So the last few days have seen the fluid situation of the Coronavirus outbreak shift and after some serious consideration of an immediate shutdown, we have weighed our relative risks and decided to make some changes to the protocols we announced in our last post to protect our community without losing all our income immediately and making our clients sad!
Our new measures take some of the options previously offered as now mandatory, plus adding some new requirements:
- Please avoid using public transport to come to the salon. Driving, cycling, walking and rideshare are all acceptable. Cycling (or ebiking) makes us happiest! 🙂
- Washing hands thoroughly with soap & water on arrival will be required by all clients, no exceptions.
- Masks are required to be worn by clients at all times during appointments. Single use disposable masks are currently available for clients at no charge but if you have your own please bring with you – we only have so many! If you have your own disposable one we can spray with alcohol for you to make more sanitary.
- Customers are requested to not eat or drink during their appointment (which is not possible while wearing a mask anyway!) We are sad about this as we do love to offer you tea coffee and treats, and are usually happy for you to bring your own food and drink in too, but it is a higher risk than we want to take in the current situation.
- Staff will wear masks during all appointments, and no staff will work if even slightly sick.
- Only one staff member and one client will be present at any time in the salon, to minimise as much as possible any risk of infection, and we will distance as much as practical during appointments. We can afford to do this as a small salon.
- Please do not bring any other person into the salon with you when you come for your appointment.
- All styling stations fully cleaned between clients with 100% isopropyl alcohol, which we have always had in the salon for cleaning (though we also use and recommend probiotic cleaners too!)
- if you have been caretaking a sick relative or friend within the last 7 days, please cancel your appointment.
- If you are not feeling well yourself, PLEASE cancel your appointment! – we definitely appreciate your thoughtfulness: and we WILL ask clients who are visibly not well on arrival to go home, for the protection of our staff and community. We really would appreciate not being put in that awkward position, though.
- We will communicate these new requirements to all clients before their appointment, so they have a chance to decline if the requirements are too stringent. But we want all our clients to understand their health and the health of our community is of the utmost importance to us.
We also want our clients to be aware there is the potential and even likelihood of all salons being shut by government order if the pandemic risk grows too great, as has happened in several countries and cities. Be prepared for this.
If we are required to close, we would like to be able to continue to pay staff a percentage of the wages they would be earning if working, so we are offering something special to our clients: if your appointment is rescheduled, we offer you the ability to make a 25% deposit on this appointment. When we are able to service you, your appointment will then have a 25% discount on the balance – a thankyou for your trust in us. Of course you do not need to take us up on that offer if you don’t want to – but we know many of us will be doing it rough for the foreseeable future and want to acknowledge that.
So that’s our plan for now. We will update here if things change. Stay safe!
Cass @ Wildilocks
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