How to serve nail salon clients in other languages

Write the languages you and your staff actually work in into the Google profile description, into the top of the site, and into every bio. Name them: Spanish, Russian, Mandarin, whichever it is. Do not write the word multilingual.

Somebody looking for a plumber who speaks their language searches the name of the language, so the name of the language has to be written down somewhere a search engine can read it. It works in the other direction too. A customer who has already read that English is your second language is not surprised by it on the call, and the few who mind will pick somebody else before they have taken an hour of your afternoon.

List only a language you can serve in start to finish, including the follow up two days later. A language on the page that nobody in the business speaks today produces exactly the enquiry you cannot answer.

How long: an afternoon

Write out five sentences you will need on every call and keep them where you take calls. The hours, the price range, the service area, how soon you can come, and this one: "my English is better in writing, can you text me instead".

On a live call there is no time to compose a sentence, so having it already written removes the part that is actually hard. The last sentence moves the whole conversation into writing, where you can read it twice and answer in your own time.

Owners are most reluctant to use the last sentence and it is the one that works. Asking to switch to text does not lose the customer. Asking them to repeat themselves four times does.

How long: an afternoon

Use a business phone service that sends a text within seconds of an unanswered call, saying you are on a job and asking what they need. Most small business phone and CRM products do this. A plain cell phone does not.

The person who called you is still holding their phone and has not dialled the next number on their list yet. A text in that window keeps the conversation alive. A voicemail greeting is where the lead ends for any trade where somebody is working down three numbers.

Cost depends on the phone service you pick and is usually a small monthly fee. We have no conversion figure for this worth quoting: every number in circulation comes from the companies selling it.

How long: an afternoon

Put a number people can text, or a WhatsApp link, beside your phone number everywhere it appears: the Google profile, the site, the bios. Say in plain words that a text gets a faster answer than a call.

A live call is the hardest format there is for anybody working in a second language. It is real time, often over a bad line, with no pause to put a sentence together and somebody breathing on the other end while you do. A text arrives already written. You can read it twice, look up the one word you did not know, and answer it when you are out from under the sink. It is the same enquiry either way.

Answer them quickly or this is worse than not offering it, because the customer has now made contact and been ignored. If you cannot watch two inboxes, pick one number and point everything at it.

How long: an afternoon

On the site and in the profile description, state what things cost. A range with what moves it is fine: a call-out is this much, a full job in a house this size is between these two numbers, here is what makes it more.

A large share of the phone calls you take exist only to ask the price. Putting a number up answers them without the call and filters out the people who were never going to book, so the calls you do get are closer to work.

If you genuinely cannot price without seeing the job, say that, and give the call-out fee and two real examples from past jobs. That is still more useful than "contact us for a quote".

How long: an afternoon

We design and build the site, $99 one time, from the page of answers you wrote and the photographs you took. Three to five pages is the right size for a local business: what you do, the towns you cover, prices, who you are, how to reach you. If you already have a site, this replaces it, and the addresses people have already linked to are kept pointing at the right pages.

This is the only part of your presence you own, and the only one that can actually sell. It holds what a Google profile structurally cannot: your prices, a service explained in more than two sentences, your licence number, and the answers to the five questions that decide between you and the next listing. Being able to edit the wording of a site is not the same thing as the site being able to do that work. Where we could read yours, the line under this says what it is missing. Where we could not, judge it yourself: open it on your phone, press the number, and try to book a time without telephoning anybody.

After the build you pay the real running costs directly: a .com is roughly $12 to $20 a year and hosting is in the region of $5 to $30 a month. Check current prices, they move. A blog is not part of this and for a referral-driven trade it is not worth starting one.

How long: a week

A chat widget that talks to your customer in English, asks what it needs to ask, takes the booking or the order, and sends it to you in your own language. You never answer in English.

The thing people try to fix is their English. The fixable thing is the channel. A phone call is the worst format there is: real time, an accent over a bad line, no pause to think. Written English is far easier, and a relay means you read the job in your language and reply in your language.

Included in the build. An unanswered chat box is worse than none, so this is only worth having if you will read what arrives. It captures a phone number in the first exchange, so an abandoned conversation is still a lead, and it says it is automated rather than pretending to be a person.

How long: an afternoon