<div> Here, here Ed. When someone stands me up, I leave a note stating that I was there at the appointed time I had on my calendar, waited fifteen minutes, and then left.  (After all, it is possible that I wrote is down wrong.)  While I'm waiting, I call 1) their house (in case they are there, but don't hear the door), and then, 2) I call my answer machine to see if there is word from them there.  If no, and they afterwards call and explain that they had a (true) emergency and didn't have my number with them, OK.  If they just forgot, I tell them that they will have to pay for half of a service call for the missed appointment without prior notice when I do service their piano next.  Otherwise, they need to find another date to the prom.  In concert with this no show policy is a rather liberal cancellation policy: As long as they let me know that they will not be able to keep the appointment, no love is lost.  The stated advance warning is 24 hours, but in practice I will accept them actually reaching me any time before the scheduled service.  It comes down to a matter of consideration, and as Ed has pointed out, thinning the heard of undesirables is a good thing in terms of re-ordering your universe for the better. Alan Eder </div> <div> </div> <div> </div> -----Original Message----- From: A440A@aol.com To: pianotech@ptg.org Sent: Fri, 1 Aug 2008 3:25 am Subject: Re: No- shows..... again <div id="AOLMsgPart_0_a70f7990-e3fa-4802-991c-aaf3c92c97f1" style="margin: 0px; font-family: Tahoma,Verdana,Arial,Sans-Serif; font-size: 12px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> <pre style="font-size: 9pt;"><tt> << How do you deal with a no show appointment? Do you bill them? Bill half? Not at all? Any other way to deal wit them? >> Greetings, </tt> <tt>SNIP Our day by day decisions determine what our life is like, and gradually, over the years, our clientele develops around our own personality. They aren't really "them", but, rather, "They are us", so we are responsible for what kind of a career we have. We, in some way, choose our customers, and If taking care of ourselves means that we lose the occasional inconsiderate customer, is that a big loss or simply cleaning up our customer base to better suit our vocation? Regards, Ed Foote RPT <a href="http://www.uk-piano.org/edfoote/index.html" target="_blank">http://www.uk-piano.org/edfoote/index.html</a> <a href="http://www.uk-piano.org/edfoote/well_tempered_piano.html" target="_blank">www.uk-piano.org/edfoote/well_tempered_piano.html</a> ************** Get fantasy football with free live scoring. Sign up for FanHouse Fantasy Football today. (<a href="http://www.fanhouse.com/fantasyaffair?ncid=aolspr00050000000020%29%3C/HTML" target="_blank">http://www.fanhouse.com/fantasyaffair?ncid=aolspr00050000000020)</HTML</a>> </tt></pre> </div>  <div id='u8CAC1EA873D1E22-C4C-32EA' class='aol_ad_footer'><HR style="MARGIN-TOP: 10px">The Famous, the Infamous, the Lame - in your browser. <A title="http://toolbar.aol.com/tmz/download.html?NCID=aolcmp00050000000014" href="http://toolbar.aol.com/tmz/download.html?NCID=aolcmp00050000000014" target="_blank">Get the TMZ Toolbar Now</A>! </div>