Appointment Reminders When You Get No Response

Appointment reminders for house cleaners are to confirm appointments. But what do you do if there is no response?

Some message appointment reminders will ask the customer for a C to Confirm or a D to Decline. But if the clients don’t call back are you a no call no show or do you show up?

An automated SMS reminder is great but sometimes you need to just drop by.

Listen: Appointment Reminders When You Get No Response

Watch: Appointment Reminders When You Get No Response

House Cleaners Wonder About Clients Who Don’t Respond

Many house cleaners wonder what they do when they have to remind their customers about appointments. They have appointments for house cleaning. So, they contact the customer and the customer says, “Yes, come over.”

Then they send a text reminder just to say, “Hey, it’s been a couple of weeks since we talked. I wanted to let you know I’m still coming over tomorrow. Is that cool?”

And they get no response. What do you do? Do you show up, or do you not show up? If they don’t confirm and you get to their house. Then you’re locked out of your house, and you’ve wasted your time in the drive over there. You’re already in your uniform. You can’t sell that time to someone else.

How Do You Remind Customers if They Don’t Respond?

How do you contact your customers if they don’t respond?

There are different ways of handling this situation. For example, in a Facebook group, a house cleaner shared this.

She said, “I’ve seen some posts recently from cleaners who try to call and confirm appointments, but they get no response. I had a bad experience a few months ago that I wanted to share for what it’s worth.

Pay Extra Attention to Elderly Clients

One of my elderly clients had a habit of canceling or rescheduling. She was also cranky and difficult to deal with. The last time I cleaned for her, she called me back to re mop the floors because I missed a spot.

I didn’t like it, but I tried not to show it because my parents taught me to show respect for the elderly.

After re mopping the floor, I said I would see her in two weeks on Monday. She said that I should call to confirm.

Appointment Reminders by Calling

So, on Sunday evening before the appointment, I called and I got the answering machine. I left a message and I asked her to let me know if she wanted me to come the following day.

When I hadn’t heard from her on Monday morning, I texted her but she did not reply back.

Later, I had to drive by her house on the way somewhere else. I noticed her car was in the driveway and her door was open, which she often did when she took her little dog outside.

So, I assumed that she was home, but she just didn’t want to talk to me because of our little difference in my previous appointment.

Stop by When Clients Don’t Answer Appointment Reminders

To be honest, I felt a little relieved that she was dropping me. I’d also happened to drive by her house the next day and the appearance was exactly the same. Now I definitely felt irritated. I see that she was snubbing me without an explanation.

The next time I drove by her car was gone and the door was closed. Several weeks went by, and I drove past her house several times on my way somewhere else. Each time I never saw her car, but it looked like the lawn needed maintenance.

No News Doesn’t Mean Good News When There’s No Response

Finally, one day I saw the car in the driveway and some people coming out of the house. I decided to stop and see if my client had been on a trip. The people coming out of her house were her son and his wife. The son told me that his mother had fallen in the house and slipped into a coma before a neighbor found her.

The son told me that they were getting ready to transfer her to a long care term facility because she was showing no sign of improvement. The next day, my former client died.

Check-in On Elderly Clients Who Live Alone

I promised myself that I would never again ignore a sudden lack of communication from an elderly client. And I’ve let all my clients know this policy. If you don’t hear from clients to confirm, take a moment to knock on the door and see if they’re okay. If anything seems amiss, call someone to do a welfare check. Your consideration could save a life.

Some elderly clients need more than just cleaning.

Appointment Reminders Can Help Check on Clients

What’s interesting about this story is that it took something this big in order for us to stop and check. Sometimes even though we have cranky, irritable clients who refuse to communicate with us, they do need an extra set of eyes just checking in on them.

You have to be compassionate with them because they are just as frustrated as you are.

I appreciated Diana sharing this story with us because it hits home.

Other Businesses Use Appointment Reminders

A lot of small businesses use appointment reminders to check in with their clients.

One of the things that my orthodontist does to confirm appointments is they send three reminders. And they request me to send the letter C to confirm and the letter D to decline.

That way you knew that you, in fact, had an orthodontist appointment and you were not going to cancel it.

Every time I showed up, the waiting room was full of people. Everybody remembered to come to their appointments because there were many reminders.

Software can Send Appointment Reminders for You

Now, there are lots of software’s on the market now that can send reminders for you. But I like this specific approach where if you don’t hear something back, that you dropped by anyway. Just to check in and make sure that things are okay.

Now, in my company, we always did a reverse reminder. We’d send them a reminder and say, “Hey, we’re coming tomorrow. If anything comes up and you have to cancel on us, please let us know. Otherwise, we’ll be at your house”.

So, if nothing happened and we did not hear from them, we assumed they were expecting us. We sent the reminder it was on their calendar. We have a standing appointment. We’re going to come.

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