Taking payments

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Burton on Trent
Hello all.
I had a lady in the other day and her card was declined in my machine and she hadn't got any cash. She didn't have PayPal and couldn't do a BACS transfer without having the card reader. Should I start taking payments before the treatment?

Luckily she is a regular and has paid me, but it did get me wondering.
Any thoughts on the subject would be appreciated x
 
Hello all.
I had a lady in the other day and her card was declined in my machine and she hadn't got any cash. She didn't have PayPal and couldn't do a BACS transfer without having the card reader. Should I start taking payments before the treatment?

Luckily she is a regular and has paid me, but it did get me wondering.
Any thoughts on the subject would be appreciated x
You could take payment beforehand or take a booking fee and if you trust them get them ti bank transfer you the rest when they get home just remind them through a text message. I'm always not sure what to do would be great if you made them all pay in full at time of booking but in terms of hair their price can vary. I guess it's up to you how you would like to take payment, some customers don't even like to leave a booking fee.
 
I just want to jump on this as I have been thinking if the electronic terminal is down what will happen, especially if it's a new client. I genuinely feel most people are actually good and will pay, however, when this happens at my barbers they simply ask us to go to the till (2 mins walk) to finish the payment is cash as it's a real hassle to chase up clients afterwards and getting the transaction over with quickly so everyone can get on with life. Is this unprofessional?
 
I don’t think it is unreasonable to politely expect your client to nip to the cash machine.

I keep a card reader in the salon. They all work, you don’t need one from her bank. However this has happened a few times to me and I’ve allowed them to pay me when they get home by bank transfer. I take a 50% deposit so that helps.

Another option is to take down their card details and run it through your card machine as a customer not present transaction when they tell you there is money in their account a day or two later. Don’t make a habit of it as you aren’t supposed to make a note of card details.

Not every machine and every card will allow you to do transactions in this way.

the main this is to stay calm, polite and slightly disinterested. It’s embarrassing for clients so you just need to stay serene and refer to “technology glitches”
 
I don’t think it is unreasonable to politely expect your client to nip to the cash machine.

I keep a card reader in the salon. They all work, you don’t need one from her bank. However this has happened a few times to me and I’ve allowed them to pay me when they get home by bank transfer. I take a 50% deposit so that helps.

Another option is to take down their card details and run it through your card machine as a customer not present transaction when they tell you there is money in their account a day or two later. Don’t make a habit of it as you aren’t supposed to make a note of card details.

Not every machine and every card will allow you to do transactions in this way.

the main this is to stay calm, polite and slightly disinterested. It’s embarrassing for clients so you just need to stay serene and refer to “technology glitches”

It's uncommon at my barbers (twice in 3 years) but I cannot ever remember it being too much of a bother to simply go to the ATM. I think I'd similarly blam
e temperamental technology and acknowledge the fact of an ATM being close by.

TheDuchess, how do you take 50% deposit? I've been looking at systems like Timely and Fresha, at the moment I'm not attracted to systems that allow clients to book in as I would like some control on the booking times. My hangup is that I don't want to deal with no-shows or last minute cancellations. I was thinking that I could have a booking system where I can see/manage the bookings on my end and clients would need to simply enquire through the website contact page or call to get a booking where I would take the card details at the time and clarify the cancellation policy...alongside hopefully a system that sends appointment confirmations as well as reminder texts.
 
I’m with Phorest which is expensive but I like their business advice and reporting functions as I outgrew my spreadsheets for management accounting to analyse trends. Phorest allows clients to book online which I hated at first but gradually acclimated to. Clients have to agree to pay for a no show but they can reschedule last minute which is infuriating.

A lot of clients contact me direct, which is better for “flow” as it enables me to choose when it suits me to book their requested treatment. When they book with me I simply ask them for 50% by card. Sometimes there’s a bit of prevarication. My booking system allows me to customise an auto confirmation email, so mine says “here are my bank details please secure your booking with a bank transfer by the end of the day to confirm your booking”.
Unfortunately a lot of servers send my emails straight to spam! So I check my bank account daily and cross reference. Then clients get a polite “I’ve released your booking, do let me know when you’re ready to rebook” email.

occasionally I slip up and don’t secure a booking with a deposit. My no show/last minute cancellation rate on these bookings is about 90%!

I have my terms and conditions in my email “signature” and on my website and in my booking confirmation email.

whenever I get a last minute booking I always act delighted and say “oh we’ve just had a cancellation, I hate keeping deposits so I’m so happy you called”. This helps “train” my clients.

Of course I get a few huffy clients appalled that I’m asking for a deposit. Those are always the ones that ring up last minute to cancel because they’ve forgotten about another appointment.
 
A lot of our customers send an SMS to a client which contains a link to pay a deposit. It's all secured through Stripe payments and means you can see who has paid their deposit and who hasn't. Interesting that you are looking to take deposits- we've seen a 60% increase in deposit usage since re-opening as no-shows have increased by 20% so its a great way to ensure clients turn up! Hope that helps!
 
At Timely we have launched an Uber-style Cardless Checkout feature to prevent things like this happening. Your client can save their card to their account which can be charged in the salon, you can also capture their card details when they book online too which is even better for the client.
So if your normal card machine is down or not working, the client's forgotten their card, or is in a rush etc you can still process payments and the client wouldn't know any different.
Plus there's less need for clients to hang around in the salon at the end of their service which is a bonus in this post covid world! Might be something to look at. Hope that helps xx
 

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