Timely Fit: Never have a no-show again 😮🙌🏽
You’re waiting for your client to show up, watching the clock tick deeper into their appointment time. You call them and they don’t pick up. Once, twice. Or, they answer and sheepishly tell you they forgot. You look back at the clock, grimacing.ㅤㅤㅤ Yeah...no-shows SUCK. 💩
With over 30 years in the hair and beauty industry, including 20 years as an award winning salon owner, Larissa Macleman founded the Salon Owners Collective; an online community helping salon owners move from stress, long hours and overwhelm to a life of freedom and profit. Larissa helps salon owners master their role as ‘salon CEO’, grow a rockstar team, help them smash sales targets, earn powerful profit, and attract and retain dream clients.
Reminder messages are CRUCIAL (especially SMS) 💌
With so much on our minds every day, it can be hard to stay across everything on our plate. It’s the same with your clients; if you’re not reminding them of the time and date of their appointment a day or two beforehand, there’s a good chance they’ll have forgotten and won’t arrive. Confirmation and reminder messages are an easy starting point for protecting your business from that happening.
“No-shows are really detrimental to the salon; not only can the business lose income, it can cause your team to not make sales targets and miss out on commission.” Larissa Macleman
Help Guide: Appointment reminders
Deposits are the real MVPs 🥇
Clients are far more likely to attend an appointment if they’ve paid a deposit in advance, because there’s a direct financial repercussion for missing it. They’re a great way for salons to get a tangible commitment from clients, and ensures you’re never out of pocket if your clients cancel (especially if it’s too late to fill the spot).
As an added bonus, when a client pays some of their total bill beforehand they’re actually more likely to spend a little bit more with you in the salon. It’s the perfect opportunity to upsell your retail products or treatment upgrades and add ons 🎉
Feeling a bit awks? … 😬… Blame Timely! 😉
If you ever feel uncomfortable talking about this stuff with your clients, blame the software. We don’t mind at all if you point the finger at us – “I’m really sorry, our software won’t let us take a booking without a deposit so I can’t make an exception,” or “I’m so sorry, but our software automatically charges the cancellation fee if you cancel this close to your appointment.”
Okay… So how much should I charge? 🤑
How much you charge for a deposit will depend on the services you offer. Some salons only take deposits for higher value services, while other salons choose to take them for all services, no matter the price. If you don’t want to ask for full payment for every appointment you can request a partial deposit, which might seem a little less scary. But don’t ever feel like you’re putting your clients out – it’s quite normal in the hair and beauty industry to take 50% upfront for all services!
Getting deposits set up 🤓
You need to set up a payment gateway like TimelyPay before you can run deposits, but fear not – TimelyPay is easy as pie to set up (seriously, it only takes a few minutes). You can then start running deposits, as well as other cool things like Cardless Checkout 🙌 Learn more about TimelyPay >
Set it up in Timely:
Payment gateway: Setup > Add-ons
Deposits: Setup > Online payments
Extra helpful help guides:
