This cramming in of services is actually one of the things that prompted me to leave the salon I was booth renting in early last year. There was going to be a wedding party wanting hair and a bunch of pedicures. We had two pedi stations, but about 4 of us did pedicures (I was the only nail tech, the others are cosmos) - the salon owner wanted to bring an extra chair in and put it on the floor - and have someone sit on the floor to do pedicures for that "station". Not only would that create a very crowded room (about 150 square feet with two pedi platforms, a nail table and retail shelving), it wouldn't have been compliant with fire codes (blocking the exit), and no way would we be providing the same level of service. No one could understand why I didn't like the idea...
Now that you've had this experience (and survived it
), now would be the time to ask for a meeting with everyone involved to discuss how it went and pre-plan for how the experience could be improved. You know how much time it takes to do a given service properly, and in my opinion if your normal mani/pedicure takes an hour and a half, you are doing your clients a disservice to shorten it to only an hour, assuming you are charging the same rate as for a full service! Bottom line, every client should get the full service (unless they're late).
By planning ahead you can calculate ways to save time without shortening the actual service, here are a few ideas:
-soaking their feet at the nail table while they are getting their manicure if one tech is doing both services
-moving them from the pedi chair to a "lounging" area while their polish dries so that you can start the next
-share the client - assign some techs to just do manicures, some to do pedicures, if you do this then the person doing the pedicures can stagger clients somewhat - do the first pedi all the way to just before polish (prep & file, soak, callus smoothing, massage (put warm booties on them) - then go to the second pedi and prep & file, soak (this takes about 8 minutes)- then back to the first to polish - then go back to the second for callus smoothing, massage, booties - then start the third... you get the idea! Even if your regular pedi doesn't include the heated booties, adding it in as a "perk" that also helps you streamline will be a big hit.
If you run these numbers and still can't offer full services in the time allowed, have a game plan prepared for an altered (shortened) service and charge accordingly. If they know coming in that you can't do full services and won't be charging full price then at least they will know they got what they paid for.
