Intro: Do you feel like you were meant to have a kick-ass career as a hair stylist? Like you got into this industry to make big things happen?
Maybe you’re struggling to build a solid base and want some stability. Maybe you know social media is important, but it feels like a waste of time because you aren’t seeing any results. Maybe you’ve already had some amazing success but are craving more. Maybe you’re ready to truly enjoy the freedom and flexibility this industry has to offer.
Cutting and coloring skills will only get you so far, but to build a lifelong career as a wealthy stylist, it takes business skills and a serious marketing strategy. When you’re ready to quit just working in your business and start working on it, join us here where we share real success stories from real stylists.
I’m Britt Seva, social media and marketing strategist just for hair stylists, and this is the Thriving Stylist Podcast.
Britt Seva: What is up and welcome back to the Thriving Stylist Podcast. I’m your host Britt Seva, and this week we’re talking about a very inspired topic: the trend of clients’ ghosting. Meaning that they request an appointment and then don’t show up, like no shows or hit you up in the DMs and then fall apart or submit an online booking request and then you never hear from them again.
To a degree, this has always happened. No shows have been happening since the beginning of time in our industry. The reality that some clients will simply submit an appointment request and then won’t follow through. That’s not brand new.
What seems to be brand new is the volume and pace at which it’s been happening. That seems to be the shift.
This first hit my radar in the summer of 2023. A post was made in one of my communities. This one will happen to be called the Scaling Stylist Method. This is a community for high performers. These are going to be stylists who are already—they’ve built a dream clientele. They’re really working on scaling their business, which means increasing your income while working less. This is not the beginning stylist who’s just starting to hustle. This is somebody who’s well established who is asking this question and they posed the question in the community and said, “Hey, is anybody else noticing an uptick in clients ghosting?” The feed broke out and I was like, “Whoa, this is not a one-off. This is a thing.”
So I asked this on my Instagram. I followed up, I saw this in the community, I asked it on my Instagram and I said, “Is anybody else having issues with clients ghosting after requesting appointments? This is a new thing I’ve seen starting about eight weeks ago. Is this a shift in consumer behavior and do we need to be changing how our booking process works?” That’s the question that I asked. It was a video. So I lifted up a poll and I asked those who follow me on Instagram to vote, have clients been ghosting you? Is it not a problem?
54% said, “Not usually a problem for me. I haven’t noticed.” 19% said, “It’s always been an issue and it seems to be about the same.” 30% of stylists saying that there’s a significant increase in clients ghosting.
This is data that we just can’t ignore. If I had done this post and let’s say only 10% had said it, I would’ve been like, “Well, 10% don’t know what they’re doing.” But the piece that was interesting to me is the DMs I got on the backend of that story and the stylists and salon owners who raised their hand and said, “Oh my gosh, that’s happening to me”— When I looked at the profile of the stylists and salons are raising their hand to say, “I’m the one who’s having this issue. It’s me. Clients are ghosting me.””
Y’all, these were successful stylists. These were stylists who had established brands who knew what they were doing. And let me be clear, when I say successful, I don’t mean like, whoa, these are the ones charging the most money. When I say successful, I mean the ones that got it going on, like they understand branding, they have good systems, they have online booking, like they’re checking the boxes. It wasn’t people where it’s like, oh, well your business is a mess. No wonder people are ghosting you. These were businesses that had it pulled together and I was like, “What the heck?”
I decided to dig in a little deeper and with this episode, I really wanted to find the patterns because if we can see the patterns in trends like this, we can come up with creative solutions.
When I saw that 30% of those who were voting on the poll were saying, “Absolutely, there’s an increase in guests ghosting, DMing or making appointments and then no showing,” and 20% say it’s always been an issue. We’re talking about 50% of the industry here. This is a thing, so let’s get to the bottom of it.
So I did a follow up and I said, “Okay, if clients are ghosting you, tell me what the ghosting looks like.” I’m going to read you the responses:
“Clients submit one of our forms on our website, we contact them to schedule, and then we never hear back again.”
“Submitting through my digital consultation form on my website, but then they never respond after that to be booked.”
“Clients book the same day and then never show up.”
“Submit an appointment request, and don’t respond to my follow up.”
“Guests inquiring for appointments to request an appointment. But I reach out and then never hear back again.”
“More people fighting cancellation policies, canceling last minute, and then never showing up at all.”
“I have people saying they want to book, I’ll send them the link to do so and follow up, but never hear back.”
“I’ve had a few who book complimentary consultations and then don’t even show up to that consultation.”
“We’ve had more no-shows in the last year than ever before. I’ve owned this salon for 13 years. What the heck is happening?”
