No-shows could be costing your salon thousands every year. It’s easy to dismiss the occasional last-minute cancellation. But if left unchecked, you could be missing out on a huge amount of money. In a mid-priced salon charging around £50 per appointment, having 5 cancellations per week will add up to £13K over a whole year. Is that something you can ignore?
Find out your cancellation rate
The first step to putting an end to no-shows and last-minute cancellations is to determine the scale of the problem in your salon. Most salon booking systems will allow you to run something called a missed appointment report.
Look at how many missed appointments you’ve had in the past year. To calculate your no-show rate, you would divide the number of no-shows by the number of total appointments and then multiply by 100. You can now look at ways to reduce your no-show rate.
1. Remind your customers about their appointments
You might already be doing this, but there are ways to make reminders more effective. You can choose to remind your customers with appointment cards, by text, by email or by picking up the phone. And the most effective way is to use a combination of all of these. What would this look like?
- If the customer books an appointment in your salon, they should be given an appointment card with the time and date. 48 hours before their appointment, you would text them and ask them to confirm that they still want to come. If you don’t get a confirmatory text, you would then call 24 hours before to ask them to confirm.
- If the customer books an appointment online, they would be sent an email or text with the appointment details. And then, as above, they would receive a text or email 48 hours before asking them to confirm. If they fail to confirm, you can call them 24 hours before.
Many salon owners object to this kind of system as it gives customers an opportunity to cancel. But cancelling 48 hours before is far better than just not showing up.
2. Respect your customer’s time
You can’t expect customers to respect your time if you don’t respect theirs. If customers frequently have their appointments cancelled at short notice, or if they arrive at the salon and discover the stylist they booked isn’t available, don’t be surprised if they take a similarly lax attitude towards keeping appointments. No one minds waiting a few minutes at the start of their appointment if they have refreshments, but waiting any longer than 15 minutes could lead some people to walk out, especially if they are having treatments on their lunch break and could run out of time.
3. Build a good client relationship
Perhaps the best way to reduce no-shows is to build a good relationship with your clients. This will help to reinforce the idea that they are booking an appointment with an actual person and not a place. Building good client relationships is also about rewarding those people who show up on time, never cancel without notice and wouldn’t dream of just not showing up. Make sure these customers know that they are valued and that their courteous behaviour is recognised.
4. Charge a cancellation fee
If no-shows are a big problem in your salon, you might want to think about adding a cancellation fee to your booking policy. Having an open and transparent booking policy can even help your customers to understand what is expected of them. We all know that life can get in the way sometimes, which is why you can choose to waive the cancellation fee for those who have a genuine reason for missing their appointment. But for those who are abusing your booking system, you will have some form of protection.
5. Request a deposit
At busy times of the year, asking for a deposit for appointments can be a great way to cut down on no-shows. Salon appointments around the festive period are like gold dust and should be treated as such. Instead of scrambling to fill your last-minute appointments, you can cut down on no-shows by asking for a deposit. The thought of losing a deposit is often enough of a deterrent to most people. And if this doesn’t prove to be enough, then at least you will have the money from the deposit to lessen the blow.
