The Value of Time

The Value of time grows

I value my clients’ time. I know that it is valuable to them and therefore to me. Because of this, if there is ever a missed appointment snafu where I am at fault my client’s session is free. If I am ever more than 15 minutes late reaching my studio for an appointment, that client’s session is free. The instances where anything like this would happen are rare. For any business owner, your business is your livelihood, and if clients are constantly canceling and missing appointments, you lose money.

Unfortunately, some client’s do not respect the business owner’s time. Typically, this will be a new client, someone who has never experienced my services before. One such client late cancelled, no-showed and rebooked only to repeatedly cancel and no show multiple times for the same Groupon voucher. This happened until I put my foot down and informed her that her voucher had been good and redeemed multiple times over and that I would not accept it for any session at my business. This client, who had never even stepped foot in my business, decided to ‘get even’ with me by writing bad reviews of my business. This one case, which occurred years ago, prompted me to strengthen my policies to cover my business. I consider my time just as valuable as that of my client’s.

I inform clients of my cancellation/no-show policy in advance verbally, on my website, in my emails, on my forms etc. As such, I thought that the problem had been dealt with. Unfortunately for me, another new client just threatened me with the same ‘revenge’. This customer called a number of times over the past two weeks to schedule an appointment. His calls happened to coincide with the two-week period in which my studio was closed due to the death of a close relative, as well as a pre-scheduled vacation week. Immediately upon my return to the studio, and after checking voice-mail messages, I called this client (I’ll call him ED) and we booked a 30-minute Express De-Stress Deep Tissue Massage appointment for yesterday 4/24 at 5:30 pm.

ED had originally requested 5pm even though I had informed him that my studio hours during weekdays started at 6pm. I told him that I could make an exception and book him at 5:30 pm but that would be the earliest I could schedule his appointment since I would need to leave my day job early in order get to the studio by 5:30pm. ED agreed. I asked him for an email address to send his confirmation email and he said that he did not have one. Ok, this is a red flag for me. I then asked him to confirm verbally that he would make the appointment since I was going out of my way to leave work early in order to be at the studio on time. He verbally confirmed. When I informed him of the 24 hour cancellation policy, he assured me that he would not cancel since he had been “waiting to schedule this appointment for weeks”. He had purchased the 30 minute massage as a gift certificate for someone else, but since he had not given it to the person, he wanted to use it for himself. I informed him that this would be fine.

Yesterday, I arrived at my studio at 5:15pm to set up for the 30 minute session. I turned the ringer on for my business cell phone (I keep it off during the day at my other job) and proceeded to light candles, set out products, and ready the table. The appointment time came and went. At 5:40 pm, I picked up my phone and called ED. He did not answer so I left a voicemail asking him to let me know whether he planned to make his appointment or not. I noticed a missed call alert. I checked and there was a voicemail from ED saying that a colleague who was replacing him for the next shift had not arrived yet and he therefore felt he would not make it to my studio on time and wanted to reschedule for the next day. The time the message was left was 4:15 pm. My cancellation policy is 24 hours and this had already been communicated to him!

Since I could not send him an email, the next morning I text messaged his phone number informing him that his gift certificate had been marked redeemed because he late canceled/no-showed for his appointment. A couple of hours later, ED left a voicemail informing me that he did not consider my policy to be fair since he had called an hour in advance of it, and demanding that I call him back. I called him to explain why the gift certificate had been redeemed and it was an unpleasant call to say the least. He loudly talked over me as I tried to explain and direct him to the written policy page on my website. He informed me that it wasn’t his fault that his colleague showed up late. I agreed with him but let him know that it also was not my fault and that I was trying to run a business. If I allowed customers to no-show and late cancel then not only would my time not be respected, I would lose money as well. Because of the exception I had made for his appointment, I had needed to arrive a half hour earlier to my day job in order to leave a half hour earlier than normal. ED would not even allow me to explain and instead yelled over me. He proclaimed that he would not ever consider my business again and in fact would “write some choice words about [it]” on review sites. He pledged to let his friends know not to patronize my business.

I simply don’t understand how a client could not consider that my time is just as valuable as his or hers. My business has been a labor of love for 4 years because I simply love what I do. I love my business and this is obvious in the quality of my services and everything that I do for my business. It pains me that even though I did everything right, I still have had to deal with inconsiderate, irresponsible clients like ED.

So ED, in response to your threat to damage my business with bad reviews here is what I say: Was it not enough that I had already bent over backwards for you by opening my business up earlier than normal just to book a 30-minute session being paid for with a gift certificate? I have had to work outside of my business for the past two years just to keep the doors open. I have established, written policies to address no-show and late cancellation issues in order to minimize lost revenue to my business because clients like you don’t value my time. Still you and those like you could not care less about policies. You want me to bend over backwards plus twist myself into a pretzel, and for what? For the possibility of having a client like yourself (who quite frankly probably would be a once a year client at best and would expect special treatment simply because you are ‘blessing’ me with your infrequent patronage). Clients like you always want something for nothing. No thank you. It is because of clients like you that I have decided to close my doors. You are not worthy of my talents or of the superior services that I provide. So go ahead and write your reviews. What are you going to say? You never even experienced my services. Your only complaint is that I won’t bend or lower my policy around your needs.