Hairdressers and beauty salons are now charging 'no show' fees
Hairdressers and beauty salons are now charging ‘no show’ fees after surge in serial cancellers
- Booking platform Fresha is among the first to offer salons ‘no show protection’
‘No show fees’ are now being introduced by hairdressers and beauty salons in the latest bid to tackle serial cancellers.
Most restaurants and holiday accommodation businesses now impose fees on customers who fail to turn up or make a last minute cancellation.
Now hairdressers and beauty salons are demanding compensation when they are left with empty chairs, amid claims that customers fail to turn up for as many as one in three appointments.
Fresha, an online bookings platform, is among the first to offer beauty and wellness businesses ‘no-show protection’.
Its bookings system saves customers’ card details and allows the business to take a fee if the customer fails to show up or cancels shortly before the appointment for their highlights or cut and blow dry.
Hairdressers and beauty salons are now introducing ‘no-show’ fees in a bid to curb serial cancellers
Online booking platform Fresha is among the first services to offer ‘no show protection’ to businesses, charging customers as much as all of the cost if they fail to turn up, even if they cancel 24 hours in advance
High street hair salon Toni & Guy charges customers £30 if they pull out of an appointment with less than 24 hours notice
The charges can run to as much as 100 per cent of the cost of the chosen treatment and can be activated even if the customer cancels 24 hours in advance.
The Fresha no show fees system is evidence of a wider policy being adopted across UK salons.
For example, Toni & Guy, charges customers £30 should they pull out of an appointment with less than 24 hours’ notice.
Many businesses using Fresha, which was founded in 2015, choose to adopt a varying form of cancellation coverage, which mirrors the systems introduced by restaurants.
Research by Barclaycard found restaurants lose an average of £89 for each customer that fails to turn up. And a recent survey of 100 of the UK’s most exclusive eateries found fees ranging from £20 to £375.
Businesses charging the no show fees risk a customer backlash and losing future business, however Fresha advises its partner firms to blame the booking site.
Fresha said late cancellations and no shows were becoming ‘commonplace’ for the beauty and wellness industry resulting in millions of pounds of lost revenues.
Fresha said late cancellations and no shows were becoming ‘commonplace’ for the beauty and wellness industry resulting in millions of pounds of lost revenues
As a result, it said this is ‘leaving small businesses out of pocket unable to fill those appointment slots at the last minute’.
They added: ‘This challenge is not unique to beauty and wellness and solutions to protect against this are widely accepted.
‘Fresha provides the facility for businesses to protect themselves against harmful late cancellations and no-shows by allowing them to set flexible and customisable policies which are clearly presented to clients when they book appointments online.
‘All clients agree to the policy at the time of booking and the settings are entirely controlled by the venue being booked.
‘In the event of a late cancellation or no-show, businesses can manually choose whether to enforce the policy or not and, at the point of cancelling, clients are presented with the option to call the venue before incurring any charges.’
Source: Read Full Article