Solving Our Saturday Appointment Issue

My daughter turned eight this week, and almost overnight she seems so much more grown up.

And it’s been birthday’s all round because PhotoBaby turned ten last month. Since then I’ve been thinking long and hard about where I want the business to go to next and how we are going to get there. Goals are so important, after all how do you know you are going the right way if you don’t plan your journey?

Solving Problems

I’ve been thinking hard about what I want to achieve in the long, mid and short term. Currently, one of our issues that needs addressing is the number of Saturday No Shows we have, which are clients not attending their appointments on a Saturday. This is doubly frustrating because almost everybody wants a Saturday appointment. Our Saturday sessions are booked up for months in advance!

Plus working on Saturday means we are away from our families. We love what we do, but this is a precious day that I don’t want to be wasted. Last year, I even said I wouldn’t open the studio on a Saturday any more, but as we’ve got busier and busier and so many more clients have made the request I’ve backed down. After all, I want to give my clients what they want!

Free Festival

This weekend gone, I had the day off and my family and I went to the Highest Point Festival in Lancaster. The day event was free and so many of my friends had also signed up for the tickets. In fact, so many families had signed up that the tickets had all gone!

Yet, on the day, for one reason and another life got in the way; In the end my family was the only one out of our group to attend the event. And it got me wondering just how many of all the tickets booked actually did get used? And how many would that have been if there had been a small charge?

Tackling Saturdays

This has lead me to think about how I can tackle our Saturday No Show issue. I’m going to put a Saturday deposit in place. I’ve always shied away from doing this, but now that I am thinking it through I’m not sure why! Like my daughter, PhotoBaby is quite grown up now, and this is a grown up thing to do.

I know life gets in the way, and we have to be flexible when new babies are involved. But I also need our clients to realise just how precious our Saturday appointments are. We’ll put this deposit in place with a 48 hour cancelation policy, and this will give our clients who are waiting for an appointment weeks down the line, the chance to jump the queue too.

And as for the festival, it was great. We had a really lovely afternoon and it made our rare Saturday together feel extra special.

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