8 Ways to Deal with No-Show Appointments at Your Nail Salon

No-show appointments are a waste of time and money. 

Plain and simple.

On top of that, you’re most probably getting frustrated because your clients didn’t even send a message to let you know they won’t make it. Or they sent it too late.

This is a problem that’s affecting your business and your schedule, and you need to deal with it in the best possible way in order to keep your salon profitable.

The good news is that there are ways to tackle the nail salon no-show issue, and we’re going to talk about them today.

8 Tips on How to Reduce Nail Salon No-Shows

While you probably can’t impose penalties on clients who miss their appointment, there are a number of ways to protect your staff and business from too many nail salon no-shows while making sure you don’t lose any clients due to your policies.

But keep in mind that, no matter how well-established your nail salon no-show policy is, there will be missed appointments anyway.

We’re humans, and the unpredictable can happen.

However, here are a few ways to avoid them from happening too often.

1. Have a straightforward online booking system

Having an online booking, which your clients can access at any time, is a great way to show them all your available appointment slots.

Having an online booking that’s mobile-friendly is even better.

In this way, your clients can think about what day and time work best for them without being pressured like they would be on a phone call, for example.

With Goldie, you can create an easy online booking flow and let your customers book appointments online 24/7 from any device.

Moreover, you can make the online booking available in more than one place by adding a “Book Now” button to your Facebook and Instagram pages.

2. Send reminders to your clients

We get busy, and we forget things. But this shouldn’t affect your day-to-day nail salon operations. 

You can easily avoid the uncomfortable no-show with something as easy as using an automated reminders feature. 

You can do this too with Goldie. The automated text messages can be instant notifications when the appointment is booked, text reminders when the appointment is coming up, and follow-up messages.

This helps your clients in two ways: they remember the appointment if they forgot, and they have enough time to cancel it if they can’t make it.

It helps you, too, as you can free up that slot, and somebody else can take it.

What’s probably the most important thing is that this option helps you build strong relationships with your clients because while you value your business, your clients will feel appreciated and cared for.

Also, remember that a booking confirmation message goes a long way.

For example, I remember when I ordered something online from a popular brand, and I didn’t receive an email confirmation. So I kept wondering if my order would ever arrive.

Don’t do that with your clients. Don’t keep them wondering if you considered their request or not. 

Make them sure you did.

3. It’s not you. It’s me

This is probably not applicable to you, so you shouldn’t worry about it. But if you keep seeing a pattern of no-shows, you should also investigate your salon. 

Just to rule everything out. 

So, check if a particular nail artist keeps getting no-shows from their clients or any other possible issue like the quality of the products they use or the waiting time before an appointment.

Encourage your clients to leave reviews or to give you on-the-spot feedback to see if there are areas where you should improve your services.

4. Focus on loyalty programs 

Loyal clients won’t make a habit out of skipping appointments. They value your time because they also value your services.

This is why you should focus on creating strong relationships with your clients.

There are many ways to accomplish it. From doing your job focusing on quality to offering loyalty programs that help your clients understand they are appreciated.

You can even add points to a loyalty program for the clients who always show up. At a certain number of accumulated points, offer them a free express service.

5. Reduce waiting time

As I mentioned previously, this could be one of the possible triggers that result in nail salon no-shows.

And it’s only natural. If you feel like some clients are wasting your time by not coming to their appointment, they feel the same when you don’t respect the hour their appointment is supposed to start.

Make sure you optimize your calendar to avoid these situations. 

One possible solution is to allow yourself time to breathe between appointments. This way, you’re also keeping the schedule under control.

6. Create prepaid packages

To reduce the no-shows at your nail salon, you can create packages your clients can purchase in advance, such as multiple visits or special packages that include nail design and treatment at a special price.

You can get creative here according to what you’re offering in your services menu. And since these packages are paid in advance, people will try their best not to miss their appointments.

If you don’t know how to put in practice this idea, here’s the answer: just think about the prepaid packages you want to offer, set up your Goldie account, and take payments from clients in advance directly in the app.

7.  Perform client follow-ups 

You can create a message to include in your no-show policy to send to clients who don’t show up for their appointments. The message will make them aware of your cancellation or no-show rules. 

In this way, you also give them a chance to say why they didn’t show up, as something unpredictable could have happened at the last minute, but also the opportunity for them to reschedule the appointment.

This takes us to the next point.

8. Communicate your policy

So, if you want to make people aware of your nail salon rules, you have to create a cancellation and no-show policy first. 

This one’s up to you to create. It can be something like three no-shows, no appointments anymore.

Communicate it clearly, integrate it into a no-show policy template, whatever you decide to include there, and don’t be afraid you’ll lose clients because of it. If anything, they’ll respect you even more.

If you don’t know where to start and what you should include in a nail salon no-show policy template, let’s see a few possible things you could mention there.

B. What Should You Include in a Nail Salon No-Show Policy Template

Here are a few ideas you could use to add to your nail salon no-show policy template, which you should make visible on your website, Facebook page, and at the reception of your nail salon.

Add a cancellation window

First things first. The unpredictable can happen.

This is why you should allow your clients the possibility to cancel the appointment. It could be a 24 or 48h window prior to their scheduled appointment. 

You can choose this according to your usual booking pattern. If your clients are filling up the calendar slots fast, you can easily leave a 24h cancellation window.

If these cancellations from a particular client don’t turn into a habit, you should forgive at least one missed or canceled appointment.

Charge a booking fee

Not all salons do this, but asking for a booking fee on appointments that could take up to a few hours, is preferred by some of them. And yes, some nail designs can take a long time to be done.

This prevents you from losing all the money you could have made if the client had shown up, but it can nudge the clients to try their best to be there for their appointment.

Make sure you let people know they won’t be refunded if they don’t cancel within your window cancelation timeframe or reached. Also, if they agree, you can reschedule their appointment so that they won’t lose the money you charged.

Add a number of strikes policy

As I mentioned before, you should be forgiving if there are serious reasons why your clients couldn’t show up for their appointment.

But if there’s no major aspect why they missed it three times in a row (or five times, it’s your choice), you can take other measures such as asking for the money upfront or simply refusing their appointment request.

You can store all the clients’ information into a client management app to keep track of all your clients’ missed appointments.

Conclusion

The nail salon no-show policy is made for you to protect your business and also to maintain a good relationship with your clients.

Nonetheless, you should always be mindful of your clients. If they simply don’t show up without prior cancellation, you should perform a follow-up and try to find out what happened. Without being intrusive, of course. 

In this way, you’ll know how to treat them the next time they contact you.