Say No to No Shows

About 2/3 years ago I would say that no shows were a real problem for our salons. They were costing our salon business hundreds of pounds per week. Clients were booking 6 to 8 weeks in advance for 2/3 hour appointments and then just not turning up. We couldn’t even get hold of our clients that did not turn up when we called or if we did manage to get hold of them they’d hang up on us straight away with no explanation.  We ran a ‘No Show’ report on Salon iQ which confirmed what we were feeling: So you can see by looking at the report (September 2017) we had 6 no shows in 1 week – this may seem a high figure to some and of course not so high to other salon owners. For us this was figure was for 1 of our salons and cost us over £250 in lost business, looking at the report you can see that 4 of the clients that did not turn up did call to rebook.  Just think how many clients we turned away when we could have actually looked after them as 6 clients did not turn up. It just made us feel rubbish, I am sure you can relate to this?

We had to take control of the situation as it was getting out of hand… This is what we did;

1. Introduced a no show policy (and stuck with it)
2. Advised every client when they booked their appointment that we do require a minimum of 24 hours notice to cancel their appointment to avoid any late cancellation fees.
3. Every client now receives a courtesy call 48 hours before their appointment to confirm they can still attend
4. Every client gets an SMS 4 days before to remind them of their appointment and reply ‘Yes’ or ‘No’ if the appointment is still OK for them
5. Set up an automated email that went out when ever a client did not turn up for their appointment

Now you may have read all of the above and be thinking that is a lot to do just to stop no shows. and yes I guess 5 action points does seem like a bit of work BUT  IT WORKS, the bulk of it once all setup on Salon iQ… is all on auto pilot – you do not have to worry about it at all. Now take a look at the exact same report we ran again for the same week this year (September 2018). This is such a key area that when you get it right it really will show and reflect on your salon takings.  Remember: What you focus on grows! If you have other policies not mentioned in this post that you would love to share please do get in touch and let us know.

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