A cancelled appointment can be a let-down, but nothing is worse than preparing for a customer who does not show up with any notice! With holidays and peak seasons around every corner, it is a waste of time and a missed revenue opportunity to prepare and hold a room for a customer that forgets they have an appointment. The goal with peak seasons is to try to get every boarding room filled and it is stressful, time consuming and sometimes impossible to fill a room at the last minute. While no-shows are unfortunately an inevitable part of the running a boarding facility, there are preventative measures you can take to lessen the number of them so that you do not lose revenue because of customer no-shows!

1. Keep Well-Organized Customer Records

The first step is to have a concrete visual of who is coming when and which slots have yet to be filled. Having a polished look to your appointment book will make it easier for you to keep in mind when slots are free and when your facility is fully booked. PawLoyalty kennel software will help to keep your pet records intact in the Pet Health Record and you can use your Facility Organization chart to see which rooms are filled and which are still open. Having this appointment overview available online means that you can keep an eye on your appointments wherever you go.

2. Create a Process for Appointment Reminders

Make sure your cloud based kennel software sends your customers automated emails reminding them of their upcoming appointments. Customers like the reminders and it keeps their commitment to your business top of mind. Sending automated emails will lessen the amount of no-shows. With PawLoyatly kennel software, you can choose the specific number of days before their appointment you want customers to receive their reminder email. We encourage you to also follow up these emails with a call reminder to your customers 24-48 hours in advance of their appointments. It is a great opportunity to upsell additional services and also will have a big impact on decreasing no-shows.

3. Create Cancellation/No Show Policies that Protect Your Revenue

When it comes down to customers who are unreliable and are known to cancel appointments at the last minute, it may be best to request pre-pay. It is beneficial for you to create a business policy around late cancellations. Ask yourself “What is considered a late cancellation?” and then create tiered levels of accountability based on the number of offensives. Perhaps for the first violation the customer receives a warning, the second time they are required to pre-pay and are held to a $20 cancellation fee, and after the third offense they are held fully accountable for the cost if they cancel within your “cancellation period”. Another idea might be to charge a fee of $10 per dog multiplied by the number of occurrences in the last year, with a maximum of the full service price or a third approach may be to have a flat $25 non-refundable deposit for all appointment.

Once you determine which policy will work for you, formally put the policies in place. Have them written out and stick to them! It is valuable if you can explain your policies to customers upfront with an explanation that by not showing up or cancelling late, it prevents you from booking that room for another customer; in turn that room ends up sitting empty and as a business you can not afford to have that happen. If you are upfront about the policy, customers will respect it. And if they don’t, you may have to ask yourself if that is the type of customer you want. With PawLoyalty kennel software, you can give customers the option to pre-pay online with a credit card.

4. Track the Excuses

Keep track of your no-shows and your last minute cancellations. Also, always follow up with your no-show customers to get their next appointment scheduled as well as to record the excuses clients provide about why they did not show up. This will help you identify problematic customers and avoid the nervousness of communicating when you don’t have all the facts. In PawLoyalty kennel software, you can add notes to a customer profile that are only seen by your staff.

Here’s another boarding tip! With your PawLoyalty kennel management software, you can also implement a minimum boarding stay requirement so that customers have to book a minimum amount of boarding days during a specific time period, which saves you time trying to fill slots and having to change the bedding in between!

Throw Us a Bone

What’s your business’ best practice for preventing no-shows?