As more businesses begin to reopen across Canada, the COVID-19 pandemic is continuing to change the way they’re interacting with customers.
Cash is no longer king; more businesses are accepting cashless or contactless payments to help make transactions more efficient, while limiting the amount of contact between their staff and customers.
No longer accepting cash may seem straightforward, but that’s not always the case! Here are a few things to keep in mind for your salon.
Communicate
As salons reopen, most are calling and/or emailing their clients to inform them of all the changes to expect when they return to the salon. Your new cashless payment policy should be one of them.
Communicating your new policy in advance will help you avoid any unnecessary handling of cash and prevent clients from unexpected surprises when they return to your salon. It’s also important to remind clients of the no-cash policy when they arrive.
Add an Extra Layer of Protection
Consider enabling the contactless “tap” option on your payment terminal to help speed up the processing of payments and limit the contact between the client and the payment terminal. As of April, most credit cards have increased their “tap” transaction limits to $250. Enabling the “tap” feature also allows you to accept contactless payments via a phone or smartwatch.
For extra protection, adding a screen protector (a clear plastic cover) to your payment terminal can help make disinfecting quicker and easier, without having to wipe down the entire device after every transaction.
Tips for Accepting Tips
One area that may be difficult to avoid accepting cash is when clients are tipping—whether it’s because they’ve become accustomed to tipping in cash, or think cash is easier to distribute to their service provider.
Make sure to enable the tip option on your payment terminal. This may seem like an obvious one, but requires some extra work, especially if you’ve enabled the contactless “tap” option on your terminal. Call your payment system’s customer support to help with setting that up.
While some salons would provide small envelopes at the front desk for clients to include tips in, others have already removed these as part of the paperless (eco-friendly) movement. And now you should consider removing these to help speed up the transaction process while limiting your client’s contact with any unnecessary objects or extra surfaces in the salon. Remember: The surfaces that your client is in contact with the most will require extra disinfecting.
Ask clients to provide any cash tips directly to their service provider, who are (or should be) changing their gloves and/or washing their hands after each service.
When All Else Fails…
No matter how much you do to communicate your cashless policy in advance, you may still have a client that only brings cash or demands to pay cash.
• Consider asking them to pre-pay for their appointment.
Did you know? Some salons are asking clients to pre-pay for their appointments (regardless of their payment method) to help speed up the time spent in the salon.
• Have one of your staff designated at your receptionist desk to accept cash payments. This staff member should be wearing gloves, which are changed after every transaction.
Comments are closed.