no shows!

[magictinter 1]

how do you all fella tinters deal with no shows. it seems to be getting worse. they call and schedule, tie up a appointment and then not show or call and cancel. im thinking about charging a booking fee or something . 

[Glass Tinting Supplies 386]

Hey Magic,

We all feel your pain..

It would be pretty hard to charge a booking fee. I would be surprised if there was anyone out there in TintDude land that would be doing it with success.

 

No matter what you do, there will always be people who cancel or don't show... Heck... If I didn't have a diary on me at all times, I wouldn't know Arthur from Martha. So, I guess it is something you need to build into the business running costs.

 

Maybe you could put some paperwork aside, or have a little job sitting there each week just in case you get a cancellation.

 

Or, you could download an app that will send out a reminder to your bookings to let them know 24 hours ahead that they are booked for tinting the next day. I bet it would reduce the amount of no-shows...

 

If there isn't such an app... Then I guess you could have some 10 year old kid make it for you and you would be rich... Then you can sit back with a cold brew and relax everytime you have a no show...

 

I like to book in an "all dayer" every full day that I am at the workshop. That just means a vehicle that can be dropped off in the morning and left with me all day. Call it a gap filler if you will... It doesn't always work that way, but I think if you try and ask every customer if they can drop their car in the morning and leave it with you, you might get 1 out of 4 cars that can be gap fillers. Then instead of having no shows, you just have an early finish.

 

I hope this helps...

All the best.

[magictinter 1]

heck yeah it helped lol. i appreciate your reply. after posting this thread, i found another thread pretty much identical to this one. i forget about the search option sometimes. weve had 6 not show this week alone. we even call the day before and remind them. 

[DynamicATL 1,886]

Last Saturday we had 4 no shows in that one day with only 2 showing up.  I feel it is part of the game and is just something you have to deal with if you take appointments, same for any other industry.  As far as charging goes, I don't see how it will help because if you do it over the phone and have no proof they actually allowed you to charge their card, they can easily have it reversed.  Too me it would make things more complicated and could lose customers that feel like it is shady.  What we do though is have people on back up call.  Say on a Saturday there are 2 more people that want to schedule, we will call them as soon as the appointment doesn't show...we only give them a 10 minute window to be late before they lose their appointment slot.

 

We use a scheduling system called Yellow Schedule for appointments.  It allows them to do online booking as well.  We have it setup where we send them a text 24 hours before the appointment and 1 hour before the appointment.  They are instructed to reply Yes if they confirm or No if they want to cancel.  This works pretty well and even if they cancel we usually have a heads up versus waiting until the scheduled time.  We also send them a follow up text 24 hours after thanking them for selecting us.  Yellow Schedule is not the cheapest, but by far the most accurate and works 99.9% of the time how it should.  We had BookFresh before it and 50% of the time the customer would not get the text.

Edited October 16, 2015 by DynamicAppearance

[tintcracker 139]

We've had lots of no shows over the past month it seems

[Ocala 744]

Last Saturday we had 4 no shows in that one day with only 2 showing up. I feel it is part of the game and is just something you have to deal with if you take appointments, same for any other industry. As far as charging goes, I don't see how it will help because if you do it over the phone and have no proof they actually allowed you to charge their card, they can easily have it reversed. Too me it would make things more complicated and could lose customers that feel like it is shady. What we do though is have people on back up call. Say on a Saturday there are 2 more people that want to schedule, we will call them as soon as the appointment doesn't show...we only give them a 10 minute window to be late before they lose their appointment slot.

We use a scheduling system called Yellow Schedule for appointments. It allows them to do online booking as well. We have it setup where we send them a text 24 hours before the appointment and 1 hour before the appointment. They are instructed to reply Yes if they confirm or No if they want to cancel. This works pretty well and even if they cancel we usually have a heads up versus waiting until the scheduled time. We also send them a follow up text 24 hours after thanking them for selecting us. Yellow Schedule is not the cheapest, but by far the most accurate and works 99.9% of the time how it should. We had BookFresh before it and 50% of the time the customer would not get the text.

With most people using credit/debit cards to purchase things these days, if the customer is serious about having work done,they shouldn't have an issue leaving a deposit towards the purchase price of the install to lock down an appointment time that will guarantee a time slot for them. Its a good way to figure out the BS customers and the ones who really care. Sure, things might come up at last minute and they have to cancel, but with already leaving a deposit, they will reschedule. The small fee to pay for an over the phone card transaction is still cheaper than putting other potential clients off because so and so said he would be there at a certain time and not even bother calling because they found someone to do it right away at a cheaper price. My 2 cents

[tjordan06 4]

Our shop is very new into the automotive side (we have been doing flat glass for 25 years) and this became an issue immediately....

 

We invested in a point of sale that does email and text appointment reminders. I also tell those that are making appointments that we have an installer waiting for them, so if something changes to please let me know ASAP.

 

The appointment reminders specifically have REALLY improved the no-show ratio (especially because they have our address on the email making it VERY easy for them to find us). PM me if you want my thoughts on the Point Of Sale we are using!

 

Thank you,

 

Tim

[Tintguy1980 643]

Great point (of sale).

[Devil with bad attitude 141]

I might get one a year.

Devil

[Booms 565]

Had two no shows this week, one was a R&R on an ES-330......

 

Escaped that one.....