How do you deal with clients who don’t show up?
Confirm by hand before the day, review your cancellations and agree clear terms with clients.
Fixing common issues
Clients who fail to turn up cost you time and money. 4appointments has no no-show status, counter or blocklist, and it doesn’t take deposits, so the work is done with the tools it does have: manual confirmation, the management link, the bookings list and reports. Here’s a practical routine.
Use the pending status as a filter. Every public booking arrives as pending and holds the slot. Before you confirm it, contact the client by phone or message and check they really intend to come. A request nobody answers is cancelled quietly about an hour after its time ends, which also frees the slot.
Give clients an easy way out. The final screen shows a management link for cancelling or rescheduling, with no minimum notice, so ask clients to keep it and say so when you share your booking link. Someone who can cancel in two taps is less likely to simply vanish. For bookings you create yourself, copy the link and send it by hand.
Contact them yourself the day before. The tool sends no reminders by email or text, so a short call or message from you is the most effective step. Use the day or agenda view to see tomorrow’s bookings at a glance. Then review the pattern: export the bookings list to CSV, XML or PDF, look for repeated names and check the cancellation rate in the reports. A client who keeps missing appointments can be asked to ring you to book, and you can reject their pending requests from the panel.
Agree clear terms. If you want a deposit for long or expensive services, arrange it outside the tool, for example by bank transfer or at the counter, and confirm the booking only after you’ve received it. Write the cancellation terms wherever you share your link.
The essentials
- ✓There’s no no-show status, counter or blocklist: use the list, CSV export and reports
- ✓A manual check before confirming filters out unreliable requests
- ✓Any deposit is arranged outside the tool, and you confirm after receiving it
Common questions
Is it possible to block a client who often misses appointments?+
There’s no blocklist. You can reject their pending requests in the panel and ask them to book by phone, but the public page can’t be closed to one person.
Am I allowed to keep the deposit if the client doesn’t turn up?+
That depends on your national rules and on what you agreed with the client. 4appointments doesn’t handle deposits, so put the terms in writing where you take the payment.
More guides you may find useful
Protect your diary from no-shows
Use manual confirmation, the management link and your reports to keep your slots for people who actually turn up. The first 12 months are free, with no card.
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