Salon owner cancels 1,000 appointments in November
DALE Hollinshead, who runs Hazel and Haydn, a salon in Birmingham, has his work cut out trying to reorganise his business schedule.
Since the Prime Minister’s announcement, he has had to cancel more than 1,000 appointments for November. And he has had more than 150 missed calls from clients and said he is trying to contact everyone so they do not think he is ignoring them.
However, he is reluctant to reschedule haircuts for early December given the possibility that the l ockdown could potentially be extended beyond December 2.
“I am a little anxious of spending hours and hours rescheduling appointments to the date we are supposed to be able to reopen in case we aren’t,” he said.
“After the first lockdown it took me a week and a half of phone calls to reorganise all the appointments.”
He said the Government should give salons ample warning when a firm reopening date is known.
“The more time they give us before reopening the better because we have a lot of people here,” he added. “Organising 14 people’s rotas to be Covid safe isn’t easy.”
He said he has noticed a change in customer habits since the first lockdown and has been inundated with requests from people who want a haircut before the new restrictions come into force.
He said: “November is normally quite a quiet month for us but because of the long period of closure, people’s habits have changed. We were almost fully booked for the whole of November.
“We are trying to accommodate as many people as possible before Thursday.”
Mr Hollinshead said he feared for the community and its businesses.
“It feels like every day you are hearing that another business has decided not to reopen,” he said, on the anniversary of his salon opening.
“This salon is nine years old today and when I think about how much I have integrated into the local business community, one by one they are going.”