How to implement your price change in a professional manner
Now that you’ve decided to change your rates, and you know what that change is going to be, it’s time to make the change. (If you need help knowing what your rate should be, check out How to Determine Your Prices.)
This article will cover best practices for professionally changing your prices so it is minimally disruptive to your business, and as well received by your customers as possible.
Timeline For The Change
If you’re not sure when to raise your rates, back up and read When To Raise Your Prices. If you’ve already read that, and you have determined the month you will raise your rates, it’s time to do some planning.
It’a always best to make these changes with lots of notice. They should not be a surprise to you or your customers.
My general advice, and my own personal practice, is to give at least 30 days notice to my existing customer base.
Here’s how this works in my real life practice: every October, our rates go up. Around October 1st, I send out an email notification with the rate changes. And for my existing customers, the new rates goes into effect November 1st.
For all new customers, they pay the new rate if their appointment is on October 1st or after. Because they are new to the practice, they don’t know the rate changed. So when I talk to them on the phone, starting in September because we’re all booked weeks out, I quote them the new price.
By giving my existing customers an extra month at the old rate, it makes the price increase less sudden, easier to handle, and people are much more likely to just roll with it. It also gives them a chance to come in at the old rate for 30 extra days, which people do take advantage of, and it gives people a chance to buy packages or specials at the old rate, which people also do take advantage of.
I encourage this, because those packages or specials will often carry people into November or December, and by then they’ve sort of forgotten about the price increase, and they’re much more likely to just pay the new rate.
You can handle the specific timeline however you fell is appropriate for your business, but I strongly encourage you to give people a lot of notice. A little ways below, I break down my complete timeline as an example for your own use.
Updating Your Website
It’s important to make sure your website is current, up-to-date, and reflects an accurate picture of your practice. That must include your rates.
Because my schedule is to the point that I am booked weeks in advance, and my staff now are booked two or three weeks out, I have started updating my website to reflect my new rates about 30 days ahead of time.
For me, this is around September 1st. I publish the new rates, and I specify when the rates go into effect. Something like “Rates as of October 1, 2022” near the top of the page.
Occasionally when people call in September, they ask if they can get in during the month of September and what the old rate would be. If I can honestly get someone an appointment in September, I tell them so, and I tell them the old rate. But it hasn’t worked out this way in several years.
If you’re still building your schedule, and you have more availability, you may not want to update your website until a week or two before your new rates go into effect. Or perhaps you want to wait until the day of your new rates.
Whatever you do, make sure it’s appropriate to your business, and have a plan. Use your schedule to plan when you need to do these steps, make sure they happen on time, and always be prepared.
Updating Your Software
In my business, I’ve used MassageBook and Square for many years. Whatever software you use for online scheduling or credit card processing, or both, you need to update your rates there as well. Not only do people need to be able to see your current rate, you need to be able to check out the appointment at the new rate when it becomes time to do so.
I update MassageBook to our new rates at the same time I update my website, usually. Sometimes I wait until much closer to October 1st. The decision on this is based on how booked my schedule is. If I’m pretty much booked for the month, I’ll go ahead and update early. If not, I wait until closer to the date the rate change goes into effect. I always update Square the day the rates go into effect (or the night before).
For me, because I offer existing customers a 30-day grace period, on October 1st (the date my new rate goes into effect), I go in and update all existing appointments to the new rate. Then when I check out the appointment of an existing customer, I use the discount “Last Year’s Rate” and discount to the old rate. Then when they see their receipts during that month, they know they are getting a deal because they have been a customer for a while. This also helps with people staying and paying the new rate when the grace period is over.
A Note About MassageBook
In MassageBook, when you book an appointment, nothing about that appointment changes unless you manually update it. For example, if on September 10th I book a 60-minute massage for October 3rd, and I have the rate in MassageBook set to $85 for a 60-minute appointment, when I go to check out that appointment on October 3rd, the rate will be $85. If my new rate is $90 as of October 1st, I have to go in and manually update the appointment so the new rate is reflected.
Other software systems likely work the same way. Be sure to take this step and update all your existing appointments on the day (or the night before) your new rate takes effect.
Example Timeline
As mentioned, you’re welcome to do as you feel is best in your own practice. But here is an example of my real-life timeline that might be helpful to you.
