What do missed calls cost a hair salon?

You're halfway through a colour, your hands are covered, and the salon phone starts ringing. By the time you're free, the caller has already rung the next salon on Google. Most people who can't get through don't leave a message. They just book somewhere else.

It's easy to feel that cost without ever seeing it. Here's a simple way to put a rough number on it.

The four numbers you need

1. How many calls the salon gets in a week.
2. How many of those go unanswered (voicemail, or nobody could get to the phone).
3. How many of the unanswered calls were new clients, not existing clients or sales calls.
4. How many of those new clients rang someone else instead of calling back.

Multiply them together and you have the number of new clients going elsewhere. Then multiply by what a new client is worth to you.

A worked example (made-up numbers, round for ease)

Say a salon gets 30 calls a week and misses one in four. That's about 7 missed calls. If half of those are new clients, that's about 4. If half of those ring another salon instead of trying again, about 2 new clients a week go elsewhere.

To be cautious, assume only half of them would actually have booked. That's about 1 new client a week. If a visit is worth $95 and a regular comes 6 times a year, one new regular is worth around $570 a year.

Why salons feel this more than most businesses

• Hands are busy by definition. A stylist mid-cut can't stop without it showing.
• The calls tend to come when you're busiest, because that's when everyone else is booking too.
• A new client is often a regular for years, so the value of one lost call is bigger than one haircut.
• Friday and Saturday are usually the busiest days for the chair and for the phone.

What you can do about it

• Make sure the voicemail message tells people exactly what to do next, such as a booking link or a promise to call back by a certain time.
• Put an online booking link where people look first: your Facebook page, Instagram bio and Google listing.
• Block out a time each day for return calls, and stick to it.
• Hire a receptionist or use an answering service. This works, but it costs money, and a person isn't there at all hours.
• Use an AI receptionist that answers every call and books straight into your diary.

Where an AI receptionist fits

WorkRoute's AI receptionist, Sarah, answers the phone on about the second ring, takes the client's name and number, asks what they'd like to book (and who they usually see), quotes a price from your own price list and books a time that's actually free. She can handle several stylists working at once, and the client gets a confirmation text.

She isn't a replacement for the personal touch in the chair. She's there so the phone never takes a stylist away from the client in front of them. Anything she can't handle is flagged for you.