My Thoughts On Penalizing Customers Who Skip An Appointment

Do you have a late-notice cancellation penalty fee that you impose on your customers?  What about when a customer skips an appointment; do you charge them the next frequency rate?  

In today's  blog post I will give you "My Thoughts on Penalizing Customers Who Skip An Appointment."

Have you ever had to deal with customers who cancel the same day you're schedule to clean their home?  What about those customers who skip their every other appointment and therefore take advantage of a more-frequent rate; but they actually use your service less frequently?

I guess the real questions I want to ask you is: do you impose an extra charge or a "penalty" on the customers who do this?  

In my opinion, you need to have a structure where you know exactly what happens when a customer cancels your service on the same day you're scheduled; and, you also need to have a procedure to know how to notify your customers that you offer your service on a less-frequent basis (at a higher rate, obviously - if that's the case).

In episode #43: No Worries I Found Your Ex-Employees Already!, I talked about how my family and I came to the realization that we had to implement a system in order to avoid any uncomfortable situations with customers who took advantage of our rates structure.  (If you haven't listened to it, I highly recommend it).  

You see, if you don't have a system or a procedure where you inform your customer of the importance of notifying you of any changes to the cleaning schedule, then you will find yourself being taken advantage of (and, perhaps it's not that the customer actually wants to take advantage of you, but just to clear things up).  

Remember, at the end of the day you own a business.  And, whenever these situations happen you lose money.  How?  Well, if a customer cancels your service on the same day, you could have easily scheduled another customer - a new one who might be on your waiting list for that particular time; or a current client who has perhaps requested you clean on the cancelling customer's day and time.  

Now, you might face opposition from customers because of your cancellation policy, but remember: you own a business.  Be attentive to other businesses around you and check out how many of them have cancellation policies - at least the ones who work on an appointment basis.  You need to start taking your business serious and demanding that your customers treat it seriously, as well.

What about those who postpone their appointment until their next regular day?  Well, you can create a procedure so that when they do this you can notify them about your less-frequent visits.  Implement a policy so that this doesn't happen frequently because if it does then that means you have a customer who's taking advantage of your payment structure.  

Look, it's not being rude, mean, or hostile.  It's owning and running a business.  If you feel bad about doing this or about notifying your customers about your policies, then get into the habit that whenever you tell them about your systems and procedure you also remind them of all the other benefits your service provides.

I want to conclude today's blog post by reminding you that you are the owning of your business.  I provide you with my thoughts and opinions, but at the ultimately you are the one who makes the decisions about what to do with your house cleaning business.  I do want to thank you for taking your time to read "My Thoughts on Penalizing Customers Who Skip An Appointment."  Do you have a penalty fee?  If you do, then leave your comment below and let me know how you apply it; under what circumstance.  You don't have a penalty fee?  I'd also love to hear from you!  Let me know what you think of my perspective!  ​

"I find that the harder I work, the more luck I seem to have."
​- Thomas Jefferson ​

---

Before you leave, remember to follow me on my social media accounts!

---

One more thing!

Have you subscribed to the podcast, yet? 

If not, you can do so on your favorite podcast platform.  I'll leave the links below. 

​Thank you so much and have a great day!

iTunes
​Stitcher
Spotify 
​Google Play ​​​​​​​​​​​