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Quick answer: Holiday gift cards bring salons and spas two rushes: buyers in November and December, then redeemers booking in January. Many of both pick up the phone, often while your team is with clients or after you close. Answer every call, give the phone one gift card script, sell cards online for after-hours buyers and plan for January bookings.
By Sean Scalabrini, CTO and co-founder of CallPad. Updated 20 October 2026. CallPad makes an AI receptionist, so we have a stake in this topic.
Somewhere between Black Friday and New Year's Eve, a stranger calls your salon to buy a gift card for their sister. They don't have an account with you, and they want it handled in the next five minutes. Whether that call gets answered decides whether you keep the sale or hand it to the spa down the street.
Gift cards are one of the gifts people plan to buy. In its 2025 holiday research, the National Retail Federation ranked gift cards the second-most popular gift of the season, with gift card spending expected to reach $29 billion and 43% of shoppers planning to buy at least one. They're also what people hope to unwrap: in NRF's October 2025 holiday survey, gift cards topped the list of gifts consumers wanted to receive, chosen by 50%, ahead of clothing, books and electronics.
The season itself keeps growing. NRF forecasts November and December 2026 retail sales to grow 4.2% over 2025. A salon, spa or barbershop gift card is an easy answer for anyone shopping for someone who likes to be looked after.
The first sale is the card itself, paid for in November or December. The second is the appointment it turns into weeks later. Zenoti's gift card guide says redeemers consistently spend above the value of the card, for example by adding a retail product or another treatment.
Who shows up to redeem matters too. Zenoti, a salon and spa software company, says almost one in four people who redeem gift cards at salons and spas are brand-new customers. A gift card isn't only revenue. It's a new client walking in with a reason to try you.
Cards sell in December but get used in the new year. Zenoti says January through March brings the highest number of post-holiday gift card clients, and in Salon Today, marketing consultants tell owners running holiday gift card promotions to plan for a wave of redemptions in the two weeks after the holiday. So the phone takes two hits: a buying rush in December, then a booking rush in January, both from people who might not be in your system yet.
Holiday weeks are already your peak for ordinary bookings. Stack gift card buyers and January redeemers on top of that, and call volume climbs right when your front desk is shortest on time and juggling a packed floor. Our guide to the December rush on salon phones covers the party and group bookings that land in the same weeks.
Gift card calls aren't simple "take my money" calls. People ask things like:
Every one of those is a sale waiting on an answer. Send it to voicemail and many of those callers won't wait.
Missed calls are common. When 411 Locals monitored the phone calls of 85 businesses in 58 industries for 30 days, only 37.8% of calls were answered (2016). And callers don't wait around: in CallRail's 2025 survey of 1,000 US consumers, only 42% said they leave a voicemail when a business doesn't answer, and 21% said they immediately call another business. In a season when the person on the line is often a first-time buyer ready to pay, that's an expensive way to answer the phone. For more on what a missed gift card call is worth, see how much gift card revenue a salon loses to an unanswered phone.
A lot of holiday gift shopping happens in the evening and at weekends, right after someone remembers they still need something for their sister-in-law. Zenoti's guide notes that online gift card sales capture purchases outside business hours, so sell e-gift cards on your website. Then make sure the phone still gets answered after closing. If your line just rings out after 6pm, that's the exact buyer you're losing. Your after-hours greeting should tell people how to buy a card, not send them to a callback queue.
Whoever, or whatever, answers should be able to take a gift card order from start to finish: amount or service, recipient, delivery by email or pickup, and payment. Write it down so it runs the same way every time, and make sure it also covers the redemption questions that land in January.
A gift card is only as good as the appointment behind it. When redeemers call in the new year, they need to reach someone who can find the card, book the service and ideally get the next visit on the calendar too. This is the moment that turns a one-off gift into a regular client, so treat those January calls with the same care as the December sales. If your team is slammed, an AI receptionist that books into your calendar can take the overflow so no redeemer lands in voicemail.
Gift cards are one of the few things that bring in money in December and a brand-new client in January. Both halves of that deal can come down the phone line. Answer it and the holiday rush pays off twice; miss it and you've gift-wrapped a client for whoever picks up first.
CallPad is an AI receptionist for salons, spas, med spas and clinics in the US, UK, Australia and Canada. It answers every call 24/7, handles several calls at once and screens out spam calls. It answers questions from your own information, including your prices, and speaks several languages. It books, moves and cancels appointments in real time with a named stylist or practitioner on the booking systems CallPad works with, including multi-service bookings, and can take a deposit or payment on the call or sell a gift card. If you have more than one location, it asks which one the caller wants and books into that location's calendar. It also replies to texts and can book by text, sends missed-call text-backs and texts clients on your waitlist when a slot opens up. When a caller needs a person, it transfers the call to your team or takes a message, and your team gets an email saying what the caller wanted. Setup takes about 10 minutes.
Many come back in the new year. Zenoti says January through March brings the highest number of post-holiday gift card clients, so plan for a booking rush once the holidays are over.
Holiday calls peak while your team is busiest, and many callers won't wait. In CallRail's 2025 survey of 1,000 US consumers, only 42% said they leave a voicemail when a business doesn't answer, and 21% said they immediately call another business.
Often. Zenoti says almost one in four people who redeem gift cards at salons and spas are brand-new customers, so treat every redemption call as a chance to win a regular.
Yes. CallPad answers calls 24/7, can sell a gift card or take a payment on the call, and books redemption appointments in real time on the booking systems it works with.
Yes. CallPad handles several calls at once, day or night, and sends missed-call text-backs, so peak-hour and after-hours callers still get an answer.
Ask us about gift card calls at your salon or spa, or hear CallPad answer a booking call.
