Salon statistics: the true cost of a no-show

We all know that a salon no-show can be a costly experience for your business. Sometimes, no-shows cannot be helped – last minute cancellations and calendar mix-ups happen to the best of us, after all. What if salon no-shows could be prevented, however? How much could your business save in terms of revenue, time and reorganisation? Discover how the costs of a cancellation can begin to add up over time; what does your company really stand to lose from a no-show?

Revenue

The most obvious cost of a salon cancellation is in terms of the revenue you stand to lose. An empty slot on your booking form means an hour or more when you’re not pulling in revenue. Not only will you have lost the income that your scheduled customer would have brought in, you may also have had cause to turn additional trade away at the door. If you have an appointment made for later in the day then you’re unlikely to want to book in new customers; then, when your booking fails to show up, not only will you have forfeited their revenue but you’ll have failed to take advantage of other potential customers too. It’s easy to see how lost revenue can snowball under these conditions…

Time

A salon no-show is little more than a time sponge. Making the original booking requires time on your behalf to liaise with the customer, after which time an employee will be assigned to the appointment. Should the booking fail to show up, however, your salon staff will be left sitting on their hands with nothing to do. If you’re lucky, you’ll be able to fill the slot with passing trade, but if not, the employee assigned to the booking will simply end up wasting their time. All the hours spent arranging and preparing for the booking will have gone to waste should the customer fail to turn up.

Reorganisation

While some no-shows are completely unavoidable, others can be adequately prepared for with good organisation. Double bookings are common with old fashioned pen-and-paper appointment books, while non-automated systems mean human error is common – cancellation notices can get lost, bookings misplaced and dates confused. Having to re-arrange an appointment after a no-show takes more time and money away from your business, so prevention is far better than the cure where cancellations are concerned.

If you can avoid no-shows where possible, your salon won’t have to deal with the manifold costs of a cancellation and can begin to operate in the most cost-effective way possible. i-Salon’s salon management software programs not only help to organise your appointments more effectively than ever before, they can even be used to send text reminders to your customers, reducing the chance that they’ll fail to show up in future. Why not contact us to find out more about how we can help?