“Way more reschedules than any other time in the past. I’ve had clients book appointments and then cancel and reschedule over and over and over. We’re talking up to three reschedules per guest. It’s exhausting.”
Which, when I say a stat like that where we say clients are rescheduling more and more frequently, reschedules have been the thing I’ve been worried about. The thing that I talk about with pre-booking, you know I’m fairly on the fence about pre-booking. I think it’s good for new stylists who have more time and more flexibility. As stylists become more in demand, pre-booking can be an Achilles’ heel for you, especially if you do see an uptick in reschedules. It stops being this thing that guarantees your income and it starts being the thing that becomes a thorn in your side.
When we see these patterns increase, it’s time to really look at the shift in consumer behavior, which is why we have to talk about this.
Okay, two more to share. “They submit an appointment request and then never ever respond no matter how many times I follow up,” or “I see the info request and then they ghost.”
I looked at all of this and for me, there’s a clear pattern. Did anybody else pick up on the pattern? I didn’t eliminate any of the responses. These were all the open-ended responses I received.
For me, the pattern was clear. But what was interesting was I shared one final Instagram question and I said, “If you are seeing clients ghosting, why do you think that is?” There were three responses over and over.
One, our prices are too high. The idea was stylists have just become too high, which listen, clients are complaining about. But the reality is I think we’re finally starting to charge an appropriate amount to gain a profit for our industry. There’s always going to be a bit of pushback, but as we raise the bar collectively, people will rise with us.
So being priced too high, I don’t think that’s it because I just know too many successful stylists and salon owners who are not having this issue and their prices are fairly astronomical. I don’t think it’s the pricing and I’m not just talking about being in big, fancy markets and doing that. I didn’t see a pricing pattern so I don’t think that’s it. I don’t have any data to support the idea that it’s pricing.
To be fair, I don’t have any data to support that. It’s not pricing, but nobody in this poll said clients are responding back and saying, “Never mind, you’re too expensive.”
If somebody is taking the time to fill out a form, if somebody is taking the time to make an appointment request, my hope is that you have at least listed your service pricing on your website, so they’ve seen your service pricing and then chose to submit an appointment request. So A plus B equals they know what your prices are and still chose to move forward. I tend to not think it’s pricing.
The number two guess was limited availability. Y’all, they don’t even know your availability. They submitted the appointment request, you responded with availability and then they ghosted you, so what are you talking about? What are you talking about when you say limited availability? They don’t even know what your availability is, whether it’s limited, in abundance, whatever. So no, I don’t think it’s that either.
Then three, this was the big one. People said, “Well, people are just shopping around.” Yes, they are shopping around, but as they were shopping, they picked you up and put you in their basket. At the time when they said, “Oh, interesting. I like this stylist or this salon enough to submit a request for an appointment,” and that was the break, right? They felt that desire, like I talk about my marketing level and and social media’s going to be interest and your website’s going to be desire. You did a good enough job on the website to create the desire, but the desire fell flat. Why?
I believe when I saw the patterns in the feedback when I went to—so some of these people who responded and were like, “I am so seeing clients do the request and ghost,” I took the time and I went to their websites and I went down their booking funnels and I went through their online booking system. What I believe one of the only things that I saw congruency in is that almost every single one of these people did not offer immediate online booking. It was “Fill out a request to be a part of our business,” “Do our online consultation form and we’ll get back to you.” It felt like maybe you’ll be able to be a part of our business or not, stand by.
I put myself in a client’s shoes for a minute and I was like, “Whoa, okay.” It landed in a really interesting way to me and I was like, wow, if I wanted to get my hair done and I fell in love with a salon or a stylist and I went to their website and the way for me to take action was to fill out a form to see if potentially I could become a part of their business, I would fill out the form, but then absolutely I’d continue shopping around. Because what if you turn me down?
It’s almost like online dating at that point, right? Which I’ve never used an online dating app, so if I butcher any part of this, please forgive me. But when you’re swiping on a dating app, my understanding is you don’t just swipe. Pick one person that’s interesting and put the app away and be like, “Okay, that’s it, I’m done.” You’re going to hedge your bets and you’re going to maybe connect with three or four or five people knowing that maybe one of those connections is going to pan out. Why wouldn’t clients be doing that too as they’re looking for stylists or salons? And then it becomes may the best person win.
I’ve been sharing for a couple of years now that our industry is going to start to get more competitive than ever. That should not be new information to anybody. And as I started sharing that, people started saying, “Britt, it feels like you’re fear-mongering a little bit.”
