Last minute cancellations with illness/family matters?

[Gorgeouslocks21]

Hi just wondered what everyone else’s policy is.
I take a deposit for all appointments (I do hair extensions) my deposit is just under half of the service cost.
I ask for 48 hours notice of any changes.
I occasionally get a client who will message late the night before or the morning of and ether say they are ill or that a family member is ill.
Do you guys still charge them the deposit??
If it was a regular I don’t think I would. But when it’s a new client I’m abit unsure.
As I understand it’s horrible if a family member or they are ill but at the end of the day I need to pay my bills and it’s not my fault...

Interested on other people’s thoughts!

 

[TheDuchess]

It's very tricky. We are super concerned for them and sympathetic and we tell them that if we resell their released appointment we will be able to hold the deposit on account as a credit towards a future appointment. But that we can't promise to resell the time. We might say that we have had enquiries which we turned away, so we'll ring them back and see if they still need an appointment (we keep a daily caller log) - it depends on the client interaction.

If it's super short notice we give them our sympathy and say sorry there is no chance that we'll get a walk in within the next 3 minutes so the deposit will be retained. We then say that if in the future they find themselves with this situation always call us, because we do get last minute enquiries and there's always a chance that we can credit their deposit against a future appointment.

We don't refund. This way we can defer the decision until we hear from them again. If they return, very apologetic and concerned for us about our missed booking I might honour their deposit.

But I find that some clients have more emergencies than others and I can't afford these clients. By keeping their deposit and annoying them into never wasting your time again - you're not really down on the deal.