It is becoming more and more common these days for salons to have and impose cancellation policies and fees. Even more so in popular and busy salons.
Why is this? Are salons just being greedy? Are they thinking about money over customer or client retention? The answer is a clear and resounding NO, but we will leave it up to the Pose salon team in Dubai to explain the reason behind these charges…
Did you know that in our industry, most stylists earn their income by commission only? This means they do not make a salary; they do not get paid hourly. They earn their living by taking care of the guests in their chair. If a guest doesn’t show up for their appointment or cancels with little notice, this doesn’t leave an opportunity for the stylist to book another appointment, which also means clients who would have wanted that slot cannot make it in time. Everyone's a loser.
Let's do the maths....
An average cut and colour appointment costs around 900 dirhams (around £180). When you have a salon that has several stylists fully booked, it is realistic to say that two clients a day may cancel at short notice, or even worse, not show up at all. Over a 6-day week this totals over 10,000 aed. Now times that by 4 and you’re looking at over 43,000 aed per month! That's an insane amount of money for a small business to lose. And we aren't only talking money here, time also plays a part. In fact, that equals around 170 hours a month where the chair would be empty, and the stylists and business would not be getting paid.
When booking cinemas, restaurants, hotels etc, multiple businesses take advance payment or deposits. They cannot risk people not turning up. And salons are no different.
At our salon we have a cancellation fee if bookings are cancelled with less than 24 hours’ notice and advanced payment at peak times. We find this works well and we are very grateful that our clients are understanding and respect this. They also know that cancelling will usually mean they will then need to wait several days or weeks for another appointment.
Of course, Covid can now throw a spanner in the works, and we happily waive all fees when a positive test is submitted.