Y’all. I’m not fear-mongering. I’m speaking the truth. Just because when I say it, it doesn’t feel like, ooh, warm and fuzzy, it doesn’t mean it’s not what’s happening. As I see these trends and I share with you what consumer behavior is showing, you have to understand the bar has been raised in our industry. Competition is getting a bit stiffer. People are performing at a higher level when it comes to being a stylist or a salon owner. The cream is definitely rising to the top and it’s rising to the top at scale.
Before it was like one, two, 3% of salons or stylists were really up to big things. Well, now it’s more like 10 or 15%. Even if you were like a top dog before, there’s more dogs in the arena now and things are getting a little bit trickier.
Y’all, I have shared this for a long time: speed and efficiency counts twice. We’re living in an Amazon Prime kind of world. Do you want to wait? I don’t want to wait for anything.
Do you remember—I am going to date myself in saying this. I’m a kid of the nineties, so I can remember going out to my mailbox in the nineties and there would be just 10 catalogs, like Williams Sonoma, clothing stores, shoe shops, toy stores, tons of catalogs. We would sit around—like there would be some for me, some for my mom, some for my dad, whatever. We’d sit around and circle things we wanted out of the catalog. Now, nobody ever got me anything out of the catalog unless it was my birthday or something. But I’d still go through and circle stuff. But every once in a while, my parents would order something from Sears, like the Sears catalog would come, or Williams Sonoma or whatever it was, I don’t know. And they would say, “Oh, you know what? I want this cooking pot,” so they’d fill out the little card inside the magazine or you could call, there was no website to go to. This was the nineties. You’d either call or you’d fill out the little form and you’d put a stamp on the form and you’d mail the form away and in six to eight weeks, the pot that you wanted would show up.
Six to eight weeks. Can you imagine now if you fell in love with a cooking pot and it took two months for it to show up to your door? You’d be so irritated. You’d be demanding a refund, you’d be like, “I’m not going to wait eight weeks for that. I’ll find something else.”
Now, that’s an extreme example, but clients today don’t want to wait. When they go to your website and it’s like, fill out a form, do an online consultation, then we’ll get back to you. When are we going to get back to you? I don’t know, give us 24 to 48 hours. Their life is going to carry forward. Unless your brand is so good that people are willing to sell their car to come in to see you to get their hair done, like the level of demand and perceived value for your business would be have to be so exponentially high that you could literally have people waiting hours or a day or two days to hear back from you. That’s fairly rare today.
Now, for those of you who are like, “Oh, if somebody submits an online appointment request, we respond same day, Tuesday through Saturday.” Okay, but what about Sunday? And don’t say, “Well, Britt, I don’t want to work on Sunday.” Yeah, I don’t want you to work on your days off either. I’m not saying that.
What I’m saying is when I first started coaching to what I believed was a critical booking shift in our industry way back in 2015, I started telling people paper books are a thing of the past and we’re becoming part of the digital age.
90% of people listening to this podcast or more have smartphones. You carry the internet in your pocket. The idea that people don’t want to book online or have a digital booking experience is a dated thought process.
Some people say, “Well, that’s just Gen Z, that’s just millennial.” No, that’s everybody. There was a time where that was true, but that’s not the time now.
When I started coaching the online booking in 2015, I said, “Listen, if you’re nervous about opening up your books in full digitally, there is an alternative option,” and I called it the baby step or the bandaid. I said, “You can just have an online form. People can do an appointment request,” and for a time it worked.
What I’m seeing the shift in consumer behavior now is that it’s starting to fail a bit. Now don’t let that make you nervous. It doesn’t mean you have to pull the plug or pull the rug out, but what it means is there may need to be more follow-up. If you do not want to have a traditional online booking experience, which means I go to your website, whether I’m a new client or an existing client, I decide I want to come in to see you in the next few weeks. I pull up the online booking calendar, I book as your site explains to me I should do, I book properly because you’ve explained how to do it properly. Again, that’s on the stylist or the salon, not the client to figure out. But your description was great. I booked the appointment and I’m confirmed and I’ll just see you when I see you.
If your appointment request system is any different than that, we just need to think about how to beef it up to meet clients’ demands. Because if they truly are shopping around, if they really do feel, “Well, shoot, submit a request to be a part of your business,” it feels a bit elitist.
If people are saying, “I just need to know that I can get my roots touched up, I would love to work with Britt, but I don’t know when I’m going to hear back from her,” if that’s the overall feeling, which seems like it might be a thing, we need to think of a different way to follow up, connect, get a faster, more immediate response to these people. I have some data I want to share with you.
I looked up data on what consumers today find to be an acceptable amount of time to wait for a response from a business. This was interesting. These stats come from a company called SuperOffice and it says nearly half of consumers, 46%, expect a company to respond to their inquiry in four hours or less. 12% of consumers expect a response within 15 minutes.
