Imagine This.
You have set everything on the table required to discuss with the client.
They can show up anytime in the next 30 minutes.
You receive a call after checking everything and ensuring it is in order.
That’s your client on the other side.
They just hit you with the news, “I cannot make it to the meet.”
Bummer!
It is the most irritating scenario to witness, especially when the client could have proved a breakthrough for your business growth. It happens nearly with every business, whether you are a spa business holder or property manager.
You not only lose the customer but your valuable time too. A businessman got plenty of tasks to consider. The last thing you would like to do is waste your time dealing with customers that ghost you at the last moment.
A business owner hits every nail to keep the business going. It includes seeking debt consolidation loans for bad credit in the UK to sorting ways to fund business. Act quickly to make the most of your client interaction and avoid last-minute cancellations. You cannot bear another £100000 loss!
The article states some tangible and tested ways to prevent last-minute cancellations.
How To Minimize Client Meeting Cancellations?
No matter how much hard work you do to make a meeting a success, you cannot force a client to attend it. Clients do not share any personal obligation to attend it. So, before taking any action, improvise. You still share the opportunity to rectify a few things.
Analyze the business procedures from scratch and find the glitches. Rectify these. Check the below strategies to deal with this:
1) Re-connect with them over a call
Some clients dutifully inform the business of their inability to join the meet, while some just ghost. Contact the person. There could be a legitimate reason for skipping the meeting. If they miss the call, remind them with a mail. Send a follow-up message in case you do not receive a response.
Check whether you share the flexibility to re-schedule the meeting to a later date? Check. What else can you do to maintain a client-business relationship? Ask for a new meeting time from a client through a text, email, or voice message.
Do not lose your temper. Communicate professionally and uphold patience. Always be kind while dealing and conversing.
2)Identify the Root cause
Identify the clients’ behavior and habits. Is the habitual ghosting business at the last minute? If yes, why? There could be a possible reason. For example, the client’s expectations and the business’s success plan may differ.
He might be exploring different persons to connect with and confused about choosing you over others. There is always a pattern in a client’s interaction. Suppose you have interacted with them earlier. You must have noticed a pattern in the conversations. Step back for a moment and consider this. Do not play on assumptions. Get into the root cause of the issue.
Or is there a glitch in your conversation pattern? The thing goes both ways.
Identify –
Did you approach the client the right way?
Did you attend him in the right way in the marketing funnel?
Is your offering competitive enough to attract the client in the first go?
Have you missed the mark somewhere?
Determining the underlined perception and problem will help you fix the issue from the roots up.
3)Draft a cancellation policy for business
No two customers share the same intensity to revert the business.
One turns up on time for discussion, while the other never attends the meeting.
It is where you can make a mark with a professionally-designed cancellation policy. The purpose of the cancellation policy is to reduce client ghosting and cancellations.
How to design a fail-proof cancellation policy?
Here is how you can design an infallible cancellation policy:
Grant your customers a meeting cancellation time frame. Decide this in terms of the time it will take you to find another potential client.
Set a penalty for delayed cancellations. You can charge a price for your service here.
Define the way you want them to notify them about the meeting cancellation. It could be through email, text, or phone calls.
Tell them how to reconnect if they miss the very day. State the procedure.
This cancellation policy must be visible to all website visitors. Clients must see it on the contact page to avoid any confusion. It will help you keep a tab over cancellations and reduce time wastage.
4) Send scheduled meeting reminders
Sending out an email confirmation is not enough. Customers do not remember things at times. It is due to a million tasks in hand. In this case, you must remind them of the booking through scheduled messages. People’s inboxes are flooded with emails, and most of them are spam.
Apart from reminding the customer of the meeting, attach the cancellation policy. You can also add something that provokes the customer’s curiosity to attend the meeting. An example could be a fact, a free demo, or a case study from the past. Customers seek a reason to connect. Provide them one; they will connect.
5)State the Cost in the meeting proposal
Discuss your pricing structure and send the quotation. Being candid about the pricing structure with your client will help you know whom you are dealing with. As a result, you will be able to partner with only genuinely interested parties. A client’s financial circumstances may change. It may result first in the canceled appointment and unpaid invoices. Regularly view and optimize your payment terms. Keep your client in the loop with the changed payment terms.
Launch special offers for clients. If you keep up the client on good terms, they may be open about why they cannot connect with you anymore. It can be anything- due to finances or other priorities. When a client has an open conversation with a business, it indicates growth.
It could be that he is in a hurry to take out a 10000 cash loan from a direct lender. A business problem might be stressing him out. Whatever it is, you must know the right nerve.
Wrapping Up!
Some clients may not provide you with an opportunity to reconnect and ghost you. The bad part is you cannot do anything about it. The good part is that deploying the above strategies reduces cancellations. Conduct due diligence before proceeding with any client.