Planning services and durations: buffers, processing time, breaks

Why realistic durations make such a difference

On the phone you plan by feel: “I know her, that takes an hour.” With online booking, the duration you entered for the service decides. If it's too short, the next appointment lands right after it, and every small delay carries through the rest of the day.

If the duration is a little generous, not much happens: now and then you finish five minutes early, sweep up calmly or have a coffee. When in doubt, plan slightly too long rather than too short.

Measure your own times

Estimates tend to be optimistic, because you remember the appointments that went smoothly. A better approach: for one week, note how long your main services really take, from greeting the client to taking payment. A sheet of paper next to the till is enough.

Then don't take the fastest time but one you can manage on most days. If a men's cut usually takes 25 minutes and sometimes 35, plan with 30 rather than 25.

When several people work in a team, their times often differ. In Kammzeit a service has one duration for everyone who offers it. Choose it so that the slowest person on the team can manage it too.

Build in buffers

An appointment is more than the cut itself. There's also:

• greeting, taking the coat, a short consultation,
• washing the hair,
• taking payment and booking the next appointment,
• tidying the station, sweeping up hair, cleaning tools.

These minutes come with every appointment, even if they feel small. Include them in the duration of the service. Five to ten minutes per appointment is a useful starting point that you adjust after a few weeks.

Kammzeit has no separate buffer field; the buffer is part of the duration. The client then sees 45 minutes, for example, even if you only cut for 35 of them. That's fine, because the time belongs to the appointment.

Processing time for colour

For colour, toners or perms, there's also processing time. It depends on the product, meaning the manufacturer's instructions, and on the hair. A root colour with a cut could look like this:

Use your own values for each step. Processing time is the only part you can't speed up.

While the colour processes, your hands are free, and it's tempting to fit in a second client. Kammzeit, however, plans one appointment after another for each staff member. The calendar doesn't allow overlapping appointments for the same person, not even when you add them yourself. So the processing time blocks the whole slot. Use it for preparation, returning calls or a short break. If working on other clients during processing time is essential for your salon, you should know that Kammzeit doesn't currently support it.

Variants instead of one duration for everything

A cut on a chin-length bob takes a different amount of time from one on waist-length hair. If you create just one service called “Women's cut” with a single duration, the time will often be wrong. Create variants instead:

• by hair length: short, medium, long,
• by scope: “cut only” or “wash, cut and blow-dry”,
• frequent combinations as a service of their own, such as “Root colour with cut”.

The last point matters in Kammzeit: clients book one service per appointment. So anything that's often booked together becomes its own service with the total duration.

Use the description to explain what's included and who the variant is for: “For hair up to shoulder length, including wash and blow-dry.” That helps people choose. Still, keep the list manageable. Anyone who has to scroll through thirty entries will end up calling anyway. Combine services that take about as long and cost about the same.

Protect your breaks

If every free minute can be booked, sooner or later it will be. So make your breaks a fixed part of your working hours. In Kammzeit each staff member can have two time blocks per day, for example 9:00 to 13:00 and 13:45 to 18:00. Nothing can be booked in between.

• Minimum notice: if clients have to book at least an hour ahead, no appointment will surprise you while you're eating.
• End of the day: let your working hours end when the last appointment should be finished at the latest. Kammzeit only offers times at which the whole service still fits within working hours.

Example: a list of services

This is what a small list of services for a hair salon might look like. The prices are made up and only for illustration. Your prices depend on your location, costs, training and products.

Show prices clearly

• Show final prices. Private clients should see the price they will actually pay, including any VAT.
• Use “from” prices sparingly. If the price depends heavily on the work involved, a “from” price is honest. Say what it depends on. Variants with fixed prices are better still. In Kammzeit you enter a fixed amount; if you need a “from”, put it in the name or the description.
• A price list in the salon. Regardless of your booking page, many EU countries require service prices to be displayed in the salon or made available before the service. Check what applies where you work.
• Check price and duration together. If a service regularly takes longer than planned, the price is often too low as well. Work out what an hour at your station costs you.

Adjust after four weeks

Your first values are a draft. After a few weeks, look at your calendar: for which services do you regularly fall behind? Make those longer. Where are you almost always finished early? Make those shorter. After two or three rounds like this, your calendar matches your real working day.