Why I charge a £25 deposit and how it changed my client base for the better
Willow Ward
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Salon / Hair Studio · Coventry · 3mo ago
I want to be honest about this because I wasted money making the wrong choice first. I started with Phorest when I opened my mobile therapist in London 2 years ago. It looked great on the surface but the client-facing booking page was clunky and I had ten people drop off mid-booking every week. Switched to Appointy 3 months ago and haven't looked back. Here's what the switch actually involved and what I think matters most when choosing a system.
First thing: don't just look at the price. Look at the booking flow from a client's point of view. I had a client tell me my old booking page made her feel like she was filling in a tax return. That stung but she was right. Appointy took me about half a day to set up properly, and within the first week I noticed clients were actually completing their bookings rather than dropping off halfway through.
Second: SMS reminders are non-negotiable. Email reminders get ignored. My no-show rate went from roughly 20% down to almost nothing once I turned on the automated text reminder 48 hours before each appointment. Worth every penny of the monthly cost.
Third: deposits. I introduced a £15 deposit about 3 months after switching and honestly I should have done it from day one. The people who complained were the people who would have wasted my time anyway. My regulars didn't blink.
First thing: don't just look at the price. Look at the booking flow from a client's point of view. I had a client tell me my old booking page made her feel like she was filling in a tax return. That stung but she was right. Appointy took me about half a day to set up properly, and within the first week I noticed clients were actually completing their bookings rather than dropping off halfway through.
Second: SMS reminders are non-negotiable. Email reminders get ignored. My no-show rate went from roughly 20% down to almost nothing once I turned on the automated text reminder 48 hours before each appointment. Worth every penny of the monthly cost.
Third: deposits. I introduced a £15 deposit about 3 months after switching and honestly I should have done it from day one. The people who complained were the people who would have wasted my time anyway. My regulars didn't blink.
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I've been in this industry for 10 years and the switch to online booking was the best operational decision I ever made, full stop. Not even close. The time saving is enormous and the professionalism it adds to your brand is something clients notice and comment on.
#1
This is really relatable. I went through almost the exact same process 18 months ago. The biggest thing for me was realising that the clients who pushed back hardest on deposits were the ones who'd let me down before. Once I saw it that way the decision became very easy.
#2
The point about analytics is underrated. I had no idea which of my services was actually the most profitable until Treatwell showed me the data. It completely changed how I structured my pricing and my service menu.
#3
The no-show stats in this post match my experience almost exactly. I was losing roughly £25 a month to no-shows and cancellations before I introduced deposits. That money was just gone. Now it's protected. The maths on deposits is completely obvious once you see it.
#4