How to reduce no-shows

An appointment nobody turns up to costs you twice: you kept the time free, and someone else could have taken it. No-shows usually have one of three causes:

• the customer forgot;
• plans changed and cancelling was hard, e.g. they had to call while you were busy with a customer;
• the booking wasn't real: a wrong or someone else's email, a prank.

ubooq has a tool for each of them. Most work by themselves once they are on, and this guide shows where each one is set.

1. A reminder before the appointment

An email reminder is the simplest protection against forgetting. In Settings → Reminders and emails you choose when it arrives: 2 or 12 hours, or 1 or 2 days before the appointment. New businesses start with a reminder 24 hours before.

No reminder is sent for appointments booked within that period, because the confirmation has only just arrived. With a reminder 24 hours before, an appointment booked this morning for this afternoon gets no reminder. If your customers often book for the same day, a shorter reminder reaches those appointments too.

The booking confirmation also carries a calendar invitation, and every email about an upcoming appointment has an Add to calendar button. That way customers see the appointment in the calendar on their phone, next to everything else they have on. When an appointment is moved or cancelled and the customer gets an email about it, the same calendar event is updated.

2. Make cancelling easy

People who can't come are far more likely to cancel if they can do it in half a minute, without a phone call. That's why every appointment email leads to the My appointment page. On it, customers can:

• change the appointment: choose another free time, with the same service;
• cancel it, up to the cancellation deadline;
• add it to their calendar.

The confirmation and the reminder say until when the appointment can be changed or cancelled, so customers know the deadline in advance. The cancellation deadline is in Settings → Booking rules, and its default depends on the kind of business. An appointment can be changed up to the same deadline. In the same place you choose whether appointments may be changed at all, how many times at most, and whether the customer may choose another staff member when doing so. More in the Reminders and emails article.

Don't make the deadline too strict. After it, customers see your contact details on the page and have to contact you directly, and some people then simply don't come. You can still fill a cancelled appointment, but you only find out about a no-show once the time has passed.

3. Don't let a freed time stay empty

A cancellation is worth more than a no-show when someone takes the time. On a full day, customers can join the waiting list. When a time frees up, the people waiting for exactly that time get an email about a minute and a half later, with a link straight to booking. Nobody gets the time held for them: it goes to whoever books first.

New businesses have the waiting list on, and you turn it on and off in Settings → Booking rules. A notice about one freed time goes to the first 5 people waiting for it. More in the Waiting list article.

4. Check that the email exists

A reminder doesn't help if it goes to the wrong address. That's why the first online booking asks for a code from the email: the customer gets a six-digit code and enters it on the page. That way you know the address exists and belongs to the person booking, and bookings in someone else's name become much harder.

In Settings → Booking protection you choose:

• New people only (the default): the code is asked for until a person with the same phone and email has been to an appointment or confirmed a code;
• Always: the code is asked for on every online booking;
• Off: bookings are made without a code.

If someone books several appointments ahead and then turns up to none, limit Most upcoming online appointments per person. Appointments with the same phone or the same email count. More in the Booking protection article.

If an email still doesn't arrive, e.g. because the address was mistyped, the Today page shows which email wasn't delivered and to whom. Then give the customer a call.

5. Record no-shows

When a customer doesn't turn up, click Mark as no-show on the Today page or on the appointment's page. If you made a mistake, you can undo it.

Recorded no-shows show what they really cost you:

• Analytics shows the no-show rate, late cancellations (closer to the start than the cancellation deadline allows) and how many appointments were lost that way;
• the Repeated no-shows list, on the customers tab of analytics, shows who didn't turn up at least twice in the last 12 months;
• no Google review request is sent for an appointment marked as a no-show.

6. When someone keeps not turning up

First, get in touch with the customer. Their phone and email are on their page, and maybe they just didn't know they could cancel by themselves.

If that doesn't help, the owner or the front desk can click Block online booking on the customer's page. Online booking and the waiting list then close for their phone number and for the email addresses they booked with, and instead of times, the booking page asks them to contact you directly. You can still book appointments for them yourself, e.g. after agreeing on a time by phone, and you can lift the block.

In short

• The reminder is on, and 24 hours before the appointment is a good start.
• The cancellation deadline is one people can keep, and My appointment is in every email.
• The waiting list is on.
• The code from the email is asked for at least of new customers.
• No-shows are marked, so you see them in analytics.
• Blocking is the last step, not the first.