No matter what industry you’re in, the chances are that you’ll need to set up appointments with customers. In industries like healthcare, an appointment system forms the backbone of your business. Even those who work office jobs often meet with potential clients. This is a professional and efficient way to manage interactions.
The only trouble is, not everyone turns up when they should. In fact, industries such as healthcare face significant costs due to missed appointments. The UKs NHS lose an astounding £1 billion due to this each year. Even office-based business stand to lose a great deal if one or more clients don’t turn up. That’s no surprise when you consider the resources and time an issue like this can waste.
As an entrepreneur, then, missed appointments will be dirty words to you. Sadly, you can’t force clients to turn up. What you can do is implement the following methods to reduce the money you waste if they don’t.
Set Up Reminders
Setting up appointment reminders is by far the best thing you can do here. More often than not, clients don’t forget to turn up on purpose. They just forget that they made the date. We’re all busy, after all, and prior engagements often fall by the wayside. By either calling or texting clients before your meeting, you can provide them with a gentle reminder. This can serve as a favor for both them and you. They get to keep their slot, and you don’t have to worry about losing money anymore. If everyone wins, why wouldn’t you want to implement something like this?
Provide Incentives
Sometimes, clients don’t turn up because doing so isn’t in their interests. If you’re meeting with them to sell, they may miss the appointment for something better. In that case, provide an incentive which increases their chances of attendance. It may be that you offer freebies to show your appreciation. You could even make it clear that you’re willing to do a deal. If the appointment already benefits your client, why not turn incentives around? Many doctors, for example, use fines as a way to prevent issues here. At the very least, threatening to strike clients off your books should be enough to see them attending every time.
Be Ruthless
The longer you wait for clients, the more money you waste. You and other members of your team will have no choice but to sit around when you could all be doing something else. If there are a lot of you in attendance, that means wasting a fair amount of money on paying people to do nothing. That’s why it also pays to be ruthless here. You may benefit from offering nothing more than a ten-minute window. If clients turn up later than that with no real reason, make it clear that they’ll need to book another appointment. Just like that, you can reduce the time and money you spend on people who can’t be bothered to turn up when they should.
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