No show fees
Phil Teece
Owner @ A+ Window Cleaning Services LLC | Residential and Commercial Window Cleaning, pressure washing, Gutter cleaning and soft-washing
Being a small business owner and in the middle of your busy season, when someone does not show up for an appointment it can cost you. So, what's the answer?
If someone calls us the day before and tells us they cannot make the appointment, we can generally fill the time slot with another customer as long as we know. It is a pain in the rear end as we must drop everything to start moving things around, but we can get it done.
However, it is a different story when you have booked someone in, and sent a confirmation email confirming the date and they do not call to let you know or just do not show on the day of service. It's even worse when someone asks for a weekend; we book them in, send them the confirmation email, and then call a couple of days before to make sure we are still good to go. We do this as it is an absolute nightmare to try to get our team to work on a weekend, so we have to make sure we are 100%.
In all of our communication, we let everyone know that if you do not show up on the day of service, then we will charge you a $99 cancellation fee. $25 each to the guys ( 2 of them to a crew they work on a percentage of the job) and it pays for gas going out and coming back and a small fee for us as we could have gotten someone else in had we known about it. I think this is reasonable. If someone has forgotten about it, I have to make sure the guys are covered, and we have not lost money.
领英推荐
So it makes my blood boil when we call as I have done this morning for a no-show this past Saturday after this was the only day they could get it done, had three confirmations, and then failed to be at their home when we came to complete the work. So when I say we will be billing you for the no-show and they start freaking out about it and make it sound like it's my fault!
Just because they suddenly forget we are the bad guys, they had all the confirmations, knew about the no-show fee, and now are refusing to pay it. So now I am out of pocket $60 as I had to pay for gas, and I have to make sure my guys get something; I acted in good faith, and it costs me for them not showing up.
I don't believe I am being unreasonable; in fairness, this really does not happen very often, and when it does, people are generally really good about it and say I get it is totally my fault and send us the $99. So next time you book for someone to come to your home and do some work and you are not there, just stop and think for a minute about the inconvenience it has caused when a phone call or text would have totally avoided the issue.
Experienced Facebook Media Buyer | 2 years of experience | $6-digit+ Revenue in less than 90 days | Helping B2C businesses like Aesthetic Practices and Med Spas achieve 6-7 figure growth through Facebook Ads
5 个月Communication is key!
HOMR | Managing your house, but easy
5 个月Our company has scheduled thousands of home services in the DFW metroplex and I can say with confidence this is a problem that cuts both ways. For contractors there's costs incurred, lost revenue, and wanting your crew members to put food on the table - like you've outlined in your post. For homeowners they have costs when contractors show up late: they've often taken time from work, waiting in a large window (some companies schedule 4 HOUR arrival windows), often re-arranging, work schedules, changing kid's after school schedules, etc. waiting for contractors. Tough issue that hurts everyone when people aren't where they're supposed to be when they say they'll be there.