With more barbers and men’s grooming salons moving to online booking software, and clients keen to book online to secure appointments with their favourite barber, Fresha appointment scheduling software is a must for barbering business. But in addition to managing appointments and promoting your business, barbers must also use salon software to protect themselves against potential losses caused by late cancellations and no-shows.
Reduce no-shows and late cancellations by up to 60%
As an industry-wide problem that costs barbers and the UK industry significantly in lost revenue, Fresha’s free appointment reminders, booking confirmation notifications, online card protections, and its new deposits feature, are successfully reducing no-shows and late cancellations by as much as 60%.
To protect your men’s grooming business, Fresha offers 5 top tips to help you create a fair cancellation and no-show policy, whilst protecting the relationships you’ve worked so hard to develop with your clients.
1 Create a fair cancellation and no-show policy
Create a cancellation and no-show policy that’s fair to you and your clients, and ensure it reflects the scale of the problem for your business. You can charge anything from a small fee up to the full value of the service that’s been booked, and set your own cancellation terms. For example, Fresha partner The Barbery, London allows clients to cancel free for up to 6 hours before the scheduled appointment time, whilst charging 50% for a late cancellation and 100% for a no-show. Others set a 48-hour notice period and charge 30% for late cancellation and 50% for a no-show. Fresha puts you in complete control, as you determine what fees and cancellation periods are relevant for your business.
Publish your cancellation policy on your website, and when clients book an appointment via the Fresha platform, it can be clearly displayed at the ‘confirm with a card’ stage. This ensures your clients are committed to their appointment and understand what happens if they cancel or fail to arrive.
2 Send appointment confirmation notifications and reminders
Fresha’s automated email and SMS appointment confirmation notifications and reminders are a great way to remind your clients about their appointment, and your cancellation policy. These are easily set up to send at regular intervals on Fresha, giving your clients ample time to cancel or reschedule without being charged.
3 Take a deposit
Fresha’s new deposits feature is a game changer. Partners using this feature will ask clients to pay an advance deposit to secure their appointment and, as a partner, you get to set the deposit amount at your discretion. Following their service, the deposit is deducted from the client’s bill at the payment stage, and if they fail to show up, you can retain the deposit as a no-show charge.
4 Be flexible and understanding
While some clients may not show up or cancel late routinely, a loyal and usually reliable client not arriving for their appointment might indicate there’s a genuine reason or problem. Make sure you communicate with them and respond to unforeseen circumstances fairly and sympathetically. You can do this using Fresha’s email and text tools, but you can always add a personal touch by giving your client a call to make sure everything’s alright.
5 Take action to manage repeat offenders
Most client’s will show up for their appointment and observe your cancellation policy, but if some clients continually fail to cancel or show up, Fresha allows you to prevent them from booking online. This feature within Fresha salon software gives you a last resort level of protection after every other option has been exhausted.
Why no-show and cancellation policies are important!
Taking an average client spend of £40, just 8 missed appointments per week could lose your barbershop over £14,000 annually, and with almost a quarter of cancellations occurring on the day, resolving this issue with a fair, reasonable cancellation and no-show policy can significantly protect your business.
Fresha CEO and founder William Zeqiri: “With over 60,000 partners and 200,000 professionals using Fresha, and with consumers discovering and booking appointments with hair, beauty and wellness businesses via the Fresha website and app, we have already processed over 450 million appointments worldwide. Reducing the scale of this issue for our partners is therefore a priority. We’re achieving amazing loss reductions and developing innovative features to help our partners grow and protect their business incomes.”
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