September 1st: Update my website with my new rates
October 1st: Update my online booking system with my new rates, send email to existing customers notifying them of increased rate, new rate goes into effect for any new appointments from this date forward, update pricing in Square
November 1st: New rate goes into effect for my existing customers, everyone is now paying the new rate, email to existing customers reminding them the new rate takes effect today
Notifying Your Customers
This is one of the most asked questions. It can be so intimidating to tell your customers that you’re raising your prices. What do you say? How do you say it? When do you let them know? Once you tell them, won’t they just cancel their appointments?
This is simpler than you might imagine, if you have a plan. And if you draw on best practices from others who have been doing it year after year for longer than you have.
What Do You Say?
I’ve tried many versions of notification over the years. In the very early days of my practice, I wrote a letter. In the letter, I mentioned a couple of major events or milestones of the past year, such as a new offering or service, and hinted at something I planned to do in the coming year, such as training on a new service I planned to offer or hiring new staff.
I’ve linked to the template I have for you to use to get you started. I encourage you to use this as just a starting point, and to make your letter your own. Talk to your patients as if they were sitting right in front of you. Make it as personal as is appropriate, and always make it about them. They don’t care about your successes in business. They care about how you’re able to take care of them. It’s all about them. Always.
In the letter, explain the changes that you’re making. Most years you’ll just be increasing your base rates. One year you might stop offering monthly specials, or stop offering packages, or offering a bunch of discounts. Just briefly, succinctly outline the changes.
Always conclude the letter with excitement about how much better you’ll be able to serve them in the coming year, and a sincere gratitude for them trusting you with their care.
How Do You Say It?
It is hard to convey tone in a written letter. But I always encourage you to write like you talk, and write as if you are talking to a real person, in real life. Pretend your favorite customers are sitting right in front of you. What would you say to them? How would you talk to them?
In additional to a personal, direct tone, always use professional language, proper spelling and grammar, and I always prefer a more formal formatting style. You are a professional, and I always recommend you represent your business this way in everything you do.
When Do You Let Them Know?
My recommendation is always to give about 30 days notice of a rate increase or any significant changes to pricing. If it’s more appropriate, you may give as much as 45 days, or about six weeks, but any more than that is too much. It’s too far away for you to be able to use it strategically, and people will forget until they’re paying for their appointment. You never want your rate changes to come as a surprise, even if they “were notified.” When people get surprised with a negative, they’ll stop buying.
Once You Tell Them, Won’t They Just Cancel Their Appointments?
No. The short answer is truly, “No.” Not like you think they will.
Yes, you will lose people over time, and for all kinds of reasons. Some of them will stop coming because they can’t afford your services anymore. A $5 increase won’t be enough to really impact very many people at all. A $10 increase might, but it will be fewer people than you worry it will be.
If you give people ample notice, if you give your existing base a grace period at the old rate, and if you make small increases each year, you’ll retain the majority of your customer base. Those that drop off will make room on your schedule for new people who will happily pay your new rate.
Mistakes To Avoid
These are, generally, the biggest mistakes to avoid. Certainly, this is a situation that could be badly handled in other ways. But if a sincere therapist endeavors to follow the best practice guidelines outlined in this article, and avoids these four key mistakes, notifying your customers of your new rate will be easier and less stressful than you might imagine.
Short Notice
In general, giving very little notice, or worse, no notice, of a rate change is a very bad move. Not only does it convey to your customers that you are disorganized, it tends to have an air of greediness to it. Or desperation. Even if those are not the motivation behind your rate increase, that will be what your customers are thinking.
To avoid this, plan to give about 30 days notice. By contrast, this conveys an air of a planned change, a reasoned and needed change, and allows people to plan how they can continue with your services.
Too Much Notice
As mentioned, if you give too much notice, people will forget about the change until they’re standing right in front of you with too little cash in their hand to pay for the appointment they just had. Or they will feel pinched because they have just so much left in their bank account and it’s enough to cover the appointment, a tip, and the gas they need on the way home, and with the new rate, they really can’t afford to leave a tip, but that makes them feel bad, but it cuts into their gas budget. This is bad, and this is what causes people to cancel with you going forward.
Give a reasonable notice, send a reminder, and avoid putting people in situations that make them feel scared, unprepared, embarrassed, or otherwise negative about the experience they just had with you.
Large Increases
Under almost all circumstances I would advise you to avoid a very large increase. I would loosely define “large” as $15 or more.
It may be that your practice was not charging appropriately from the beginning, and now that you’ve done the work to Determine My Prices you’re due for a rate correction. This is handled slightly differently (see below), and it will have an impact on your practice.
