How to avoid last-minute cancellations of your services

Last minute cancellations tend to be somewhat cumbersome, generally when you are on your way to perform the service and you receive a message in which the client cancels the service or what is worse: it happens when you have already arrived.

It is important that as an entrepreneur you avoid last minute changes and cancellation of services because, for the company, this represents a great loss of money and time. Among the most relevant expenses that we can extract from the cancellation of services are the worker's salary, the vehicle's gasoline and the time spent going to the service that has not been transformed into income.

In these cases, the question is: How can I avoid last minute cancellations? Well, to prevent them it is essential to have a strategy.

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Develop a service cancellation policy

Service cancellation policies serve to restrict in time when a customer can or cannot cancel a scheduled service. Generally, companies apply a fee to that cancellation if it is made when the limit to cancel the service has already passed. In these cases, the most important thing is that the client knows this policy, otherwise it will not be effective.

To create a service cancellation policy, the first thing you must implement is a deadline to cancel the service, whether or not it has a penalty. This can be a day or two before the service, although you should evaluate the most useful option for your business. Normally, a penalty is usually applied if you cancel later than the stipulated time; You can decide if it is a standard rate or it depends on the income or expenses you were going to generate with that service.

Customers must be aware of this policy and agree to it, so when you sign the service contract, make sure you leave a space for the customer to sign and agree to this policy.

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Send reminders for each service

Keeping your clients up to date is always beneficial, on the one hand, it avoids delays or last-minute cancellations due to the client's lack of organization and, on the other, it strengthens the bond between the company and the client.

Make sure these reminders are before the deadline to cancel the service, this way they can cancel before you have invested your team's time and money in it. There are different ways to send these reminders: telephone, email or SMS.

Pre-calls are a simple way to ensure that the client has received the reminder, although sometimes it is difficult to contact them or the calls last longer than we would “like”. Emails are the most popular way today, you don't need to invest a lot of time and they can be scheduled. SMS is another way to do it, which avoids the waste of time that a call entails, but it does not allow you to be as creative as an email.

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Set up automatic reminders for each service

To send service reminders to customers you need someone in your company who is in charge of communicating with customers. You will be the person who creates the reminder templates, schedules or sends the reminders, and ensures that the customer receives the information clearly.

To set up automatic reminders you need (if you send emails, which is the most popular way):

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Create a template

To create a reminder template you must make sure that you do not give unnecessary extra information. You must be clear and concise with what you say and that the client receives the message you want to convey.

The information you can add is: date of the service, location of the service, time of the service or the schedule it will occupy and the technician in charge of the service. Afterwards, you can add a short text in which you inform the customer that they can contact the company for any questions via the email or phone number that you provide in the same text.

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Automate reminders

To send reminders, you can do it manually, which involves more time and attention to each of the reminders, or you can choose to automate them with a very simple Gmail option that allows you to schedule emails.

To do this, you just have to write the email from a computer and click on the arrow that appears on the “Send” button. Then the option to schedule will appear and you can select the day and time you want the email to be sent to the client.

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How taclia can help you avoid last-minute cancellations

The organization of your company is essential to prevent last-minute cancellations. If you know all the services you are carrying out every day and which clients you work for, it will be much easier to anticipate last-minute cancellations by sending reminders to your clients.

taclia allows you to keep track of all the tasks and services carried out in your company, thereby improving your organization exponentially. In this way, you will know perfectly what tasks or services will be done soon and with which client, in order to be able to notify and manage them in advance.

With the taclia app calendar, both you and your team will be able to have a panoramic view of all the work done, to be done and urgent in your company, in a single place and from any device.

But not only that, in the taclia app you can count on all your clients and assign them the task or service that is being done for them, this way you will always have updated information on the status of the services that your company provides them. In addition to always having your phone and email on hand in case you need to contact them quickly.