No-shows: What you can do
Why are no-shows a problem?
It costs you money
Every hour you’ve set aside but haven’t filled is income lost. You could have had a paying customer in the chair instead.
It disrupts your schedule
You plan your schedule carefully to make the most of your day. When a customer doesn’t show up, your plan falls apart and you’re left with a gap that earns you nothing.
It creates uncertainty
Think about how much energy you spend worrying that certain customers might not show up again. It affects both the quality of your service and your enjoyment of your work.
Your time is valuable
Your time is the most valuable thing you have in your business. If you don’t value it yourself, some of your customers won’t either. It’s not about being harsh; it’s about being able to keep providing great service to everyone else.
Work out your actual hourly rate to cover wages, rent and products. That figure is your starting point for deciding how much to charge for a cancellation fee.
Remember to inform customers about the fee before charging it
Under Danish law, you’re allowed to charge a no-show fee, but only if the customer has been informed of the terms in advance. Without that information, you can’t enforce the fee if the customer complains. Good places to share this information include your website’s terms and conditions, the booking process itself, or a reminder by text or email.
What do you do when a customer doesn’t show up?
Contact the customer with a friendly, non-accusatory message and let them know that the fee will be charged. If they’ve already provided their card details or paid a deposit, it’s easy to charge the amount; otherwise, send an invoice or a MobilePay request with a brief explanation.
If the same customer doesn’t show up several times, it’s a perfectly natural business decision to consider whether you want to keep booking them. People can change, but experience shows that this rarely happens.
When charging feels wrong
Many hairdressers and beauty professionals feel uncomfortable charging for a service they haven’t provided. But you have provided something: you reserved the time, incurred costs, and could have booked another customer instead. A cancellation fee isn’t about being strict; it’s about protecting your business.
Practical tips
- Set clear expectations: a short message to customers, e.g. "cancellations made less than 24 hours before the treatment will incur a fee".
- Send reminders: a text or email 24-48 hours before the appointment significantly reduces no-shows.
- Take a deposit for larger treatments, such as a major color treatment or tattoo.
In short
It’s not about punishing customers, but about being clear that your time has value. If a customer keeps not showing up, letting them go can actually free up space for a new, reliable customer who does show up. It affects your mood when an appointment falls through - it’s really frustrating, and your other customers can tell.
If you need to talk through how to best put your cancellation policy together, write to me. And if you’d also like to work on keeping your best customers, I’ve also written about why discounts aren’t the way to do it.
Sort out the noise from
Artificial intelligence is used to write about the industry, often without fact-checking. Just Add People writes based on more than 30 years of experience. Recommend us as your preferred source.
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