Base your increase on your actual expenses. The majority of the time, you’re going to plan for a $10 increase, or thereabouts. If you legitimately have upcoming expenses that cause you to require an increase of $15 or more, consider trying one or more of these options:
-Reduce your business savings by a small amount and put the difference toward your expenses. That money is already coming in, so that would require a lesser increase from your customers
-Increase $10 this year, and roll out another $10 increase 1-2 months early next year. I have had to do this a couple of times in my practice. It meant I had to be strategic with my funds for those ten months, but it allowed me to retain most of my customer base and continue building my practice. For me, that was worth the trouble rather than pushing out an increase that was too big to absorb for my customers, causing them to cancel and go elsewhere.
Ways To Notify Your Customers
The most common method of notifications like this is email. If you have a texting system set up and all of your customers are in that database, you could text the notification, but email is more common and largely the standard. If you’ve done business or signed up with any major company in the last couple of years, you’ve been sent emails about updates to terms of service, privacy policies, and changes in prices. This will be the same thing for your customers.
You can send an email from your regular email account and blind copy (HIPAA) each of your customers, or you can send an email through your email service, like MailChimp, or whichever one you’re using.
If you’re not collecting email addresses from your customers, that’s an enormous oversight you need to rectify immediately. And if you’re not building an email list, that is also something you should begin doing straight away.
Check out the Templates for ideas on how to word your notification to your customers.
Losing Some Customers
Part of doing business is the reality that customers will come and go. This is true of all business. And if you plan to be in business a long time, this will certainly be true for you.
Your customers will leave for all kinds of reasons, too. I’ve lost customers after moving to a new location, changing my appointment hours, changing the services I offer, price increases over time, and probably a lot of other things I may or may not even be aware of. Usually it’s not personal, so don’t take it personally.
If you roll out your price increase in a planned, predicable manner, you’ll be surprised how few people actually leave. Some years I’ve lost exactly zero appointments due to a price increase.
Something else that is true: Every time I lose a customer who can’t or won’t pay my new rate, within a very short time, those open spots are filled with one, two, three, or more people who are happy to have found me and really need my help.
I always include in my notification an invitation to speak with me personally if someone is unable to pay the new rate. Occasionally, people do ask, and I am willing to make adjustments on a case-by-case basis, within parameters that work for me. These arrangements are always private and usually short-lived.
As an example, a couple of weeks ago, a woman emailed me asking how we might modify her treatment schedule because she was feeling a financial pinch between our appointments and the acupuncture appointments I recommended she do. I offered her the option of a larger cash discount (I normally offer $5 off for cash, but I offered her $10 off) and if she paid for three or more appointments at a time, I’d take $15 off each one. This is a special arrangement I made with just her, in private, and I’m willing to reduce my rate by $15 each for those three appointments.
Perhaps you might also be able and willing to offer such a solution on an individual basis if someone is really struggling, and perhaps not. This is totally personal to you, your business, and your philosophies.
One note: if you do plan to make such offers, do so quietly. If it becomes common knowledge that you’re willing to knock $15 off each appointment, you’re back to working for a lesser sum than your expenses truly require. These arrangements must be limited, and largely infrequent.
Conclusion
Notifying your customers of your rate change is more intimidating to you than it is concerning to your customers in most circumstances. And it gets easier the more regularly you do it.
As you now know, you need to change your prices each year, so take notes this year about what worked well and what didn’t work well when notifying your customers, and make adjustments next year.
With the information in the article and the Templates I’ve provided for you, it will be simpler than ever for you to write a professional notification to your customers. Just be sure to plan ahead, ensure all the steps are on your calendar, and that your notification is professional and free of errors.
This is the hard part. And doing these hard things is what sets you apart from your peers. Good for you. And I’m proud of you.
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Catherine Nelson, LMT, CST, CKTS, is a long-time massage therapist with a long and varied background in Western medicine. She is the founder of Del Sol Community Wellness, The Master Institute of Massage Therapy, and MyMassageTeacher.com. She specializes in CranioSacral Therapy for PTSD and anxiety, medical massage therapy for injury rehabilitation, and sports massage therapy for all phases of training and competition. She can be reached directly at Catherine@DelSolCommunityWellness.com.
2008 Blue Mesa Ct., Loveland, CO 80538 | (970) 218-7179 | www.DelSolCommunityWellness.com
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