No Show/Cancellation Fees
A no show is when the client doesn’t show up and doesn’t call to let us know they won’t make the appointment.
A late cancellation is a cancellation with less than 24 hours prior notice.
Charging for missed appointments is not a black and white policy as many stylists would like it to be. In the salon’s experience, many stylists view this issue in the short term, (their next paycheck), while the salon views it in a longer term (revenue over the next 3-5 years from that client).
Keep in mind that there are many times that a stylist “cancels” on a client, like when the stylist is sick. We don’t pay the client for there time and inconvenience when this happens.
Charging clients for late cancellations especially is a gray area. The following guidelines are just that; guidelines. If we apply strict unbending rules in every situation, we lose clients. If we are too lenient, paychecks suffer and some clients will take advantage of our “understanding nature”. Common sense judgement along with the guidelines is the best approach.
There are a few instances where it is either not appropriate or self defeating to charge the client for a missed appointment. These are listed below:
The client could not contact us due to an emergency or experienced a traumatic event overwhelming enough that a hair appointment was the last thing on their mind. Examples of this are a car wreck, a serious illness or injury to themselves or a family member, or the death of a loved one.
Charging a long time client that has never missed an appointment is self defeating from both a goodwill and financial standpoint. Good, long time clients usually get their feelings hurt if you charge them for missing an appointment, because they feel like they’ve been loyal and have given us a lot of business and now we’re treating them like the general public.
From a financial standpoint, assume a client gets color & cut six times a year, pays $500 per visit and is likely to continue with us for 3 more years. That’s $9,000 ($500 x 6 x 3) in future revenue over a three year period. If the client doesn’t come back, we’ve lost out on $9,000 to receive $500 once.
Guidelines for charging cancellation fees are listed below and the final decision to charge or not charge is the Salon Manager’s, who may or may not consult with an owner.
New clients will be charged for missed appointments. If they later inform us that they had an emergency as described above, we will refund the charge. If the salon suspects they are not being truthful, we can ask for proof in the form of a doctor’s statement, bill, police report, etc.
Repeat clients with previous missed appointments will be charged. The same emergency exceptions apply.
Long term clients ( 3 + years) that have never missed an appointment should not be charged for their first missed appointment. They should be “checked up on” to see if everything is alright, since they missed their appointment. This contact should be seen to be coming from a place of concern because they have never missed an appointment. They should be informed that we will not be charging them a cancellation fee this time since they have not missed before. This will get the message across. Some of these long time clients don’t even know we have a cancellation fee because they’ve never missed and they don’t read their appointment reminders. The method of contact can be phone or email (Manager’s choice).
Clients who reserve cut or color then only want one when they show up. When a client shows up for multiple sessions and informs us that they only want one of them, they should generally not be charged for the full time they reserved. This is one of the trickiest “no-show” situations, because in the client’s mind they have shown up for the appointment. If the client has done this before, charging for both is appropriate.