Yesterday I had three appointments with prospective clients. The first just plain no-showed after making the appointment the previous afternoon. The second actually called yesterday morning, spoke with me, and confirmed our appointment, then no-showed to his 1:30 appointment. Neither has responded to a voice message and an email each.

I don’t have a lot of no-shows. Last year I had 234 consultations scheduled. 63 canceled, 19 no-showed, and 152 showed up. But, still, it’s aggravating to have someone simply not show up to an appointment without so much as a call.

Years ago I offered free initial consultations, and if someone had a work conflict, I’d make an appointment to meet them in the evening, or on Saturday. I found that the more I went out of my way to accommodate someone, the more likely they were to no-show to the appointment. I discovered that I didn’t charge for my time, the prospective client didn’t value my time.

Recently I began to offer an incentive to have folks prepay for their consultations to help reduce my no-show rate. I made a recording on 2 compact disks of everything I always wanted to say in a divorce consultation but never had the time. The deal is that if you prepay for your consultation (using a PayPal link on my web site), I’ll give you the CDs for free, and if you hire me for the divorce at the end of the consultation, I’ll apply the consultation fee you prepaid to the fees for the divorce.

The prepaid consultation option has been only mildly successful. Folks who get the CDs ahead of time say it really helps them be prepared when they do come to see me. It also gives them information they can share with their spouse. But, most folks choose not to prepay for their consultation.
But when I have two folks stand me up on the same day, like yesterday, I begin to wonder whether I should do more to keep folks from wasting my time. I have considered requiring folks to prepay for their consultations. While it would nearly eliminate no-shows, it would probably reduce the number of people who would come see me. Some because they aren’t really sure whether they want to get divorced. Some because they aren’t ready to start the divorce, yet, and they don’t want the spouse seeing the credit card charge.

What do you think? Would it be unreasonable to require folks to prepay for the consultation? Or, how about requiring them to give me credit card information just to guarantee the appointment, and the card wouldn’t be charged unless they no-showed?