Now, we’re looking at over half of consumers expect you to respond in four hours or less. For some people, even four hours is too much time. How are you when you’re running a business, you’re running a family, you’re running your life going to be doing appointment request forms at a scale when you can respond within four hours or less consistently? And then how are you supposed to do that on your days off? I don’t know how that’s possible for you to sustain a life balance.
Now, some of the things you can do: I’ve seen some fantastic virtual assistants popping up throughout the industry. You can have somebody manage that for you. If you lay out the expectation of, “Listen, my standard is if an appointment request comes in for my business, you need to respond within the hour.” If you find somebody who’s dedicated to you and can pull that off, that may be worthwhile, right?
Now, there’s things like call centers, although I’m not a fan of calling to book an appointment, so you really are looking for more of a digital assistant/VA who might be able to help you with something like that. But that response time is critical if you’re using any kind of form.
If you are going to be using forms, there’s a few things I want you to keep in mind.
If somebody fills out an appointment request form on your website, I suggest an immediate automated text get sent to them to confirm that you’ve received the request, you’ve gotten the info, and that you will respond to them in four hours or less. It’s going to lessen the chance that they’re going to shop around.
I would really suggest if possible doing that as a text instead of an email. There’s a real chance that they’re shooting off the message to you on your website and they’re not in their email, but there’s a really high probability that they’re still on their smartphone, so they will receive that text.
The other thing you can do is an email with a welcome PDF with more information about the salon, nurture them a little bit more, but something that deepens the connection to you and to your business.
The next thing that’s ideal is you want to get them on the books the same day that they inquire, which is not always going to be easy. But if you still want to use online forms, I suggest that you find a system or a way to make that possible. Once somebody has booked either online through a traditional booking experience or they’ve pre-submitted through a form and you’ve ended up getting them on your books, you want to follow up with them before they come in.
Just because somebody’s gotten on your books, you’re not like, “Cool, slam dunk, done.” This leans into the pre-visit guest experience, which we talk about in Thriving Stylist Method. You want to make sure you’re nurturing that person before they even come in because they’re wandering eye may not have stopped, which is why you might get no-shows.
Nurturing that before they come in is critical for those who inquired but did not come in. Those who inquired but ghosted, you do not give up on them. This is the biggest piece I want to nail home in the business world. And like I say, there’s a reason I don’t go to a lot of hair stylist events. It’s because I’m at conferences that are related to more mainstream business.
When you go and look at research and mainstream business and how mainstream business grows in the way that it does, they call those inquiries “leads”. They don’t say ghosted clients or no shows. They call them leads. You need to follow up on those leads potentially for quite a bit of time.
There’s a resource called Databox. It’s a website, and Databox is reporting it usually takes more than two months to complete a sales cycle. The median value of B2B sales is 2.1 months, meaning you may need to nurture that lead for eight weeks before they come in to see you, right? The longer the investment, like the larger the investment—if this is an extension client or somebody who coming in for an expensive vivids application or something like that, or maybe it’s just $400 for a haircut with you, that that sales cycle may even be longer. The bigger the purchase, the longer the sales cycle.
This was a lot of information and mostly I want to share this episode to give you food for thought. I want you to really start thinking about if you were a new guest inquiring about working with your business, how would that new guest experience land for you? How would you feel after filling out a form and making an appointment request? How long would you be willing to wait? Don’t think of it as answering as if you’re the service provider, which you are. Put yourself in the client’s shoes and while you were waiting, would you continue browsing around? Would you consider continue submitting inquiries? Likely if you look back at your previous habits you’ve already have, so it shouldn’t surprise you when clients are doing that.
The shorter we can make that downtime from initial inquiry to on your books, the greater the chances that you’ll secure that booking.
If you do not, if you can’t close that gap and you don’t want to institute immediate or traditional online booking, we need to figure out a leads nurture sequence series format strategy to ensure that those who expressed an interest in your business, you got them so close to the finish line, that we close that deal and we let them know, “I care about you. You mean a lot to me. You weren’t just going to be my Thursday at four. I really wanted you to be a part of my business.”
Clients today are expecting us to do a little bit more, be a little bit more work, a little bit harder. It’s up to you to ensure that you roll out the welcome mat and make sure that those leads get the best possible chance of being a part of your business.
Y’all, that’s it for today. I know this was a loaded one. If you have questions, please, please leave me a rating or review on iTunes. Leave your question in the comments. That’s where I get the inspiration for most of the shows.
As I always like to say, so much love, happy business building, and I’ll see you on the next one.
