09/14/2024
In the past two years we have been experiencing an absolutely ridiculous amount of appointments canceling the day of, or worse, ghosting us all together. For well over a decade we never had this issue and then the pandemic came and the rules changed. It seems that people have come to expect that this is normal and not a problem. It’s probably just ignorance and not understanding what this does to a small business which is why I am here to explain what I thought was common knowledge.
When a small business such as a tattoo shop, hair stylist, or a repair garage like Nocturnal makes an appointment for you, it means we have cleared our day or a portion of it for you exclusively. We may have purchased parts or supplies, perhaps even a special tool. You have called to set up a day and time that you agreed would work for you. Then the day arrives and we are left wondering where you are. Most of the time we never even get someone to answer. Sometimes a few days later we get a call asking to reschedule or making some excuse. The problem is, you ghosted us the first time which meant for that day, we paid payroll, our insurance, utilities, accountant, etc. Those bills don’t stop because you skipped out on the appointment and we still need to take a paycheck home. It means that the next day is going to be harder and we will have to make up the difference there. With the way inflation has been going we are seeing our fixed costs skyrocket. It’s not 10 or 20 percent, things are double or triple what they used to be. This further compounds the issue.
I have struggled mentally with the best approach to help rectify this issue. On one hand we could raise our hourly rate and pass along this extra cost to all of our customers. This doesn’t quite sit right with me because that means we are punishing the good customers who show up on time and are happy to have us work on their car. It enables the lazy or irresponsible customers who have ghosted us three times in a row and left us with a pile of parts we are unable to return or collect payment on. So I have decided to implement a new policy to deal with this.
We will now have a standard cancellation fee that works as follows;
First time someone ghosts us (no call or warning 24 hours or more in advance), you will not owe a dime, however you will be charged a $50 penalty on the next job that you bring us in addition to that bill.
Second time you no call/ no show, it’s $100 penalty on the next bill. We will still happily schedule you though if you want.
Third time it happens you will be removed from the customer list and will be unable to return in the future.
We have never had anything like this in place before and it’s not something I’m excited to roll out and implement. While it barely puts a dent in the issue of all the no call/ no show appointments, it does make it so that there are consequences for people who leave us hanging. It leaves the regular labor rate alone and won’t cost anyone a dime who is being fair with us and showing up on time. Hopefully this takes care of the issue in the future and if this doesn’t apply to you feel free to totally disregard this PSA. Thanks for coming to my Ted Talk 🤘
