I’m writing this blog post while getting paid to work for a client. Why? Because I charge for appointments that aren’t cancelled by 5 the day before.
So it seemed like a good time to remind you that sending reminder emails the day before to confirm appointments, or if you THINK you want to cancel that appointment, do it the day before, not the day of (unless you-or the dog- wake up sick, which does totally happen).
My afternoon got away from me yesterday so I didn’t send a reminder email till this morning, and evidently that was too late- someone’s day was already off and running.
Do you have a process in place with clients to charge for time that’s ignored? It was one of the smarter things I did in my business. And now my clients (almost always) show up, or cancel on time!
Please Empower Your Employees
While on vacation this 4th of July, my husband and I decided to stay in a hotel with Hank on our drive down to Oregon. No problem, I had researched some hotels that would take our large dog (which I never get because he’s old and lazy and I’ve seen 10 lb dogs do a lot more destruction…). I got on my phone, called the hotel made the reservation, mentioned my large dog, no problem, all set. Fast forward to 10 pm when I arrive at the hotel…No record of a dog on the reservation, and the only dog friendly room left is a smoking room, so not going to work for us. The gal at the desk says she can call her manager, no answer. “sorry, he didn’t answer.” Sure, so if you need a manager to make any decisions WHY ISN’T THE MANAGER ON DUTY RIGHT NOW!???
I’m NOT happy as I’m sure you can imagine. So, we drive across the street to another hotel. I knew they had some pet friendly rooms, and recalled they may have a size limit. I go to the front desk, and explain my story. No problem, pet friendly, non smoking, you’re set. OH but they do have a size limit. So she calls her boss who doesn’t answer. Then she says “you know, I see dogs way over the weight limit here, if someone stops you just tell them I said it was fine.” And off we go to our room where Hank is the perfect hotel guest (except for hogging the bed) and we had NO PROBLEM. And now I’ll always find a way to stay at The Holiday Inn, screw you crappy Days Inn.
Here’s the thing: you need to empower your employees. If only a manager can make the call on something, then you need a manager around. But that front desk gal at 10pm on a Wednesday night knew that Hank would be fine, and just wanted to go to bed. She knew it wasn’t the end of the world to stretch the rules 35 pounds. EMPOWER, don’t let them place blame. If you can’t trust your employees, then you need to work the night shift.
Stake Your Claim
One of the “funnest” parts of my job is helping clients to claim and enhance their online reputation. This includes making sure all their online presence is correct, up to date, and claimed by them.
Lately I’ve worked with two clients who have some fun challenges. One client has two Google+ Business Pages setup (and after contacting Google+ we discovered one is a BRAND page, no clue how that happened). Anyway, the good news is, that Google has an active response system, and they’re really helpful about getting everything figured out and cleaned up.
Another client has a similar business in the same office park area as them, who has mis-claimed a few of their locations. So, we get to go in and request from Bing/Google/Yelp/etc. that they are the correct owners of the space.
So, here’s my helpful tip for you this summer so you aren’t spending a lot of money on me fixing this…CLAIM YOURSELF online. Google+, Bing Places, Yelp, Facebook/Twitter/LinkedIn/etc. there’s a bazillion places, and you may not need to claim them all, but get the basics set. I use to recommend Brandify to folks, but it now has a fee. However, they have a free trial period, and if you have a bit of time, I’d suggest signing up for the trial, get the info you need from them and then cancel the account (well, until Brandify sees this and yells at me…).
I don’t care if you don’t want to be online, like it or not, your business is online. You need to at least own it, before someone else does.
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