Intro: Do you feel like you were meant to have a kick-ass career as a hair stylist? Like you got into this industry to make big things happen?
Maybe you’re struggling to build a solid base and want some stability. Maybe you know social media is important, but it feels like a waste of time because you aren’t seeing any results. Maybe you’ve already had some amazing success but are craving more. Maybe you’re ready to truly enjoy the freedom and flexibility this industry has to offer.
Cutting and coloring skills will only get you so far, but to build a lifelong career as a wealthy stylist, it takes business skills and a serious marketing strategy. When you’re ready to quit just working in your business and start working on it, join us here where we share real success stories from real stylists.
I’m Britt Seva, social media and marketing strategist just for hair stylists, and this is the Thriving Stylist Podcast.
Britt Seva: What is up and welcome back to the Thriving Stylist Podcast. I’m your host, Britt Seva, and let’s start digging into today’s topic: how to enforce your no-show policy.
I actually got a rating and review with this topic request, but what’s funny is I had already scripted this podcast episode. Yesterday, I got a DM from another stylist who was in a pickle over her cancellation policy, so I feel like this episode’s very timely. I want to share both of their stories.
This was left as a rating or review on iTunes. “I’d love to hear thoughts on no-show appointments and how to handle them. My salon has a very clear policy in place and it’s stated on my website and my Instagram, but for some reason I always feel like I get a bad push when I have to enforce it.” Understandable. That comes from Jenna.
Jenna, thank you for writing in. I think that this is a very common challenge and I’ll tell you about the DM I received yesterday as well.
So a stylist reached out to me and said, “You know, Britt, I am looking for some guidance here. My client canceled on me 24 hours in advance,” like the day before, essentially from the stylist perspective and her cancellation policy was that you had to pay 50% of the cost of service if you cancel within that 24 hour period. So she responded to her client and was like, “Hey, got your message.” I don’t know how the client reached out. It doesn’t hardly matter. “Got your message. I understand that you are not coming in tomorrow. You are canceling within the window of my cancellation policy, so you do owe 50% of the anticipated service cost.”
The client responded and said, “Actually, I canceled 27 hours in advance, so I’m three hours outside of your policy. Let me know how to rebook.” The stylist reached out to me and was feeling frustrated and was like, “Okay, so what do I do? How do I make this thing work?”
I responded and said, “Honestly, there may be an issue with your policy,” which we’re going to get into in just a moment, but often it’s deeper than just how do I enforce the policy? Usually there’s a structural issue at play.
What I told her is, “I can’t here in the DMs say, ‘Oh, if you do this, the client’s going to be fine with it.’” It’s so much more complicated than that. If it was a simple A to B line, nobody would’ve questions about it.
I think struggling with enforcing a cancellation policy is a fairly common challenge, so I wanted to dedicate this episode to some basic cancellation policy dos and don’ts. We’re going to talk about the mistakes and then how to roll it out and how to enforce it.
First of all, everybody should have some kind of cancellation policy. It’s part of simply good business process. There’s nothing more to it than that.
If somebody cancels in a timeline that doesn’t work for you, there’s a slap on the wrist for it. We as adults are just older children. Human behavior is generally fairly much the same regardless of your age. Some of you joke and say, “Well, my spouse is like an overgrown toddler.” We’re all overgrown toddlers. We all expect what we want when we want it. We get frustrated when that doesn’t happen. We like to push the limits of things, get away with as much as we can. We don’t like being told what to do and we respond very well to negative repercussions. Adults do, children do, it works.
Think of the cancellation policy as almost like the punishment for being naughty within your business. Generally speaking, when you’re working with adults, punishments is the only way to correct a bad behavior. Kind of like when you’re training a puppy. Same thing. You can do all the positive encouragement that you want, but when the puppy messes up, you have to say nope and withhold the treat. It’s the same idea.
Let’s talk about the major mistakes around cancellation policies. The first and most obvious is not having one, allowing clients to walk all over you, and being like, “Oh, no worries, life comes up. Not a big deal.” That’s the first one.
The second one is having one and not enforcing it. You have a cancellation policy, maybe it’s posted, maybe it’s not. We’re going to dig into that in a moment. But you have a cancellation policy, yet every time somebody cancels at last minute or at a timeline that doesn’t work for you, it’s, “Oh, okay, no worries, I understand. See you soon.”
