As an esthetician we know you love helping people look and feel their best in their own skin. With your love for helping people live their best life in the best skin, you may be ready to either go solo or even open up your very own spa.
Opening your own spa or beauty establishment means you’re prepared to reach for the top. It’s an exciting time that involves a roller coaster of emotions and activities.
Our research has shown that to provide an amazing client experience it is pivotal to have contracts in place between you and your clients in order to assure that everyone is legally protected and terms of your services are clearly laid out in black and white. New clients in particular will view you as more professional and trustworthy with their skin when they have a digital onboarding experience that includes contracts.
Why Do Estheticians Need Client Contracts
Client contracts are great for estheticians because they help create clear expectations with your clients. With a client contract you can create a clear understanding at the beginning that you expect your clients to notify you in a timely way if they need to reschedule or cancel an appointment. You can also use them to protect yourself and avoid disputes with your clients.
Having a contract in place will protect you from legal ramifications and will, as stated earlier, lay out all expectations for the client in black and white. While it is rare that you will be sued as an esthetician, it is possible, and it is up to you to protect yourself and your livelihood.
The best part of all is that our research has shown that having contracts makes you appear more professional to new clients and increases the chances of creating more regular clients who rebook often.
What Esthetician Contracts Need to Address
Estheticians provide a range of services that help people look their best and manage skin conditions like acne, sun damage, and signs of aging. Since you are dealing with someone’s skin, it is fully possible for them to have things like allergic reactions to products if they don’t disclose their allergies to you. A great flow for onboarding would include a form that asks about allergies and a contract that protects you from liability if a client fails to disclose an allergy or health concern.
Let’s say this happens with one of your clients. They don’t disclose an allergy to you and they have a reaction to something you use in your spa. When you do not have a contract in place, this person could potentially try to drag you through a court battle for damages depending on the severity of their reaction. While it is likely that something like this won’t hole up well in court since the fault would fall on the client for non-disclosure of their allergies, it can still cause a huge issue for you as a business owner. Costing you lots of money in legal fees, not to mention the stress and trauma of going through a court battle. Even with them not disclosing, it is possible that the court could rule, at least partially, in the client’s favor.
Now imagine the same situation, but with a contract in place. In the contract you have a clause that states the client must disclose all allergens and that you are not liable for any reactions they may have when they refuse to disclose known allergens. Usually the contract will help you avoid a dispute ever reaching the point of lawyers or court.
Other issues you may want your contract to cover include your cancellation policy, that you are not responsible for adverse reactions for services with known risks (even if they are rare), and that you are not responsible for adverse reactions with medication they might be taking and that they must disclose any risks with their skin.
How to Set Up Esthetician Client Contracts
We know you aren’t a legal expert, and you don’t have to be! We recommend having an attorney set up your client contracts for you. You can pay one fee and have them write up a generic contract that you can send to each and every client when they book with you.
Here at PocketSuite, we want to not only make it easy to run your esthetician business, but also protect our pros and their businesses. That’s why we have a contract integration feature where you can easily upload a contract for your clients to sign when they book for the first time.
Within the PocketSuite app, you can add any contract or waiver that you want to use. It will automatically send to your new client to sign, and then once signed, will send over an invoice automatically.
Contracts within the PocketSuite app also have the option to include dynamic fields. This means that all of these fields will update with specific client and transaction information for each and every unique client contract.
They can be delivered by email or text message, depending on what you and your client prefer, and they will be formatted into a signable PDF. Clients can sign easily with their fingertip right from their smartphone! Making it easy on them and convenient for you.
PocketSuite Makes Esthetician Contracts Easy
No matter if you run a multi person spa or you are a solopreneur running your esthetician business on your own, PocketSuite is here to help you run the best business possible.
Along with all of our other personalized features for estheticians, we know that our contract feature will help you really take your business to the next level.
If you are ready to try out PocketSuite for your esthetician business, you can try our 30 day risk free trial today, you don’t even have to enter a credit card number to get all the amazing features. Our customer service team is here to help you every step of the way. From setting up your booking page to importing your existing contracts, they will give you personalized one on one support with everything you need to make your business run smoothly so you can focus on giving people the beautiful skin they deserve.
