There is a moment at the end of every appointment when the client is happy, the work is fresh and they are standing in front of you with their card out. It lasts about eight seconds. What happens in it decides more about your revenue next quarter than anything you will post, print or pay for.
Most businesses use it to say thanks and hold the door.
Why it is worth so much
A client who leaves with a date in the diary comes back. A client who leaves saying they will ring is making a genuine, sincere statement of intent that fails perhaps half the time, because six weeks later they are busy, your number is not to hand and somebody nearer their office is open on a Thursday.
The cost of the rebooking is zero. The cost of winning that person back through advertising, once they have drifted, is everything you would spend acquiring somebody new plus the awkwardness of admitting you noticed they went.
What a good rate looks like
Rebooking rate is the share of completed appointments that leave with the next one booked. Businesses that have never measured it are usually somewhere between 20% and 40% and are certain it is higher.
Businesses that measure it and work on it get to 60% or 70% on repeat services. Every ten points is a directly measurable increase in revenue that costs nothing, which is a sentence that is almost never true about anything else in a small business.
Say it as an assumption, not a question
"Would you like to book again?" invites a no, and a polite person will take it because they do not want to be pushed. "You are on about six weeks, so that puts us at the second week of March. Do mornings still work best for you?" invites a date.
The difference is that the second version has already decided the client is coming back and is only sorting out logistics. It is not pushier. It is less pushy, because it never asks them to make a commitment out loud.
Three things that make it easier
- Know their cycle before they stand up. If your system shows the last four visit dates on the same screen as the payment, the interval is obvious and you can say the date rather than ask for it.
- Have something specific to say. "Your colour will start to shift at about seven weeks" is a reason. "See you soon" is not.
- Make the payment and the rebooking the same conversation. Two separate interactions gives them a door to leave through in the middle.
When it does not fit
Some work genuinely cannot be rebooked at the chair. A garage does not know what the car will need in nine months and a plumber does not want to book a hypothetical leak.
The equivalent for that kind of business is the reminder, which does the same job on a delay. MOT dates, service intervals, boiler service anniversaries and annual checks are all rebooking, just triggered by the calendar instead of by the till.
The measurement
Track the share of appointments that end with a future booking, by staff member, for a month. Rebooking rate varies enormously between two people working in the same room doing the same job, and the gap is almost always the wording rather than the skill.
Show people their own number. It moves on its own once they can see it.
Topics
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