Reminder to all clients: Cancellation Policy

This is a bit more informal and much more detailed than what's on the webpage, but I want to address the reason why our cancellation policy exists as it does.

Here's how it works:

• We ask that you give us at least 48-hour's notice for all cancellations/rescheduling requests.
• We require at least 24-hour's notice for non-emergency reasons.
• If you cancel less than 24-hours before your appointment, there is a $25.00 charge.
• If you cancel less than 2 hours before your appointment, or don't show up, the full treatment charge applies.
• Emergencies (as we define them) are of course, forgiven.
• The second time that the client misses an appointment or cancels on short notice, they will have to pay in advance for their treatments. If they miss it, no refund, and we won't reschedule.

So here's why:

Many people forget that we are actually in business. Meaning, we make our living as massage therapists.

I can somewhat understand that. After all, clients are so relaxed when they leave, it's really a treat, so they don't "take it seriously" even though they do value it. Also, our passion for bodywork and skin care really comes through, and we enjoy almost every minute of our work. That's a pretty rare thing, and most people experience it only with their "hobbies" and not their career (sadly).

We make our schedules based on how many appointments we have that day. I personally don't like to take more than four or five hours of bodywork/facials each day. So our schedules are spread out according to client's preferences and needs as well as what we can physically handle as well as allowing for marketing and promotion (such as Chamber of Commerce meetings).

In other words, once you make an appointment with us, we are counting on that income to pay for things like rent, food, massage oil, and so forth.

We don't have the luxury of rearranging our schedule to "fill in" the time that a client is going to miss. (Imagine if you are supposed to come in on a Saturday but I call you to demand that you come Wednesday at 2:00 because Jon Doe cancelled his appointment, and it's already 1:00 on Wednesday. If I can't do that with you, don't assume I can do it with anyone else.) Does that make sense?

And I certainly can't open up the phone book and randomly call someone out of the blue with the same demand. Nor do I have a magic genie lamp that I can rub and wish for a client. (If you have a working genie-lamp for sale, let me know.)

So let's say we've got our week scheduled and you call the night before your 10:00 AM appointment, apologizing because you are too busy to come in, forgot about a meeting at work, or have a tennis match (or whatever). We have no way to recover that $80 (or however much).

Unlike going into a store and buying a $20 lipstick, in which case you pay for a thing, you pay for our time. Yes, some of it is for the service (especially if we have to pay for the product that we're using, as in a chemical peel or regular facial or body wrap) but really you're paying for our time and how many appointments we can take that day based on what we're doing. We can do fewer Deep Tissue massages or Hot Stone massages than relaxation massages, for example. DT because of the physical demands, hot stone because of the time to sanitize and reheat the stones, for example.

A common misconception that people have is thinking, "well, Lizz is making $80 from me for a little over an hour, so x 40 hours in a week =... wow! Where is her Ferarri? She's not going to miss the income from one person."

We can physically only do so much massage each week. Therapists who try to do more than their bodies can handle end up in the extremely high statistics for burn-out rate (usually 2-5 years or less for the average LMT).

The reason why we get to define what the emergency is ... well... have you heard the saying, "lack of planning on your part does not equal an emergency on mine"?

Anyone that's had a job before (which is most of you, right?) and probably some that haven't will have heard this. Imagine if your boss came into you and said, "I forgot to arrange childcare for my children today, so you're not getting a paycheck." Can you imagine? How is that fair to you?

Another policy we have is about lateness. If you are late (under 20 minutes) you'll receive your massage, but it will end at the same time as if you showed up on time. If you are over 20 minutes late, you will be treated as a no-show. Why?

We are almost always completely set up and waiting for our client ten to fifteen minutes before their appointment, and always by the time their appointment is to start. Again, you're paying for our time, so if we're sitting around for twenty minutes plus the time we took to make sure our room was ready beforehand... that can add up to forty minutes of unpaid time.

This is where the lack of planning on a client's part not equalling an emergency for us comes in. Sarasota traffic waxes and wanes seasonally, and rainstorms are a part of life here. Always plan on being early, or schedule your appointment later. Don't wait until the last minute to leave.

How would you feel if you spent your twenty minutes waiting for us, because the last client was late through no fault of yours. You could be pretty angry at us, right? I wouldn't blame you at all. So in fairness to all customers, you'll never be asked to wait because of someone else's mistake unless something really weird happens. (If someone sicks up, or we spill something that needs to be cleaned up, break a glass, have an elderly client that needs a little extra assistance, etc.)


So there is the explanation for our lateness and cancellation policies. I hope you have a better idea of how it works, why it's in place, and the logic behind it. We're not trying to be rule-mongers or anything, we just need to make sure that we can pay our bills, improve our business to better serve our clients, and be fair to others who keep appointments and are on time.

It should also be noted that our rules are pretty standard (and in some cases less stringent!) for the industry.