Why I charge even if you don’t show up

Are you wondering why I charge even if you don’t show up for your appointment? Sometimes running late or not showing up for an appointment cannot be helped – traffic, emergencies, calendar mix-ups, forgetting to put your appointment into your diary or calendar, or accidentally double-booking yourself happens to the best of us. I get this. Sometimes life happens. And when it does, we step up, take responsibility for our mistakes, and try to fix them as best we can by cancelling or rescheduling appointments, or notifying someone that we’re running late.

I use an online booking system that sends out appointment confirmation notifications when an appointment is booked. Twenty-four hours before the appointment, automated email and text reminders go out. I feel this is ample notification for clients to double check their calendars, and if necessary, use the online booking system to reschedule or cancel their appointments, or contact me to move or cancel their appointments.

I experienced my first no show during the first six months of running my business – I was relying heavily on that income. After waiting fifteen minutes, I tried phoning the client to see if she was on her way but stuck in traffic. My call went to voicemail. Another fifteen minutes passed and I tried phoning again – this time to inform her that I was going to have to reschedule her appointment, as we were now running too late for me to carry out the services that she’d booked. If she arrived now and I did her nails, it would affect my next client, who would have to sit and wait, having a knock on effect for the rest of my day – still no answer, so I left a message.

The following day, I tried phoning to see if she’d like to reschedule. Again, my call went to voicemail. Four days later, she finally phoned me back to tell me that she can’t afford to get her nails done. If she’d been honest with me upfront and cancelled her appointment the day before, I would have been able to give that appointment time to someone who really wanted it. Unforunately, at the time, I didn’t have a ‘no show policy’ or penalty fee in place. I had to forfeit my time and wages that I would have earned during that two hour period. These no shows impact us more than you’d think (see images below).

If you don’t show up for a doctor’s or dentist’s appointment, they charge you the full amount due. Why should it be any different for a nail salon, beauty therapist, make-up artist or hairdresser? Most salons these days have a no-show policy, late arrival penalty, and some even have a three strike rule: three no-shows, or three constantly late arrivals, and the client either has to pre-pay for future appointments, or they are asked to find another salon. I’ve opted to charge for the no-shows and implement late cancellation fee. These fees/policies can be found on the T&Cs page.

I saw a post on Instagram the other day, by Celina Ryden, a well-known nail educator and influencer/entrepreneur, and she explains with three scenarios how no-shows impact us. I’ll share her post below:

Thank you for your understanding, and taking the time to read this.