What to Do About Customers Who Silently Steal Your Time And Money – No-Shows, Last Minute Cancellations, and Late Arrivals

By: Doug Emerson, The Profitable Horseman

This newsletter is focused on riding instruction, but the theme applies to the value of your time in all parts of your business.

Your profession of riding instructor offers many rewards, including:

• Helping customers become better riders and better horsemen
• Working with horses daily instead of tolerating a 9-5 job you fear you’ll learn to hate
• Earning a living while doing what you love to do

Whoa, sometimes the last point, earning a living as a riding instructor, can be very frustrating if you deal with people arriving late or not showing up at all for lessons. Instructors, whether running their own businesses or as an employee of others, can lose focus of the primary purpose of a riding lesson business.

The primary purpose of a riding instruction and all other businesses is to make a profit. This isn’t meant to be crass, but in the simplest terms, you do it for the money.

An erratic cash flow from lesson revenue caused by no-shows and late cancellations will create stress you don’t deserve. If this is a problem for you, you can do something about it when you choose to take total responsibility for correcting the problem.

When you’ve had enough of being taken advantage of by students’ or youth students parents’ lack of organization or disrespect for your limited time window to earn money, you’re ready to put your boot down!

Remember, you are no different than other professionals like physicians, dentists, chiropractors or hair stylists, and many others who have only their time to sell. There are only so many appointment slots open during business hours. Every no-show or rescheduled appointment is a stolen, not lost, opportunity that can never be recovered to earn money.

Business minded professionals, including riding instructors, have a late cancellation, missed appointment, and late arrival policy in writing. Most policies have compassion for long standing customers who have last minute emergencies or who, uncharacteristically, just happen to forget. These customers deserve a break from you as the business owner. These same customers are often extremely apologetic for their mistake and genuinely appreciate the service you provide.

In a time-based business like riding instruction, students need to be reminded that a 4:30 P.M. lesson starts precisely then and there is no “ish” on your clocks. You’re not hosting a cocktail party. You may want to adopt old school attitudes like, “If you’re on time, you’re late!”

Your student arriving 20 minutes late for a scheduled 45 minute lesson means she gets a 25 minute lesson at full price. Youth students, dependent on parental or other family transportation to lessons, can be chronic late arrivers or no-shows for lessons. Many riding instructors suffer through a flurry of text messages from students noting, “running late” or requesting a last minute cancellation and lesson reschedule.

24 hours or more to reschedule is reasonable. 24 minutes notice to reschedule is borderline insulting.

Your solution to missed lessons may be to convert your pay-as-you go program to the pre-paid lesson package. Pay-as-you-go lessons and prepaid lesson packages both have merits and disadvantages worthy of discussion.

But, consider the outstanding advantage of prepaid packages when it comes to eliminating the stress of lesson tardiness and no-shows since you’ve already got the money!

If your mind is kicking and screaming and resisting the idea of offering package lessons as the only option to youth students, remember, parents are already trained to accept pay in advance programs for their children. Dance lessons, soccer leagues, after school skiing programs, piano lessons and hockey are just the short list of youth activities that require payment in advance for the programs. Include a missed lesson makeup day option which will keep everyone happy and maintain fairness.

Over the years, society has created an implied “second and third” chance club for those who choose to get left behind by their own lack of self-discipline. Perhaps the blame for this problem can be shared by lenient education policies allowing for numerous “make up “ tests and exams.

Overly ambitious parents, who enroll their children in too many activities, and expect the riding instructor to yield a scheduled lesson slot to a conflicting dance lesson show general declining lack of respect and good manners.

Whatever reasons are causing late and no-show lessons, they are not your problems to solve. Your problem to solve is how to prevent loss of revenue from booked lesson time. Here are suggestions for you.

• Have a written policy for missed lessons hand delivered to each student and parent of a youth student. It’s best if it is quite simple and brief. This prevents the “no one told me” defense.
• Charge for short notice cancellation or missed lessons that are a result of negligence. If the thought of doing this frightens you since it may result in the loss of a customer, may I remind  you that you work without fear with horses that can potentially rear, kick, bite and trample you on a daily basis. Losing a student who only participates when convenient is not much of a monetary loss to be afraid of.
• If you’re not offering package lessons to youth students, start today. Here’s why: You get paid up front and can use the money for your business expenses.
• The mechanics of collecting cash, checks or credit cards are done in advance leaving more time for the lesson or starting the next lesson.
• Parents, Grandparents or the responsible party for lesson payments is relieved from the constant outpouring of money and can enjoy the experience instead of being reminded how expensive lessons are.
• If you offer a package for a certain number of lessons with the last lesson being free, the purchaser feels even better about the investment. As an example, buy five lessons and get the sixth one free.
• Package lessons make perfect birthday or Christmas gifts.

If you have certain adult students who make a habit of arriving at “ish o’clock” and are constantly rescheduling or who have difficulty remembering their lesson times, have “the talk” with them explaining you value their patronage and expect them to value your time in return. The talk should be brief explaining your short notice cancellation, late arrival and missed lesson policy. There is no need to apologize for your policy, but there is a need to simply say this is how I do business.

Students who don’t respect the instructor’s time tend also to disrespect the instructor’s coaching, experience, and dedication. If you lose a student or two when you stand firm on you policy, you gain the opportunity to find new students who respect and enjoy the opportunity to have you as their riding instructor. That major win trumps your minor monetary loss.

If you are looking for horse business help, need a speaker for your equine event or are interested in attending or hosting a horse business workshop, email me here: doug@profitablehorseman.com or call 716-434-5371.

Doug Emerson helps professional horsemen struggling with the business half of the horse business.

Visit his website:  www.ProfitableHorseman.com for more articles like this one and to subscribe to his free electronic newsletter about being profitable in the horse business.