courtesey call

[John Formsma]

On Fri, Apr 11, 2008 at 1:17 PM, Willem Blees <wimblees at aol.com> wrote:

>
>
> So what are your policies? Do you call the day before, as a courtesy, to
> remind your customer of your appointment, saying something like "This is a
> courtesy call to remind you of our appointment tomorrow at 9 o'clock.


What I do is to call the night before the appointment. I have previously
informed my customers that I will be doing this. I do not inform them the
reason why I do this: to prevent no-shows, as that would be offensive to
them. :-)

First of all, we must cover our own losses if the customer is not there when
we arrive. There is no "big company" who will absorb this loss. It's a loss
of time and loss of potential income, not to mention the cost of the fuel to
drive there for nothing.

I decided a couple of years ago that I should call every customer like this.
I was getting too many no-shows, and figured this was a way to easily remedy
it.  Some customers obviously do not write down the appointment when we
schedule it. I suppose they are thinking they will be there at such and such
time on such and such day. However, if I don't call them, something else
will "come up," because I have arrived at an obviously empty house. Not
good. Once that happens to you enough, and you get frustrated enough, you
must find a solution to the problem.

When I speak to the customer on the phone the night before, I will say
something like this: "Hi, Mrs. Jones, this is John Formsma, the piano tuner.
I'm calling about our tuning appointment tomorrow at __:__ time -- just
making sure that it's still a good time for you. OK, see you tomorrow then."
  This whole process only takes about 30 seconds.

Most of the time, the customer has remembered the appointment. However, some
do not, and have appreciated the call. There are rare occasions when there
is a conflict, and we reschedule. I would rather know the night before the
customer can't make the appointment so that I can schedule someone else in
their place.

I really can't understand why someone would get upset about a reminder call.
And I also don't think we should worry about a possible cancellation just
because we have encouraged the appointment. It's our business to sell our
services.  Yes, sometimes people say no.  But that's how "sales" always is.

--
JF
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