The tradition 24 hour cancellation policy - Personal Trainer Community - Forum

[superhumanfitness]

I've never had a problem with enforcing the 24 hour cancellation policy with clients when it comes to no-shows due to things like forgetting, traffic, their family comes to town, and of course just being a bit of a flake. But what do y'all do about illness? Especially with people who get sick overnight and have morning appointments with you? Seems harsh of me to take that from them under such circumstances, but at the same time, especially being that I'm involved a lot in large group training, I don't want to give people gray area that I may have to justify to others in the group.

Any ideas? Maybe a cut off time for notification the night before?

[trainercoach]

I understand the certain situations may come up where clients have to cancel on very short notice. However, you need to enforce your cancellation policies as you agreed with your customers. In order to fix issues like this, you need to build room for emergencies into your system. Perhaps allow one emergency cancellation per year.

[megfit]

It's always a concern when first starting out, but you'll quickly be able to tell which clients are committed and which are .... well, flakes...

I started training in 1996 and found that my ideal clients were those who were committed and consistent. I also set that example, not canceling or showing up late.

I live up in the mountains, and my very first client lived up here, also, but most of my other clients lived down the hill. I had clients I'd see before her, so I'd have to drive down the mountain, then fly back up to see her. She canceled last minute on me once, and although I DO have a 24 hour cancellation policy, I seldom needed to enforce it. However, I pointed out to her that because of my schedule, she HAD to tell be at least the night before. The second time she did it, I did charge her, which resolved the problem...

Meanwhile, I have another client who I have had since 1999. He has always been very dependable and consistent and I've never had an issue with cancellations with him. ONCE (just recently), he called me after I was up in the morning, but before I left. Since he has NEVER done this, it wasn't even an issue in my mind that I would charge him.

Just examples of what you may come up upon. Bottom line is this, though: make sure you have your policy in writing, they have read and signed it, and they have a copy. Then it's YOUR choice who you want to enforce it with and who you don't.

Margie

[kaiserS]

Hey SHF - yeah I see your point - I was always squeamish about imposing a strict cancellation policy but felt much better about myself once I did -

In case of illness, my clients understood that they were unfortunately losing out on their session and getting charged for it - hey, getting sick happens and it's not fair, but if someone's got to lose out for it, let it be your client. That's kind of how I justified it to myself and how I explained it to my clients.

For me, it was the switch to EFT that did it - a few people fight it but most get used to it -

[drjamesroman]

Most clients are okay with that, and generally I would just use common sense. If they cancel within 2-3 hours of an appointment for no good reason, then of course charge them. But if they have some sort of major illness or accident, then you pretty much have to give them the benefit of the doubt and not charge them for it. It also helps if you go over your cancellation policy with new clients when they start up with you and have them sign your policy forms that way that can't say they didn't know.