Business Practices & Marketing Readiness for Salons

Use the time you are closed to update cancellation policies, waiting room layouts, booking programs, and language changes for your website and materials. Keep your clients informed of the changes you’ve made to ensure their safety and any measures they are required to take in order to book an appointment with you.

Communicating with Clients

• Once you have finalized your plans to reopen, including a deep clean, new protocols, and new policies, add it to your website, prepare client emails, and create social media posts with similar messaging.
• Share an overview of your sanitation protocols with clients.
• Create a client education document about salon scheduling guidelines and any new protocols clients need to follow such as wearing a mask during appointments or waiting in the car until their appointment start time.
• Cancellation policies and booking language should be adapted and updated on forms, website pages, and booking platforms. Here is some sample language:
  • New Cancellation Policy sample language:
    Amid the ongoing uncertainty of COVID-19, we have modified our cancellation policy to offer greater flexibility to all our clients. We hope this will alleviate any stress and hesitation you have about an upcoming appointment. If you need to reschedule for whatever reason, and especially if you are not feeling well, we understand and request for you to please contact us as soon as possible to reschedule. To further support you, there will be no penalties for cancellations.
  • New Booking Policy sample language:
    Due to COVID-19, we are temporarily limiting the number of daily appointments. The health and safety of our clients and staff is very important to us. For this reason, walk-in appointments will not be accepted and clients who are not currently receiving a service will be asked to step out in order to control the number of people within the salon/spa/clinic. If you are experiencing a fever, cough, or sore throat, please reschedule your appointment for when you are no longer symptomatic. If you have been to a COVID-19 impacted area or have been in close contact with a person infected with COVID-19, we ask that you please reschedule your appointment for 14 days past the date of contact. Please note, we are requesting that clients wear face coverings when they arrive for their appointments.

Business Changes

• Revise your hours as appropriate to accommodate changes to your pre- and post-service protocols, as well as to eliminate the number of clients in your space. If a sole proprietor/booth renter, leave 15 minutes between clients for sanitation and disinfection protocols. If in a salon with multiple cosmetologists, stagger appointment start times to limit the number of clients in the waiting area, and avoid double booking clients during chemical processing. Leave 15 minutes for sanitation and disinfection protocols. Clients should be asked to arrive no earlier than 5 minutes before their scheduled appointment time to reduce exposure to other clients.
• Utilize every other station and every other shampoo bowl so as to maintain 6–10 feet social distance between you and your client, and the other cosmetologists and their clients. Once a shampoo bowl has been used, place a marker on the bowl to indicate it needs to be sanitized so that the next person knows not to use it.
• Consider a touchless pay system. If not possible, clean touch pad after each transaction with vendor-approved cleaning solutions. Move away from a cash business; if your tips typically come in cash, leave discrete envelopes at the front desk for clients to deposit tips into. Cosmetologists should not touch their cash until the end of day, and only when gloved and able to handle properly.
• Populations that are especially vulnerable to COVID-19 may have stricter and extended shelter-in-place recommendations. This includes clients who are 65 years and older, and those with conditions such as heart disease, lung disease, diabetes, and suppressed immune systems.
  • Here is sample language if you feel more comfortable asking these most at-risk clients to wait a little longer before returning to see you:
    In accordance with extended shelter-in-place recommendations to protect our more vulnerable populations, I am not working with clients with compromised immune systems, clients aged 65 or above, or clients in other elevated at-risk categories at this time.