Customers who book and then do not arrive. The articles cover reducing no-shows and last-minute cancellations at a rental company and at a clinic, and how reminders and deposits work for table reservations and grooming appointments.
A missed colour appointment is three hours of a stylist's day that cannot be sold to anybody else. The fixes run in a specific order, and deposits are not first.
A deposit turns a free promise into a small commitment. It also turns some patients away. Here is where the line sits.
An empty table on a Saturday is not recoverable. Reminders, deposits and cancellation windows, in the order worth trying them, and the honest cost of the one everybody reaches for first.
Grooming appointments vary from fifteen minutes to two hours, and getting the duration wrong ruins the day. How to build a booking form around the dog rather than the clock.
A reservation is not an appointment, and the settings that suit a dentist ruin a dining room. How to run a diner-facing booking form that fits sittings, covers and a busy service.
Confirmations and reminders are worthless in a spam folder. What SPF, DKIM and DMARC actually do, and the habits that keep mail landing.
A cancellation policy is only worth what it is worth in practice. What to put in one, where patients should meet it, and the parts most clinics get wrong.
A missed appointment costs the slot, the preparation and the patient who could have had it. What actually reduces no-shows at a small practice, in the order worth trying.
No-shows and late cancellations are inevitable; having no policy is not. What to include, and how a deposit at booking does the enforcing.