How to avoid no-shows
Four things that work — and one that does not.
2 min read ·
A no-show costs you an empty chair and a client who would have taken the time. It is not ill will; people forget. So this is about making it easy to remember and slightly expensive to forget.
1. Reminders by text message. Email drowns. A text the day before with the time, the place and a link to move or cancel takes away most no-shows on its own. Set it to 24 hours before — not 2, because by then the client cannot move it.
2. Make cancelling easy. It sounds backwards, but a client who can cancel with one tap at eleven at night cancels. A client who has to ring during opening hours simply does not turn up. The link in the reminder has to work.
3. A no-show fee — said out loud. A fee of, say, 50 % of the price, which the client sees and accepts as she books, changes what people do even though you rarely charge it. It is not the penalty that works; it is having said it.
4. A deposit on the expensive times. Treatments of two hours or more: a deposit of 20–30 % at booking. Somebody who has paid turns up.
What does not work: confirming by hand. Ringing round the day before takes an hour a week and misses exactly the people who do not answer the telephone. Let the system do it.
See what it costs you. The no-show calculator takes your own numbers: appointments a week, average price, and the share who do not turn up.
Piklo Booking sends reminders by text message and email, shows the fee and the deposit on the booking page, and charges them for you. All of it settings, not work.