Massage Therapy and Preventing Missed Appointments by Clients

A Massage Therapist’s point on view on preventing and dealing with clients who miss appointments.

It happens to the best of us. Our day is booked solid, and we are all set to go full throttle. At some point during the day, a client doesn’t show, doesn’t even call to say that he or she is going to miss the appointment. Then another one misses an appointment. What is going on here? Our day is ruined by missed appointments and the no show client, and instead of being productive, we are stuck reading the newspaper when we’d either rather be treating, or at the mall/beach/movies. You feel disrespected, and yes, possibly, a little abused.

Let me just start by saying that most of our clients don’t miss appointments on purpose, usually it is a case of life getting busy and they have forgotten about it. I have been on both sides of that fence, and I have some strategies that can help prevent and deal successfully with the dreaded “no show” or “dns” (meaning did not show).

1) To begin with, I suggest that you create and post a cancellation policy and use a standard script when booking a new client. If you use a receptionist instead of booking your own clients, I suggest that you make friends with him or her and encourage them to use it when booking for you. When booking a new client, I ALWAYS advise them of the cancellation policy – you can say something like this:

“Your appointment time is reserved just for you, and if you should need to cancel, I do require 24 hours notice. In the event that you fail to provide the required notice, there is a charge of (i.e. 50%) of the fee. And in the event that you arrive late for the appointment, you will be charged the full fee, even if I am not able to treat you for the full duration of the time you’ve booked.”

This way there are no surprises – your script will become like second nature to you, and it is better to be up
front about your expectations – this way the client can’t come back and say that he or she didn’t know.

2) How you approach this is also going to depend on the situation in which you work. If you are a contractor, then you should have complete control over your clients and how you interact with them, establishing your own policies (within reason, of course). If you are an employee, then the control you have over how you handle these sorts of things may be limited by the policy of your employer – and this may or may not work to your advantage.

The College of Massage Therapists’ of Ontario (CMTO) requires that massage therapists post treatment fees in their place of practice where they can be easily seen by incoming clients. I think this is a really great idea, as there will be no surprises and the expectations will be clear. Also, it is a great opportunity to post your cancellation policy along with your fees, though I did have one clinic owner who had a problem with this (apparently it was “aggressive and tacky”) – I did notice, however, that my clients were very clear and accepting of the policy, and as I was in compliance with CMTO standards, it didn’t really matter what this individual’s opinion was. Ultimately, I had to answer to the professional college first.

Under your posted fees, you can indicate your cancellation and late arrival policy – it can be something like:

Your appointment time is reserved just for you. I respectfully request 24 hours notice to cancel an appointment, or full payment will be required. Full payment is also required if you are late for your appointment, or fail to show for your scheduled booking. Thank-you for respecting my time.

3) You don’t have to be so rigid with this policy as to drive away clients. Find your balance between fairness (towards all of your clients) and firmness (you are running a business, and when you treat it like a business, clients will see it as a business). Without telling clients this, I usually give them one missed appointments grace. This is only fair, as sometimes life just happens – children (or the client) get sick, things are busy at work and it slips their mind, the car breaks down, they get stuck in traffic… you know what I mean. It did work for me, and here is how I let them know that the next time the policy would be enforced …

4) When you call your client to let them know they missed their appointment, you should make it as non-confrontational as possible, their reason for missing the appointment may really be very innocent and legitimate. You can say something like “I am calling to make sure you are OK, you had an appointment booked with me at 3:00 and you didn’t show. Can you just give me a call to let me know all is well, and then we can rebook you?” Usually they will call and be very apologetic, if they’re not, when you document the missed appointment in their file (and when you called them, if you left a message, what was said, etc), you need to note this as well.

When you do speak with him or her, what you can say is “I’m glad you’re OK, and I will waive the missed
appointment fee, as it is the first time this has happened. If you should miss any more appointments, you will be charged the missed appointment fee. When would you like to rebook?” They are usually happy with this, and have gotten the message loud and clear about the expectation the next time they miss an appointment.

5) Your policy enforcement will also depend on the relationship you have established with your client. Is the
client relatively new? Or has your client been loyal to you for a while? A loyal client who has a family member who is ill or has a special needs child, for example, may not show due to a family emergency. If you have already established a good relationship with this client and you know you are not being taken advantage of, then I would let an occasional missed appointment go.

6) The reminder call can work wonders, even though it is a little time consuming. For your own sanity, you may want to get into the habit of doing this the day before the appointment – it can go a long way in preventing a no show, and give you time to book someone else if your client can’t make it.

Another issue which is directly related to massage therapy is fraudulent billing for missed appointments, if you haven’t encountered it, you should read about it, it will be an issue at some point.

These are just some pointers in how to deal with no-show clients, please stay tuned for my upcoming post on Massage Therapy and How to End the Therapeutic Relationship, for those clients with whom you “just can’t seem to make it work.”

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Jodi Forsythe
www.whymassagetherapy.com
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