Treatment Room: The Importance of Staying on Time

 This is one of the most common problems with estheticians, either they are too slow and run over the treatment time, or they are too fast and finish the service too early. The key to staying within allotted time frame is to have a clock in the room, or wear a watch and occasionally glance at the time to make sure you are on task. There is nothing worse than finishing early and the client feeling cheated, second to that is going over on time and you are late for your next client because you went well past the end time of the appointment.

How do you stay on time? Well, first you need to know your facials that you give. If you are working for someone else they will run through the facials and how long those facials should take, and you MUST do it according to their instructions and time table.

If you work for yourself and you've chosen the facials it is even more important that you practice these facials on friends and family first. You want to know exactly how long each facial will take you, and tweak it as necessary. You might find that you put 60 minutes in your menu of services for one facial, but find that you really need 75 minutes for that facial. Or maybe a facial you had done for 60 minutes only needs 45 minutes. Practice makes perfect, practice on friends not on customers.

What do you do if you are in the middle of a treatment and you realize you are going to finish way too early? Do add on's like hand exfoliation and masks, do an extra mask on the face, and/or do an extra long massage. Do whatever it takes to keep the customer relaxed and pampered so she doesn't realize you are struggling to extend the service.

What do you do if you are running behind during a treatment?
This one is worse because the customer may have somewhere she has to be immediately following the appointment. In addition, you do not want to get in the habit of running late because you will lose other customers when you have to tell them you will be just a few more minutes. Customers expect punctuality---they don't care how good of a service give you--be on time.