Listen, I’ve experienced this too. When people are canceling, they know they’re being naughty most of the time and the wildest excuses in the world come out of the woodworks. Oh, trust me, I’ve heard some doozies. The things that people will say, whether true or untrue. It’s like when there’s an important appointment coming up or tornado blows somebody’s house down, like the massive impact that people will claim when they’re canceling an appointment. I’ve seen some really deep stuff and even if it’s as simple as “I came down with a fever last night, I can’t make it,” or “My kid is sick, I can’t come in.” Or “My boss says if I leave early, I’m going to be fired.” These really intense situations where you feel like, “Well, how can I enforce my policy? Her child is sick. How can I enforce the policy? What am I saying? She should be fired from her job.” No, you’re not saying that. But you also weren’t the person who made so many mistakes in the workplace that their job is about to—their boss is about to fire them. You can’t take on that additional pressure and that additional story.
And it’s fairly immature to go to any kind of business and say, “Well, I should get a get-out-of-jail-free pass because I got a flat tire and my car never breaks down and I can’t believe the luck I’m having.” Everybody has bad luck a time or two.
My take on cancellation policies is everybody gets one get-out-of-jail-free pass. You get to cancel against my policy one time and I let it roll. But there’s verbiage as to when I let it roll.
If somebody were to reach out to me and say, “Hey Britt, I know I have a haircut tomorrow, but XYZ came up,” insert excuse here, it doesn’t matter what it is. I always say, “Hey, thanks for reaching out. I totally understand, I’m going to give you a one-time pass on the cancellation policy ’cause I know you’ve never canceled before, before the future, regardless of reason, if you do cancel within [whatever the policy is], there is a penalty of [whatever the penalty is]. So just keep that in mind. I am going to go ahead and waive it for this time. Hope you feel better,” or “I am going to go ahead and waive it for this time. Hope things work out,” whatever it needs to be. One-time pass.
But when you give the verbiage on the pass, there’s also a reinforcement of this is the one time, this is what will happen next time, wishing you well. That’s essentially the cadence and then you hold yourself to it.
It’s not about holding the client to it. Generally, it’s holding yourself to it because it’s uncomfortable to have to enforce it. While I understand your business is never going to get better if you don’t.
That’s mistake number two is having the cancellation policy but not enforcing it.
Number three, simply posting it on your website. The average returning client isn’t like perusing your website on a regular basis. If they’re going to your website, they’re going there just to book an appointment. Maybe one in 10 looks around a little bit. Then you say, “Well, yeah, but it’s on my appointment booking page.” But do you think they’re really reading that whole page at this point? They’re not. They’re going through the motions. They’ve looked at the page once before. They’re going in, they’re clicking the buttons, they choose your name, they book the appointment, they see the calendar. Great, it’s done. They’re not reading into it any more than that.
Think about what you look at when you look at a website. If you’ve ever signed a waiver or filled out a form, who reads the fine print? Nobody. So the assumption that having your cancellation policy on your website means everybody has read it and more so everybody has agreed to it is not true.
And not to get too legal—we’re going to get a little bit legal here on this episode today—that would never hold up in court. We’re going to talk about small claims court today for just a scooch, but saying, “Well, it’s on my website,” that’s not enough. You can’t have the assumption that someone’s going to read it. They have to click to agree to it every single time in order for it to be enforceable. Something to think about.
If you want your policy to be enforceable, having a pop-up on your online booking every single time, that’s a reminder of, “Hey, as a reminder, this is my cancellation policy. This is what’s going to happen.” It’s one thing to consider.
Number two, mentioning it at the first appointment and then never again. If you’re not talking about it, it’s not a policy, it’s simply an idea. Definitely we want to explain how our business works early on in the relationship, right? There’s lots of different ways to do that: verbally, in written form, in digital form, all kind of ways you can do it. Definitely mentioning it within the first appointment is important when you’re first meeting somebody, setting that foundation, but then reminding people again, especially the holidays we have coming up, that’s a really good time to say, “Hey, just a reminder. I know we haven’t talked about it in a while, but the holidays get pretty busy and pretty stressful. I’m using this time to remind my clients about our cancellation policy. I know your life is busy, my life is really busy too, and out of mutual respect for each other, I want to remind you of the policy.” Really good time to do it.
