Don't Mark A Lead As A No Show Until You Do This

Many clients in the past have given up too quickly when it comes to leads not showing to their appointment. In this post, we will break down exactly what should be done and why before marking any lead as a no show.

Phone calls vs Zoom Meetings If you are running a cold funnel, meetings over the phone beat zoom meetings on show up rate hands down. This doesn’t mean that you cannot do a zoom call, it means that the first appointment with the lead should be via a phone call. The reason for this is to minimise the friction to get on a call with you as much as possible. It’s 10X easier for your leads to simply answer their phone than having to find the zoom meeting link in their emails and try and join a zoom room (with all the technical difficulties that come with it!). If you really want to have a zoom call on the first call (maybe you need to screen share or something else), then once you have them on the phone and have built some rapport, you can simply say “I tell you what, before we get started, are you good if we jump onto zoom? I just want to do some screenshare…”. If they don’t agree, then they never would have joined the zoom room in the first place so by having a phone meeting instead, you just saved the lead. If they do agree (which 99% will), then stay on the phone with them while they get connected on Zoom. Only hang up once they are in the zoom meeting and are good to go. Remember, the whole point of this is to reduce the friction for the lead as much as possible which means staying on the phone with them and talking them through any technical difficulties while they are trying to connect to the zoom room.

Calendar Availability

Look, we get it, you are busy and don’t have that much time available in your calendar. However, having only a small number of slots for leads to book in will increase your no shows. The reason for this is let’s say you only have 8am and 2pm available for appointments with leads, then you are essentially forcing your leads to pick a time that may not be convenient for them. However, they still book in because their pain around their problem is high. After a few days, their pain for your service/product will dwindle and all of a sudden, the time they booked doesn’t really work that well for them and they just disappear. Make sure to have as many slots as open as possible so leads can pick the most convenient times for them.

Notice Time On Appointments When setting up your calendar, there will be an option which asks something similar to “how much notice do you want for someone to book in an appointment?” which essentially means how soon can someone book into your calendar. When someone is booking their appointment, they are at their hottest which is why they are booking an appointment with you. For every hour that goes past after their appointment has been booked, their curiosity/desire for your service reduces. In an ideal world, someone can have their appointment with you as soon as they book. However, we all have busy lives and can’t be available to talk to leads all the time. However, reducing this time as much as possible will help with the number of leads who show up to their appointments. Having a 2 - 4 hour notice window is recommended as people are able to book with you on the same day. More than 12 hours is not recommended.

Future Bookings

If you give your leads the ability to book too far in the future, they will most likely forget about their appointment or they won’t think it’s as important as it once was. However, there is also a balance with this because if you were to only allow people to book in on the same day, then that will obviously impact the number of appointments you are able to generate because not everyone will be available so quickly. A range of somewhere of 3-5 days in advance as a maximum is recommended. It is not recommended to allow someone to book more than 5 days in advance.

Lead No Show Process

We have seen in the past that some clients will try phoning their leads once or twice at the appointment time and if they don’t answer, they mark the lead as a no show. The problem with this is if the lead is 5-10 minutes late for their appointment or what if the lead doesn’t answer because they don’t recognise the number? To ensure the maximum chance of getting through to the lead, at Team Follow Up we don’t consider a lead to be a no show unless we followed this exact process:

1. Phone the lead at the scheduled time.
   

2. Leave voicemail, sms text, email.
   

3. Call again 5 minutes after the scheduled call time. No need to leave any voicemails, sms or email.
   

4. Call again 10 minutes after the scheduled call time.
   

5. Leave voicemail, sms text, email.
   

6. Send a reschedule request via your booking system to encourage them to rebook.

The system outlined above ensures that if the lead is late or doesn’t recognise the number then they should still answer, and worst case scenario, we have the opportunity for them to rebook.

We hope this helps you reduce your no shows and grow your business!