Don’t you agree that one of the most frustrating parts of being a beautician or salon owner is when the client doesn’t show up, right?

It just messes up your schedule; you feel worthless and frustrated and find yourself thinking, “How could they ever do that to me?”. Or even in worse cases, "AGAIN!?!??"

Unfortunately, this situation can happen to any of us, but how we react to it is a determining factor that distinguishes successful beauticians from others.

Yes, these thoughts and feelings are 100% justified because let’s face it—you lost time and money—but try not to spend more than 5 minutes dwelling on it.

Instead, see the opened time slot as an ideal opportunity to focus on following beneficial activities.

#1 Prepare Your Social Media Content

Whether you like it or not, being active on social is a vital part of any successful beauty business in the 2020s. If you don't have a beauty business page on social media, or if your post less than weekly, it's almost impossible to get (new) customers.

But creating content doesn't mean that it's enough just to only post pictures of your before-and-afters or available times. It's the educational content that helps you to stick out from the competition and make the audience turn their heads.

Use the time freed up to prepare for the upcoming posts: brainstorm new post topics, take pictures and videos of your salon from different angles, look at other beauty professionals' posts for inspiration, and more.

Bonus tip: check out our latest blog post "5 striking social media post ideas for beauticians" to stand out from your competition even better.

#2 Post to Your Beauty Page & Like Your Customers’ Posts

Besides creating insightful educational content, it’s also good to freshen your Instagram beauty page feed and post some "lighter" material from time to time.

Scroll through your gallery, pick the pictures you haven’t shown to the world yet, and put them live!

But don’t stop just there—go through your regulars’ and new clients’ posts as well. Leave them a like, or better still, write a lovely comment. This seemingly small "act of kindness" means a lot to your customer. You can be sure that the next time they make an appointment for a beauty service, it will be with you.

#3 Get Started With Email Marketing

Being active on social is a must. However, simply being "in the picture" on social media does not guarantee more clients or more turnover.

If you want to increase your sales and possibly get an additional income stream, then email marketing is the optimal way to go.

Or, to put it another way–– if you don't do email marketing, you leave a lot of money on the table.

Studies have shown that the return on investment (ROI) in email marketing can be up to 3600%. In other words, for every euro you invest in email marketing, you can get in turn as much as 36 €.

Email marketing is straightforward, effective, and very affordable compared to other forms of marketing.

You can reach a vast number of people with your messaging at the cost of $0 per email, compared to paid ads, which makes you pay to play.

So grab a pen and paper, or jump on your computer and write your first marketing email. You could talk about the latest news from the salon, share tips on how to take care of your results at home, or introduce a new product and share a discount code for your clients to use on their next visit. Your only limitation is your imagination!

Bonus tip: we’ve put together a free "Email Marketing Guide for Beauty Salons" e-book where we also talked about 25 Do’s and Don’ts of email marketing. Feel free to check it out!

#4 Go Live

Another good way to make the most of your free time is going live on Facebook or Instagram. It might sound intimidating, but it's actually a lot easier than it looks. Your Live doesn't have to have Hollywood-level lighting, camera, or "acting skills". The more natural and "you" it is, the better.

Here are some ideas for your next (or first?) Live:

  • Share the behind-the-scenes of your salon, staff, or workplace
  • Show how some of the beauty treatments are being performed
  • Educate the audience about a topic they have been asking about lately
  • Inform them about upcoming events, changes, or excellent news
  • Share a nice thought, a motivational idea, or an educational story
P.S. Whatever you do, don’t show or talk about your frustration about the client who didn’t show up for the appointment. It doesn’t put you in the best light.

#5 Activate Automatic Notifications

One of the reasons why the customer didn’t show up to their appointment could be that they didn’t get any reminders about their booking. Could it be the case?

Listen, people are getting busier and busier every day, and, understandably, you can’t remember every little duty or aspect of your day or week. And sometimes it can be your beauty appointment.

That’s why it’s your responsibility as a service provider to be on top of their minds 24/7, so they won’t forget about their appointments. Ever.

So if you’ve got one already, then make the most of its’ features, but if you don’t have a salon software yet, you're always welcome to try SalonLife.

What makes it unique is that we’ve added 7 (!) different e-mail and SMS notifications (all automated), making it easy to keep in touch with your clients. You can also be sure that the number of no-shows is reduced to a minimum.

#6 Analyze The No-Show

Of course, it’s always easy to blame the other party for not showing up, but maybe, just maybe, you could’ve helped to prevent it?

Analyze the specific situation of why the client didn’t come. Think about what did go wrong, what you could’ve done better or differently, or whether you foresaw the risk that this client could do so.

This type of in-depth analysis gives you greater clarity and helps you prevent these no-shows from happening again in the future.

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Hopefully, you did find some alternatives to do next time your customer leaves you hanging. And who knows—maybe from now on you’re even grateful to the them for not showing up because it gives you time to focus on other crucial things to grow your salon business ;)

If you'd like to discover more beauty industry secrets of what the world-class, A+ level beauticians and salon owners are doing every day in these kinds of situations, sign up for free SalonLife sales and marketing courses, and let's take your salon to the next level, together.