Missed appointments are booked appointments that did not take place, whether due to no-shows (the customer does not appear and does not cancel) or short-notice cancellations shortly before the appointment. In revenue-dependent industries such as beauty, physiotherapy or coaching, missed appointments cause direct financial damage.
Causes
- Forgetting the appointment (most common cause) → Remedy: appointment reminder
- Sudden illness or emergency
- Lack of commitment with free bookings → Remedy: prepayment
- No barrier to cancellation
Countermeasures in the system
- Automatic reminders by email or SMS, e.g. 24 hours and 2 hours before the appointment
- Prepayment as a booking requirement (the customer loses the amount in case of a no-show)
- Configure a short cancellation window (e.g. cancellation only possible up to 24 hours in advance)
- Appointment alert for the operator on short-notice cancellations
Analysis: The Reports & Statistics module records missed appointments in the selected period and reveals patterns, e.g. certain weekdays or appointment reasons with a particularly high no-show rate.