due Friday 10 Am plagiarism free

Name

Scheduling Policies

MGT 6OO

2/01/2014

Dr. Darren D. Davis

Scheduling Policies

Introduction

According to the National Archives and Records Administration (2006) Satisfaction Survey, scheduling influences customers’ satisfaction by a rate of 78%. Most salons influence customers’ satisfaction by constantly monitoring appointments based on the number of clients they see on a weekly, daily or monthly basis to ensure that the material, products and the number of employees required to meet customer’s needs are available.

Nevertheless, in the case of salons, there is the possibility that scheduling policies go beyond customers’ satisfaction to influence customer compliance. Clients may request for appointments and never show up. This implies that the services ordered although sometimes not paid in full are not used. However, this does not stop the salons managers from paying the on-site employees who have wasted their time waiting for the client, although they do not contribute to generating revenue or meeting the pay costs.

In cases where the losses are substantial in the sense that they may amount to up to $20K annual losses when a no-show day of 50 dollars occurs, salons have to come up with measures to mitigate the costs. One of the measures is charging the clients half or the entire fee prior to the appointment day and informing the client about the partial refund or entire non-refund of the fee for failing to show up for an appointment (Bennett, 2012). This implies that the clients have two options; to comply with the appointment or risk losing the cash they have fully or even partially parted with for the services expected. This raises the question, in what ways do scheduling policies influence customer compliance?

Literature Review

According to Indian Institute of Technology (2013), in some scheduling policies, there are resources, which managers can re-assign with some level of frequency. This may happened when demand and supply do not match, for instance in the case where one of them is either high or low. This solves most scheduling/resource allocation problems and there may no need to focus on customer compliance. For example, taking the case of no show-up, if a salon has adapted a policy where its manager can assign resources with frequency, there would be no need to allow the clients to comply with the appointment. The salon manager could assign an employee to another client or other job tasks.

However, the Indian Institute of Technology (2013) note that there are always gaps between the scheduling policy desires and the mechanisms available to execute them. Such gaps include conflicting goals, such as in the case of salons who want to maximize on their resources by generating compliance over complying with the client’s last minute no-show. In addition, for most scheduling policies to work, they have to adhere to resource allocation principles, which mandate strictness in priority, dividing resource and timing the allocation of the resource to avoid inconveniences. Such strictness must reflect on how businesses deal with customers, as most of the resources allocated go towards meeting customers’ needs. In the case of salons, this means that the salon’s management cannot accommodate missed appointments, which clients fail to cancel on time. This destabilized the allocation of resources because some resources, as employees have no maximal utility to the business. In addition, revenues are not appropriately located because salon managers pay employees for a job not completed. Under such circumstance, salon managers must formulate strict scheduling policies that encourage employee compliance to ensure maximal utility of the resources available.

According to the University of Wisconsin (2014), most strict scheduling policies operate under assumptions that drive customer compliance. One of the assumptions is FIFO- First-In-First-Out. This means that clients who book their appointments early or come into the salon first get to receive their services first. Policies based on FIFO send a strong message to salon clients. If they miss their appointment, they have to wait until another slot/chance comes up. Else, salon managers or stylists cannot fix appointments at the expense of other clients. Such policies enable clients realize that a salon operates under a strict schedule. Hence, missing an appointment is never encouraged. In addition, the STFCF, Shortest Time-to Completion First assumption applies. This means that if the client misses or is late for appointment, the employee has the right to take on the other client or any other work if available to save time/use less time in work activities. If this happens, the employee has to finish offering services to the client, even if the client expected to come in for the appointment arrives. The employees continue offering the client on appointment the services ordered after he/she is done with the other client. In most cases, in salons, this does not take place because of the arrival of a client whose appointment is next. Starting offering services to the late client sabotages the timing of the services offered to the next client. In this regard, the late client has no option but to leave. To avoid such inconvenience, the client has to be on time, thus encouraging compliance.

As Indian Institute of Technology (2013) show, the importance of general planning of scheduling mechanisms cannot be understated in its effect in garnering compliance. This implies understanding where and how scheduling occurs, exposing scheduling decisions to allow control and accounting the consumption of resources to encourage intelligent control. Successful salon owners know this best, as they invest their time defining strategies and developing plans to execute the strategies. Daily, weekly and monthly, they focus on having a clear image or goals on the general planning the scheduling mechanisms. Most have developed personalized scheduling policies and practices that covertly encourage compliance. Among them, include:

I. Having A Set of Rules

In dealing with the no-shows, unless guided by the salon’s policies, many stylists have their own rules. For the rules to work, most have to stick to them, show consistency and make it apparent to clients about the rules. When it comes to consistency and sticking to the rules, stating that you charge partial or full prices for any appointments missed do not generate compliance. Implementing the rules by charging those who miss appointment is effective as it discourages them from missing the appointments (Frost, 2013).

