Missed appointments seem to be becoming an increasing problem for businesses. We often hear about the cost to the NHS of missed appointments, and my GP surgery runs a monthly tally of the number of missed appointments and the cost to the surgery.

For small businesses and private healthcare providers the cost  is a personal one; you just don’t get paid. It is difficult to know whether the number of missed appointments is increasing or whether there is a greater awareness. Because a missed appointment is lost income, it can’t be resold, so the only recourse is to claim that money back from the client. These articles are a discussion point on how you might keep failures to a minimum, and how to claim back the charge when a client misses an appointment.

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We had a great time at the Harrogate conference. We went with 3 aims:

1. To meet up with existing clients, we got excellent feedback on the benefits they find.
2. To extol the benefits of our appointment booking service to new potential clients and the time saving this brings.
3. To meet up with other companies, we were greatly encouraged that TM2 and PPS both had representatives at conference and were sending potential clients down to talk to us about virtual reception service.

For me there was also the benefits of checking out new podiatry products.

I think we achieved all these, but the best bit was meeting our clients, what a lot of nice people they are. Some of you gave us some feedback, which is always welcome, and some of you gave us some sound bite testimonials which are excellent and will be appearing on the website very soon, so thank you for those. Those of you who recommended colleagues or friends to come and visit us, thank you. There is lots of information about us on the new website, including the current Real Time Reception price list.

If we took your photo at the conference, we will have pinned you up on our wall of fame. It really is nice to be able to put a face to the voice. We hope to go to the Glasgow Conference next year and hopefully we will see you again there. Maybe we will organise a bit of corporate entertainment next time?

So, See you all next year
Jennie, Howard and Jean.

We are celebrating our first Christmas at Cromer, and we started the celebrations with the Christmas dinner at a local hostelry, and very good it was too. I believe that once management were out of the way the staff let their hair down a bit more and caroused until the early hours of Saturday. Fortunately they have all recovered this week.

We will be open this year until 17.00 on Friday 23rd December and we will be opening again on Wednesday 28th, Thursday 29th and Friday 30th December from 10.00 until 3.00 each day. We are not expecting a lot of calls so we are only keeping a small staff in for each session, It is an interesting exercise to try to predict how busy everyone will be and balance staffing levels against business need.

Meanwhile we would like to wish you,  our customers and their families,
Peace and Prosperity and Goodwill to All.

We really enjoy a chance to get out and about, meeting our clients in the flesh, and hopefully meeting some new clients. As we are not in your office with you we don’t often get the chance to meet up so when we do we try to make the most of it.

Jennie, Howard and Jean are going to Harrogate from 23rd to 26th November, to exhibit at the Society of Chiropodists and Podiatrists Conference.

Anyone coming to the conference, whether you are a client, are interested or just want to know a bit more about what we do, come and visit us at stand 32 and have a chat.

Anyone who is a client already we would really like to meet you. Be warned we have strict instructions to photo everyone to stick your pics on our wall of fame in the office.

If you are not able to attend the conference, not a podiatrist or can’t spare the time, but would like to talk to us while we are in your area do give us a call and we will contact you to arrange an appointment.

Jennie

We finally moved into our new business premises last Thursday. It’s fantastic to have so much space. We were becoming so cramped in the previous office.

Here everyone has room to breathe, Nicki has her own area to organise as she would like, the receptionists have bigger, roomier desks, Jean has her own corner from which she can be the mistress of all she surveys, and Jennie and Howard have a separate office again.

Everyone seems happy, there’s a good vibe going on. Here we have room to grow and that’s just what we plan to do!

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