courtesey call

[AlliedPianoCraft]

My wife schedules all my work and makes my appointments. When she makes the appointment she tells the client that she will call the day before to remind them. No one has ever said it wouldn't be necessary or was ever offended by it. If fact most are very happy to get the reminder call. Just letting them know in advance that you will be doing that, makes all the difference.

Al Guecia

  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: John Formsma 
  To: Pianotech List 
  Sent: Saturday, April 12, 2008 10:17 AM
  Subject: Re: courtesey call


  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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