weren’t feeling great, just because it is a hassle to reschedule. Let your customers know not to come in if they’re feeling sick. And make rescheduling and booking easy and penalty-free, to make sure your salon stays afloat during social distancing.