Should a salon let calls go to voicemail during appointments?
By the Margin Media team · Updated
A salon can let calls go to voicemail during appointments, but it should know who that loses. Regulars leave a message or text their stylist. New clients tend to hang up and try another salon. Voicemail is fair to the client in the chair and costly with the ones you have never met.
Who leaves a voicemail and who doesn't?
Regulars leave voicemails. They know you, they know you're with a client, and they'll wait. A new client has no reason to wait. They wanted a time for a cut or a colour, and a recording can't give them one.
So voicemail filters your callers the wrong way round. It keeps the people who would have come back anyway and drops the ones who were about to become clients.
Isn't answering mid-appointment worse?
Often, yes. A stylist who steps away from a colour to take a booking makes the paying client wait and takes the call in a hurry. The caller hears the dryers and feels like an interruption. Choosing voicemail over that is reasonable. It just isn't the only choice.
What are the options besides voicemail?
The alternatives all do one thing: they give the caller a next step right away, without pulling a stylist off the floor. They differ in how far they take the caller.
- A text sent to the missed caller within a minute, offering to help by message.
- An online booking link on everything the caller sees before they dial.
- An answering service that takes the message in person.
- An AI receptionist that answers, handles the question and books the time.
How does Margin replace a salon's voicemail?
Margin sets up Mia to pick up the calls the team can't. The stylists keep working. The caller gets an answer, an open time and a booking, and the team is told. If the caller wants a person, Mia passes the message on and steps aside.
Anyone who hangs up before speaking gets a text from the salon within a minute. That part begins when phone carriers approve the salon's texting number, a few days to a couple of weeks. Every call and its transcript sits in the portal.
What Margin sets up for this.
- Mia, the AI receptionist, on every call
- Missed calls texted back within a minute
- Booking onto your calendar
What a business needs is decided on its audit. It is a one-time setup fee and a monthly fee, with exact numbers on the audit.
How Margin works for salonsSee the portal with a sample business
Related questions
How quickly should a salon return a missed call?
As fast as it can, and within the hour is a sensible target for a salon. A new client who called three salons books with whichever one reaches them first. A call returned that evening often finds they already have an appointment elsewhere.
Is a missed-call text better than voicemail for a salon?
For new clients, yes. A text arrives while the person is still looking for a salon, and they can reply in a few words. Voicemail asks them to talk to a machine and then wait. A regular is fine with either.
Should a barbershop even bother with a phone line?
A walk-in barbershop can run with very little phone traffic. The calls it does get are worth answering, though: people asking if there's a wait, whether you take appointments, or whether a certain barber is in today.