When dealing with appointments, certainly you’ve had a few clients who suddenly don’t show up. Sometimes, they simply get too busy or forget to cancel an appointment. They might also be going through some issues that you are unaware of.
In this case, you can do nothing other than to persuade them to reply back. However, if you can manage to fix their issues and reschedule them, you might be able to add them to your daily series of customers.
In this article, we are going to give you a few tips on how to effectively communicate with no-show clients.
Always Be Aware Of Your Tone
It negatively affects your business when a customer does not show up to their appointments. However, it could also be possible that the person did not really want to miss the appointment, and did not have a choice. In this case, try to deal with them nicely and professionally, telling them that you understand and that you are going to do your best to help them.
Try To Communicate With Your Clients
It is crucial that you know the circumstances as to why a customer is not showing up. Are they just flaky or did they have a legitimate reason for their no show? When you are able to get in touch with them by phone, kindly inquire if they would like to reschedule the appointment. Should they answer no, ask if they mind sharing their reasons for not wanting to reschedule. This will allow you to better run your business and possibly change a few ways you are operating. If you can’t reach them by phone, you should send them a follow-up email.
Monitor Trends in Customer No-Shows
When you do find out a reason why a customer didn’t show up, write it down. You can also try to build a list of possible reasons why customers cancel appointments and formulate a few responses. This is data that you can use to improve your booking process and possibly your business in general. If you get the same cancellation response over and over, this would help you get a better grip on the WHY and help reduce your no shows and cancellations.
Avoid Early Bookings
You may also want to check if your appointments are booked too early. For example, if you find that clients are having a hard time keeping appointments that are booked far in advance, you may want to eliminate this type of booking.
Sometimes customers have trouble understanding what their future schedule may be like and their anticipation would slowly fade away over time. A month ago, they may have been willing to take advantage of your goods or services, but unexpectedly something might happen to change their minds.
Keeping a database of who is due for an appointment, and sending out messages closer to the time of the desired appointment asking them to book, should help you greatly reduce your no shows.
Improved Appointment Reminders to Avoid No-Shows
The best solution to the problem with no-show clients is to completely avoid having one, which is virtually impossible. But by trying to make sure they are constantly aware of their appointments, you can significantly cut down on the number of no shows you receive.
With the use of Google calendar, setting up reminders for your clients is easy. GReminders takes care of the reminders for you. You can ask your client for confirmation through an SMS text a set amount of time before the scheduled appointment.
The easiest way to deal with no-show clients is by reminding them constantly about their scheduled appointments. Automating your reminders with Appointment Reminder Systems such as GReminders allows your customers to automatically receive texts, emails, and phone calls with their appointment details. In order to avoid being ghosted, you need to know what causes your customer to miss their appointment. Take note of your clients’ missed appointments, understand their reasons, and hope to better improve their attendance. GReminders can help greatly reduce your no shows!