Finding a few cadences or moments throughout the year to remind of the cancellation policy is helpful too.
And mistake number four or five, I get lost in the sauce here, is going to be over-penalizing. Over-penalizing is something I see happen all the time with cancellation policies.
Now, whenever I coach, I try to coach to things that are legal and above board. Even if I say something where you’re like, “Well, you could do it that way, but doesn’t really matter,” I don’t coach to illegal stuff. It’s not my bag.
When you look at cancellation policies, there are a lot of regulations around them. They do vary state to state. There are some federal level, but then there’s a lot that do vary state to state, so I can only share general information, and then you’re going to want to look at your state’s guidelines for certain. You can also contact a local employment attorney to be a hundred percent certain. For me, the price I’d pay to have peace of mind, even if I had to pay a $300 consultation fee, it’s worth it because then you have the peace of mind that your policy is legal in your state.
When we get to over-penalizing, even the policy I got the DM about—if you don’t come in the penalty is 50% of the cost of service—I understand why this person did that. If a client doesn’t come in, you might not be able to feed your family that day. For some of you, that’s an overdramatization. For some of you, that’s your reality. You need every single client to show up because it’s money out of your pocket when they don’t. We don’t work at Google where the paycheck shows up when we sit at our cubicle. No matter how much work we do or not. In the service industry, we rely on consistency. People have to show up or we don’t get paid, and it’s an actual problem and an issue and I understand.
That being said, there’s a lot of laws around services rendered and payments due for services rendered. If a service is not rendered, a consumer does not need to pay is how the law is written in most places.
When you have a policy where it’s like, “Well, you didn’t come in and get your highlights, but the anticipated cost was $200, now you owe me a hundred dollars,” if that client were to take you to small claims court, they’re going to win. If you were to run that client’s credit card because you have their credit card on file and you try that 50% cancellation policy and they fight it with their credit card company, they’re going to win because of the consumer protection laws that say if no service is rendered, no financial investment is due.
When you have these over-rigid cancellation penalties, A) often you’re going to end up losing it in the end if the client does decide to fight you on it, but B), now you’ve got a really pissed-off client and have you ever made a bumblebee angry or a honeybee angry? Then they get into fighting mode and you don’t want that client going on and blasting you online or telling all their friends how terrible you are.
Sustaining the reputation is what’s most important. A cancellation policy is meant to be a slap on the wrist and an opportunity for behavior correction. We don’t want people to feel like they’ve hurt us or we don’t want it to be too, too heavy. I understand when a client doesn’t show up, it causes you pain. I really, really do understand it. However, in the effort of A) staying legal and B) sustaining the client relationship, the cancellation penalty should feel more like a reminder of “No, no, no, we don’t do this in my business,” versus actually hitting them where it hurts. Something to keep in mind.
Now let’s get into deciding what you should do when creating and enforcing your cancellation policy.
Step one is deciding what your policy is going to be. Like I said, if it were me, I’d consult a local small business attorney and figure out what your options really are and make sure you have a policy in place that is enforceable, isn’t going to make clients angry, but is enough that it teaches them to correct the bad behavior, right? Make that policy extremely clear. Eliminate as much of the gray area as possible, keep it clean.
Number two, have your clients agree to it in the salon. Just having it on the website or even just having it even as a pop-up on your booking page, taking the 30 seconds to verbally say, “Hey Sydney, I know it’s your first appointment with me. Did you happen to see the cancellation policy on my website?” Sydney’s either going to say yes or no. Regardless of what Sydney says, you’re going to say, “Okay, so I just want to be super clear. I know you’re good for it, but if you ever do cancel within x amount of time, there is a penalty. I do enforce it, so I just want to make sure that we’re crystal clear on that.”
Even taking the little bit of time to verbally restate it shows you mean it. And I know talking about rules and talking about money isn’t fun and I know the salon should be fun, but also being no-shown on is also not fun.
In the effort of keeping the fun, let’s just have the tough conversation, say it one time, show them that we mean it, and then be done with it.
