<div class="gmail_quote">On Fri, Apr 11, 2008 at 1:17 PM, Willem Blees <<a href="mailto:wimblees@aol.com">wimblees@aol.com</a>> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex;">
<br>
<br>
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.</blockquote>
<div><br></div><div>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 <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;">would</span> be offensive to them. :-)</div>
<div><br></div><div>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.<br>
</div><div><br></div><div>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.</div>
<div><br></div><div>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.</div>
<div><br></div><div>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.</div>
<div><br></div><div>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.</div>
<div><br></div><div>--</div><div>JF</div></div>