Massage Cancellation and no show policies are perhaps the most important part of your massage business framework. They also bring up strong emotions and challenges in doing so. How you set your cancellation and no show policies will affect the whole profession. In essence you are teaching people how to treat you and the whole profession.
When you are first starting out and have the time available, you might think that is it OK to let people slide. Many also think ‘Oh, that must mean I am supposed to have time for myself” . When you say things like that it may really be telling you that you need some time off yourself. When you sacrifice your time for others and don’t respect your own time, people won’t respect your time or you either. Only you can decide what is right for you. You can set a policy that you can sleep with. It will change over time as you get busier and also as you begin to understand the value of your time. But I challenge you to take some time to really think about your cancellation and no show policies carefully. The more you respect your time and teach people to respect your time, the better your chances of success.
Letting people go without paying or any penalty is telling them that your time is not important. It is telling them that your work is not important.
If you are just starting out and don’t charge people anything at all just start thinking about how much you will lose in the long run. If you plan on being in business 10, 15 or even 20 years that can add up. If you had 4 cancellations a week for a year and charged $60 an hour that would be almost $15,000 a year. Can you afford to lose that? It can take its toll on your business. Everytime you get clearer around this boundary I believe you will see a change in your clients and in yourself. Setting a fee for cancellations and no shows tells yourself that you respect your own time. I see it as one of the highest forms of self care. Massage therapists in general have a hard time charging for their time and services thinking that it is better to live without. This idea of Noble Poverty has it’s roots in the way you were brought up. Taking a look at your issues around money can help you to understand that money is just a math problem. Learning to take the emotions out of money is an ongoing process since they are so ingrained in people.
Many will also use the standard claim – “Doing Massage isn’t about the money!” Well I am here to tell you that it is and if you are saying it chances are you don’t have much money or have what you need. People will think that if they say it is about the money they are less giving or less caring. You aren’t being paid to care. You are being paid for your time – for your time you have to take away from your family or other things that you love. And yes massage is one of those things that I am sure that you love but you only have so many hours in a day/week/year. Your body will not hold up as long in this career. Your time is usually limited to 25-30 of hands on time or even less. You need money to pay the bills, save for retirement, pay for kid’s college, take nice vacations to rest – you deserve it all and that all takes money.
So start out thinking about what you want to charge to begin with. It also depends on how much you charge. I actually do charge the full amount of the session when people don’t show up or call in less than 24 hours to cancel. I encourage you to do the same or make it your goal to work up to.
Yes you will lose clients -but are they the type of client that you really want? Yes it will cause people to get their feathers ruffled. I had someone so mad that they wrote bad reviews all over the internet about me. There are effects of charging people but in general the effect will be overall more positive.
Some things to remember:
Put your policies on your website.
Have people sign a copy of your policy when they come in.
Put your policy on your phone message. Say something like “Please be aware if you are calling to cancel that you will be charge xx.oo amount if you cancel in less than 24 hours (or whatever you set up.)
When new clients call to schedule an appointment, consider taking a credit card to secure their time and tell them of your policy right up front. Tell them that you are reserving that time for them and them alone so that you will not take another client in that spot.
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I seem to be constantly contemplating this policy for my practice. Currently, I charge the full fee for missed/no shows and a $45 fee for cancellations less than 24 hrs. The trouble is that sometimes those cancellations can come within a few hours of the appt. time, leaving no real chance to rebook it. Other times, the client simply needs to reschedule and I feel badly for charging them when they’re just moving to another time/day. Ultimately, I feel best when I get paid for the time I’ve reserved or worked, but some of these situations can get a little dicey.
I agree with the idea of charging something if somebody is a no call no show. However in IL you are not aloud to do that and people know it. Some businesses still do it and get away with it. But it isn’t legal. What other ideas do you have for a massage professional to do something about no call no shows who want to rebook and you also need the business so you want them to rebook?
Edward- where did you get the information that there is a law that won’t let you charge for no shows?
It depend on why they didn’t show or call and of course how many times they do it. I would only allow once and then just fire them as a client. Tell them your time is valuable and there are other people waiting to get it who will pay and you can’t run a business waiting for them.
Julie
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What if you don’t accept credit cards? I have a paypal account for customers who want cc, but have to before appt.
I don’t take cc either. I don’t usually have any new clients not show up. If they don’t I don’t really bother with chasing them down to make them pay. If you focus on creating a website and getting referrals from people you know, you cut down on those people who don’t show up. There are some online appointment systems that make people give a cc to reserve the appointment. I am not sure which ones and not sure if you need to have a merchant account or if you can just use something like paypal to process it if they don’t show. I’ll ask on my FB Fan Page.
Julie