Next, create a way to invoice clients for the penalty charge. For example, if you are charging that 50% fee or you’re charging flat fee or whatever you’re charging, how are you going to ensure that they pay? Be careful with keeping cards on file and just running them there. There’s some challenges with that. Just double check to make sure that you can do that. You want to have a structure in place that they cannot book their next appointment until the penalty is paid so they can’t get back on your books in a sneaky, roundabout way. They either follow your rules or they can’t play in your sandbox and then feel confident charging the cancellation fee without risk of losing clients.
A lot of people, the reason why they choose not to do the cancellation fee is they’re scared to lose Beverly. Bev’s been great and she’s been coming to see you for a long time and you want to keep working with her and she’s going through a tough time and you’re like, “Well, she’s canceled on me four times in the last two years, but I love her.” She’s walking all over you though, and do you love her enough to take a financial sacrifice two or three times a year? Because you know, she’s got a lot going on. You have a lot going on too.
Generally, we’re scared to lose clients when there’s not enough clients waiting in the wings. When there’s plenty of clients demanding to get on your books and demanding to sit in your chair, it becomes strictly business.
I know that we love our clients. It’s one of the best parts of the industry is that we can be an industry full of love and we can be an industry where we really truly care about our clients, but we can truly love and care about ourselves too. You can have both. Both can be true, right? And so I want you to decide that you care about your family and your business enough to enforce that policy even if Beverly decides you’re not for her anymore, because you know what? There’s 15 new guests waiting in the wings who are going to try to get in to see you this month, ideally, you’ve created a marketing funnel that makes that possible.
If somebody who doesn’t respect your policies chooses not to stay with you, that’s okay. She doesn’t follow the rules, she doesn’t really belong anymore, right?
The other thing that people ask all the time is “What should my policy be?” I think it varies for everybody. If you are a stylist who only works, let’s say three days a week, you probably want to actually have a more stringent policy because the opportunity to get in with you is tighter and the opportunity to rebook somebody is even worse.
For somebody who’s working five days a week and has lots of gaps in their schedule, you can probably have kind of a lax cancellation policy as long as somebody gives 24 hours notice, no harm, no foul. ‘Cause listen, you got time, you got gaps in your schedule, you’re going to be able to get them back in. Not such a big deal.
If you’re super booked and you only work three days a week, so let’s say you work Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday. If somebody cancels on you on Wednesday night, you don’t even have close to enough time to respond or react. Also it’s probably going to be weeks and weeks to get that person back in, so it puts a lot of pressure on you. It really messes up your already limited schedule. For somebody who’s more part-time. I almost think you consider a 36, 48, 72-hour cancellation policy.
Now that’s hard. Not all clientele can sustain it. Some clientele, it’s no worries. For some of you, you have created such an incredible demand to work with you that clients rather have to walk to your salon after their tire blew out than miss their appointment with you. That’s great too. The more urgency and demand you create for your business, the less cancellations you honestly have.
If it feels kind of loosey-goosey being a part of your business and people cancel, but they get back in no problem. And you don’t really enforce anything, you know clients will get away with as much as you’ll allow them to. Versus if you have a business with very high demand and you have policies and you enforce them, you can be a little bit more robust and a little bit stricter. And you can say, “If you cancel with less than 48 hours’ notice, here’s what it looks like.”
I’ll be honest, I have definitely canceled some appointments with some service providers within their policy and I have paid the fee gladly. When I have canceled, I’ve reached out and said, “Hey, I’m canceling on Michelle. I know I’m within her policy. I want to go ahead and pay the penalty.” I’ll be honest, one time the person at the desk was like, “No, no, no, you don’t have to,” and I was like, “No, but I want to because I want Michelle to understand that I get it and I know I’m screwing her. I want her to know that.” But I’m a good client. I also respect Michelle. If Michelle didn’t respect my time and she was loosey goosey all over the place, then no, I wouldn’t have offered to do that, but I actually care about our relationship.
You want clients who care about the relationship like that. Generally, when clients push back on policies, it’s because sometimes it’s honestly because you’re undercharging, but there’s usually an issue within the dynamic of how you’ve built your business that it doesn’t feel like you have earned the power or the respect to have rules and guidelines as to what it looks like to work with you.
Build the confidence. Know that you’re worth it. Create structure, create conversation. Don’t be afraid to hold people accountable for their actions and really think about what works best for you and for your business.
I hope this has been a good one for y’all. So much love, happy business building, and I’ll see you on the next one.