II. Having a No-Show Policy

No-show policies crafted by salons notify clients of the intended consequences of missing or being late for an appointment prior to making any booking. Such consequences may include fining a client or cutting out a service included in the appointment to compensate for the time wasted waiting for the client without a refund for the service cut out (Frost, 2013).

III. Requesting for Deposits

Deposits are a sign of commitment. Therefore, to ensure that clients will turn up for appointments, some salons request non-refundable deposits, especially on appointment that cover extensive time and are high in costs. Compliance goes hand in hand with customer satisfaction. Therefore, for first timers, rebooking options are offered, followed by warning to ensure that they get a chance to get their services, as well as, comply with the appointment (Frost, 2013).

IV. Wise Use of Time

As highlighted in the discussion above, the use of time could change the way resources are used to influence compliance. A salon manager could call other customers in need of urgent services to fill in the appointment of the missing client. This requires that the manager keep a list of clients in need of short notice services in various days. The manager can send texts on time availability through the salon scheduling software. This may encourage compliance, as customers who are late or miss their appointments will know that there is no room for missed or late appointments (Frost, 2013).

V. Creativity

Scheduling policies require creativity to garner compliance. If a salon manager is uncomfortable charging clients upfront, the option of imposing penalty may seem viable. For example, a manager may impose a three-strikes-rule where the salon rejects appointments coming from clients who fail to show for appointment three times. Optionally, a salon could add fee when a client comes for the next service or consider imposing a full fee on a missed appointment. If one method does not work, the salon manager should try a couple of them or devise new options until compliance is attained (Frost, 2013).

VI. Confirm

Making confirmation calls may not seem effective but they may encourage compliance. Conformation calls is a professional gesture that lets clients know that a salon or stylist is serious with work and adheres to the highest professional standards. The client is more likely to reciprocate professionalism and refrain from missing an appointment (Frost, 2013).

VII. Setting Limits

As much as the customer is the king and takes precedence in business relations, it is crucial to know when to uphold no-show rules and procedures. Clients try to talk a stylist or a manager’s out of the decision to stop offering them their services. Some try making promises, which they are likely not to keep. Once a stylist or a salon manager observes a client’s trend in not keeping appoints, he/she should firmly decide on the measure to take. Otherwise, there would be a repetitive cycle of non-compliance as clients get used to the idea that the salon is not stringent in its ‘no-show’ policies (Frost, 2013).

Research Limitations

There are barely any researches conducted on salons’ scheduling policies. Much reliance is on connecting scheduling policy theory with theories written on salons, their practices and operations. This makes it increasingly difficult to garner varied perceptions on the influence of scheduling policies on customer compliance, let alone come up with a synthesized approach to compliance-encouraging scheduling policies suitable for my business.

Research purpose/interest

Increasingly, non-compliance results to increased incidents of no-show. These result in decreased revenue as the customers may not pay for the time wasted while the salon may be mandated to pay employees who have not worked for the time wasted. Considering the importance of scheduling policies on compliance, the aim of this study would be exploring one of the mechanism that underlie scheduling policies, which is the probability of customers to compensate for the loss incurred. Specifically, this study will focus on exploring whether I could convince my clients to offer compensation to cater for the loss incurred whenever they miss appointments.

Rationale

The rationale behind the research lies with the question, whether changing my scheduling policies affects the compliance of my client.

Based on the relevance and scope of the study, customer compliance will be the dependent variable while scheduling policies stands out as the independent variable. Guided by the rational question, the hypothesis states is that changing scheduling policies have an influence on customer compliance. However, clients can opt to adhere or fail to honor the new policies. I have not been regularly charging for no-show ups or late arrivals. However, considering the negative effect it has had on my business, I intend to examine the scheduling policies options and customer compliance. This will help me to determine whether changing scheduling policies negatively or positively influences customer compliance.

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References

Bennett, K. (2012). The high cost of no-show customers. Retrieved from http://www.examiner.com/article/the-high-cost-of-no-show-customers

Frost, S. (2013). Recapturing salon cancellations: Turning no-shows in to profits. Retrieved from http://www.i-salonsoftware.co.uk/blog/84/recapturing-salon-cancellations-turning-no-shows- in-to-profits/

Indian Institute of Technology. (2013). Scheduling policies. Retrieved from http://www.cse.iitd.ernet.in/~sbansal/os/previous_years/2013/lec/l-scheduling-policies.html

National Archives and Records Administration. (2006). NARA records scheduling and appraisal services: Customer satisfaction survey report. Retrieved from http://www.archives.gov/records-mgmt/policy/survey06-report.pdf

The University of Wisconsin. (2014). Scheduling Introduction. Retrieved from http://pages.cs.wisc.edu/~remzi/OSTEP/cpu-sched.pdf