People who ring a salon, studio or clinic after closing time do not expect you to pick up. They expect three things: a way to leave their request without having to try again tomorrow, a clear idea of when they will hear back, and a reply by mid-morning on the next working day. Meet those three and after-hours calls become some of your easiest bookings. Miss them, with a full mailbox or a greeting that promises nothing, and the caller books with whoever made it easiest at 9 pm.
Who rings after hours, and why
Keep a log for a month of every call that comes in outside your hours: the time and, where you can tell, what it was about. Most businesses find the same mix:
- Bookings. People who work all day and only sit down to organise their week in the evening or on a Sunday.
- Cancellations and moves. Someone who has just realised tomorrow will not work.
- Questions. Prices, hours, parking, whether you do a particular service.
- Same-day hopes. Usually for the next morning: a massage client in pain, or a brow emergency before an event.
The cancellations are the most valuable to catch early, because a slot freed at 8 pm can still be offered to someone the next morning. The bookings are the most valuable to answer well, because the caller is ready to commit right now.
Give them a way in
Every after-hours caller should have at least one way to leave their request that takes less than a minute:
- A greeting that points somewhere. Say your business name, that you are closed, when you will reply, and one other way to reach you, such as a text to the same number or your booking link.
- A booking page. Requests sent at night are waiting for you in the morning, with the client's own words about when suits.
- An answered line. The call is picked up, the request or message is taken, and you get the details as a text.
Whatever you choose, test it once a month by ringing your own number after closing.
Promise a reply time, and keep it
A vague promise to get back to people is not a time. "We reply to every message by 10 am the next day we're open" is. That second sentence is easy to keep if you build a short routine into the start of each working day:
- Cancellations first, because those slots can still be filled today or tomorrow. Check your waitlist for each one.
- Same-day requests next, while there is still a day to fit them into.
- Booking requests, confirmed by text with a time.
- Questions last.
Fifteen minutes before the first client is usually enough. On a Monday after a weekend it may take thirty.
Do not answer at 10 pm
It is tempting to reply the moment a message arrives at night, especially from a new client. Do it once or twice and clients learn that you are open at 10 pm. A morning reply sent at a set time is better for you and, as long as it arrives when you said it would, perfectly acceptable to the client. If you draft replies at night, schedule them to send in the morning.
Count after-hours notice fairly
If your cancellation policy asks for 24 hours, a message left at 9 pm counts from 9 pm, not from when you read it at 8:30 the next morning. Say so in the policy. Clients who did the right thing by telling you in the evening should never be charged for the hours you were asleep.
A worked example
Nightjar Massage is a two-therapist clinic that closes at 7 pm on weekdays and at 1 pm on Saturdays, and does not open on Sundays. The owner logged four weeks of calls outside those hours: 46 in all. Twenty-four were people wanting to book, 9 were cancelling or moving, 8 were questions about prices, hours or health fund rebates, and 5 were about other things.
All 46 had gone to voicemail, and only 11 callers left a message. The owner reached some of the others the next day from the missed call list, and in the end 6 of the 24 would-be bookings became appointments.
The clinic changed its greeting to name the reply time and give the booking link, and diverted after-hours calls to an answered line that takes the request. The next four weeks brought a similar 44 calls. This time 20 of the 23 callers wanting to book left their details, and 15 became appointments. At the clinic's average of $110, that is 9 more appointments than before, or $990 of work in four weeks. And of 8 after-hours cancellations, 5 were refilled the next morning.
Mistakes to avoid
- A full mailbox. It tells callers nobody is listening. Clear it daily.
- A greeting with no time in it. Callers who do not know when they will hear back assume the worst.
- Inconsistent replies. Answering some messages at 9 am and others at 3 pm teaches clients to ring somewhere else next time.
- Forgetting holidays. Before a closure, change the greeting and your hours everywhere. The guide on opening hours that match your bookings covers how.
On the Line and Salon plans, Glow Line's assistant answers at any hour: it gives your hours, takes a booking request for a day you are open, or takes a message, and the text is waiting for you in the morning. See the answered line.
What to do this week
- Start a log of every after-hours call for a month.
- Rewrite your voicemail greeting with your business name, the reply time and one other way to reach you.
- Put a fifteen-minute after-hours routine at the start of each working day.
- Add a line to your cancellation policy saying notice counts from when the message was sent.
- Read the glossary entry on the after-hours call, and see how massage therapists handle callers in pain who want the soonest time.