Should you charge for appointments and tours?

Everyone hates no-shows on appointments and tours, but is charging the solution? I saw a conversation on Facebook started by a venue owner, @corbinmock. Obviously frustrated by couples making appointments and then not showing up, this started a serious of comments. While I agree with the premise, I have some ideas on this subject.

Listen to this new, 8-minute episode for my thoughts on how you might approach this.

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- Should you charge for appointments and tours? Here's another touchy subject, listen to this episode. Hi, it's Alan Berg. Welcome back to another episode of the Wedding Business Solutions podcast. I saw yet another post on Facebook that inspired this particular episode here. It was about a venue who was obviously getting a lot of no-shows on their appointments for tours and was asking other venues, Hey is it time that we should start charging for the tours? Now this is already something that's common with bridal shops, where there will be a fee for the appointment and then if you buy a dress, they'll refund that fee to you. The idea here for the venues was there's a fee, maybe $25, to make the appointment. If you come and you don't book, you get your money back. But what I liked about it was if you do book then you got a hundred dollars credit towards your wedding. So they were quadrupling your money there, if you will.

Now, the concept really is simple because there are a lot of other businesses that do that. There's a cost for the appointment. Now, sometimes there's a cost for the appointment and it does not get applied to the sale. You're taking up someone's time, you're getting some ideas, but let's go back to this idea here. So, when I first saw it, I was like, huh? You're not breaking new ground in general. You might be breaking ground in the venue industry but you're not breaking new ground in general because other people are doing this. But let's first think about this, what is the problem we're trying to solve? Now if the problem we're trying to solve is no shows, right? Somebody makes an appointment and doesn't show up. That is not fair to you, right? That's rude on their part for not calling, emailing, whatever and telling you, Hey, I can't make it. You know, occasionally something happens, you know, God forbid someone gets in an accident or whatever and they don't call you, right? But a lot of times people just don't. They just don't, they don't think there's any big deal.

Now what they may not realize is, you might not be on site all the time. You might not be in your office, right? It's not just for venues, this could be for anybody. And that you have to take the time away from something else to come in and then they don't show up. Yeah, that's bad, but are we punishing the masses for the ills of a few? That's the first thing that I would ask anybody who's thinking about doing this. How big of a problem is it really? Because I know when it happens, it's a really big problem right then and there. Is it always a problem? Are we punishing everyone? Because what's the negative of this? The negative is, you could miss out on a really good prospect who says, you know what? I'm not going to pay to go see your venue or to come meet with you when somebody else is not going to charge me. And they might have the budget for what you do, they might like your style. They might like everything about what they saw and then the record scratch moment. Nope, I'm not going to pay you to come make that appointment.

So are we potentially losing more business than we're gaining? That would be the first thing I'm asking. There are other ways to cut down on the number of no-shows. How are you following up? Are they making an appointment online? Because I think this is another big problem. If you have your Calendly or Time Trade or whatever and people can go make an appointment without ever having a conversation with you digitally, on the phone or whatever. You might get more no shows that way. I don't know, you'd have to track that, but there wasn't as much of the same commitment, whereas they had a conversation and now they're interested in coming and seeing. They may not feel quite as obligated because they just clicked the button, made an appointment and you know, that was it. So how are you following up? If they make the appointment the day before? Okay, maybe you don't necessarily have to follow up. But the other day I had an appointment with someone for a Zoom call. They were trying to sell me and I got, probably, four or five follow-ups. Four or five follow-ups within a few days about this appointment. To me, it was a little overkill. It seems like a little overkill, but I certainly did know about the appointment and it was in my calendar and it was really hard for me to have missed that. And they were giving me every opportunity to say I can't make it.

So here's what I would say if you want to consider this. All right, let me just go back to the venue that's thinking about this. So, Corbin Mock, you're the one that made this post on Facebook, here's what I would do, if you want to try this, I would explain why you're doing it. I would have a description there and say "We would love you to come out and see our venue. Unfortunately, some people have not been courteous in getting back to us and saying they couldn't make their appointments, so we've had a lot of no shows. So here's what we're going to do, we're going to have a $25 deposit and then if you come and don't like our venue and you decide not to book us, you're going to get your money back on the spot. And if you do decide that you like us and want to have your event or your wedding with us, we're going to quadruple that for you and make that a hundred dollars credit towards your wedding or event."

So I would say that, I would explain it, why is this happening instead of just saying, it's an appointment, it's a fee, whatever it is, $25, $100, whatever it is, I would explain what it is. Give the WHY so somebody goes, oh, you know what? That's really bad that people did that but sure I'll do that. Now you still might have no shows, but you have their $25 which to me is not enough money for a no show, because how much time did you waste there? But you still might get some no shows and people will be like, Hey it's $25, just forget about it. There you go. So I would do the explanation there, but let's first make sure that we're not punishing everybody because some people did bad things, and you're just feeling the pinch of that. You could get better qualified people because they're willing to make that, you know, payment. It's kind of like with wedding expos, the ones that are free, you might get a few more tire kickers in there, people looking for freebies. The ones where they have to buy a ticket, especially if they have to buy tickets for everybody that's coming that could cut down on the number of people that are now crowding up the aisles that really aren't your buyers. That posse that comes along sometimes with other people there.

So, I don't oppose the concept. I really don't. I'm not opposed to the concept of, Hey, if somebody wants to come and you want to charge them and if that's going to cut down on the number of tours and maybe get you better, qualified people. Not bad. Understand, you might lose some people who are just not willing to do that. And then again, what you'd have to think here is, if you can fill your calendar, doing it that way. Having the charge for the appointment, having people pay and then getting their money back or getting either just their money applied towards the wedding or event, or maybe in this case, it was four times your money going towards that. If you want to try that, I think it's fine. And if you can fill your calendar that way don't worry about the business you lose. It's the same discussion with putting pricing on your website. If somebody comes to your site, sees your price, shops you against someone else and decides not to come back to you, you might lose people that way, but you also might be losing people who don't see any idea of price and pass you by looking for someone who does.

So, thank you Corbin for this idea, this concept. I know you didn't know you were sparking a podcast episode but I think it's an interesting concept. I'm not opposed to the idea and I'd like to know what you think about it. So, thanks for listening and share your thoughts.

I'm Alan Berg. Thanks for listening. If you have any questions about this or if you'd like to suggest other topics for "The Wedding Business Solutions Podcast" please let me know. My email is Alan@WeddingBusinessSolutions.com. Look forward to seeing you on the next episode. Thanks.

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