From episode: The Hair Radio Morning Show LIVE #892 Wednesday, September 13th, 2023
How do I stop my clients from canceling appointments at the last minute? Wow, that's a big one. Shivonne, what did he say? Well, first of all, have you experienced this, Shivonne, this year? Oh, absolutely, it happens. It's part of business. But what happens, yeah, what happens as a salon owner or a stylist or what have you, you have a certain amount of hours that you're doing per week for hair, you know? A good practice is to figure out your dollar or your hourly average for that and estimate the amount of services you're doing in that time. From a business standpoint, then it's good to kind of gauge what your minimum hourly rate is and put your price in -to put that in there, so it can cover those cancellations. Now, if you're able to operate with minimum or no cancellations, you might be able to watch your costs and maintain, you know, productivity within your salon. There is a formula involved in that, you know, just to keep, keeping prices low is part of not having many cancellations. But if it becomes cumbersome where you're getting a lot of cancellations, there may be a need to one, either acquire a deposit to maintain, you know, your basic average hourly base pay or, you know, however, you're going to do it and so forth. Because there's a lot involved. That's a slot, you know, when you have people waiting to get in there to sit in your chair and you're giving that time to someone and they're calling last minute and they can't come, then, you know, that's something that you definitely have to find a way to pivot around. And that's a thing that kind of really gets me because I can relate even though I'm not doing hair, okay, but I can certainly relate because when I schedule time, then that time I've literally taken away from my schedule and my calendar in which I could be earning more or, but I see, I hear what you're saying about, you know, kind of figuring that versus the ones who do show. But, you know, I just have to say, how difficult is it for people to have a little bit of, you know, you know, if you, well, you know. Honestly, it's a difficult time, again, because we're coming through this pandemic. Yes. They're charging what they call a COVID service charge fee or what have you, you know, because of that, you know, you're going to get cancellations if they're sick and you don't want them in your chair if they're not well at all. Yeah, you know what, you're right. So this, I have to think post -COVID, you're right. This was, that was, but maybe before I should have felt that way, but now you're right. If they say they can't make it, maybe it's a good thing if they can't. I don't know. Keisha, do you experience that out on the West Coast here? You know, I guess every hairstylist and every service industry person might face this at some point. You know, now that I work with some older clients, some of them have different medical issues. Things do come up like last minute, even when they're on their way, they might need to go to the emergency room versus coming to my chair. So yeah, and these things have happened. So, and then having had some other things happen. I have had to consider things do happen at the last minute, but I'll have to consider from a business standpoint, but a business standpoint, we've taken this time out and I have to respect that. And when I'm off schedule, it throws your schedule off. And in turn, you know, now I'm throwing off your day. So I do understand from both standpoints, but I'm learning, you know, I have to learn to consider that anything can happen in the blink of an eye. And when I am wrong, you know, then I apologize and like, okay, yeah, I screwed up or, you know, something happened or a service went left, you know, things like that also happen when we're behind the chair.