Big News!
We’ve got some pretty exciting news… Elluca is a 2026 ANZ AHIA Awards finalist for Best Customer Care!
We are finalists for ACT/NSW Salon of the Year, Best Eco Salon, Salon Team of the Year and Best Customer Care… oh my gosh!!
And this one means a lot to us. Truly.
Beautiful hair is obviously a huge part of what we do, but from the very beginning, I’ve always wanted Elluca to be about so much more than what happens in the chair. Be more than just a chair, be a safe space for clients to be able to be still and relax.
Customer care is at the forefront of everything we do, it always will be.
It’s how someone feels when they first contact us. It’s the consultation before a big change, being honest about expectations and pricing, remembering the little things, checking in after an appointment and making sure someone feels comfortable enough to tell us when something isn’t quite right.
Then there are all those little 1% things.
- The snacks. The drinks.
- The hot towels. The phone chargers.
- Remembering your coffee order.
- The follow-up messages.
- Samples to try before buying something.
- Aftercare advice. Making rebooking easy.
- Having a team that actually communicates with each other, so you don’t feel like you’re starting from scratch every time you sit in a different chair.
None of those things individually are groundbreaking.
But together, they create the Elluca experience.
And we are constantly asking ourselves, "How can we do this better?"
Why We Enter Awards
That’s actually one of the reasons I love entering awards like the AHIA Awards. Of course, being recognised as a finalist is exciting, but the process itself is incredibly valuable.
It forces us to look closely at what we’re doing. Seek client feedback and testimonials. What’s working? What could be better? Where are the gaps? What are our clients telling us? What can we introduce next?
We literally talk about the client experience every day in our team huddles where needed. We visit other businesses, experience their customer service, take inspiration from what they do well and bring those conversations back to Elluca. We train, change systems, trial ideas and sometimes realise something we’ve always done could actually be done better.
Because I never want Elluca to reach a point where we think, “Yep, we’ve nailed it. Job done.” Because that is not exercising an open mind.
There is always another 1% we can improve.
When we opened Elluca, it was just me. Four and a half years later, we’ve grown into a team of 10, expanded the salon and welcomed thousands of people through our doors. We now have more than 210 five-star Google reviews, something I’m incredibly proud of, but I also know that reputation must be earned again every single day.
Being named a finalist for Best Customer Care feels like recognition of all those tiny things our team does that often nobody sees.
What This Finalist Position Represents
- The morning huddles.
- The follow-ups.
- The difficult conversations.
- The extra five minutes spent explaining something.
- The notes we keep so we remember you.
- The education. The systems.
- The constant conversations about how we can make someone’s experience better.
That’s what this finalist position represents to me as a salon owner.
But more than anything, it gives us another reason to keep pushing.
To be better. Do better. And continue striving for greatness.
Because “more than just a chair” has never just been a tagline for us.
It’s what we’re trying to build every single day.
And being recognised nationally for that? Yeah… we’re pretty proud!!
Jean & the Elluca Team xx
