clients don't understand "" CLOSED""

realspeed

realspeed

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Bazza
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My wife and I work 7 days a week all year apart from November when we have the month off.
Our opening times on a Sunday for clients to bring/collect their pets is 10am-12noon and we keep strictly to those times and longer during the week.

Today having rang a client at 11.40am telling them we close at 12 noon and they only live 10 minutes away you would think they would turn up before we closed. Turned up at 12.02 and didn't bring the pet vaccination card which is a legal requirement for our business. They said they would bring it in a couple of hours??? we are closed then, so they next said they would bring it on pet collection!!! No way everyone is told we must see proof of vaccination on arrival and it is on our terms and conditions which they have a copy of,and this couple have been many times before.

So we refused to accept the pet, then the arguement started but I have to be firm and said bring it in tomorrow instead with the pet or get someone else to do it.

Needless to say they wern't happy, but that,s their tough luck. Just got rid of them and 20 minutes later someone came to collect their pet and got the same answer, come back tomorrow. Still 2 hours later 2 more cars turned up.

We might as well not have published opening hours on our web site, outside our premise and on our terms and conditions.

What is wrong with people? can't they tell the time or what? we get really Pi**ed off with them
 
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i know this sounds like more work, but I think in the long run it could help - send text reminders (using one of the online text providers) - you can set these to be delivered eg on the day of collection or the day before, to remind them you close at 12pm.
Your customers will think you are lovely for reminding them - you will have fewer latecomers to get annoyed at.
 
I do sympathise by the way. We used to have a petfood home delivery business - and people would turn up at our HOUSE at 8pm on a Sunday night, to collect, having run out, despite a phonecall asking them if they needed anything.
People are, well, awful!
 
ANNA

Wouldn't work ,they are told when they book-rang them before we closed giving ample time to get here - on our web site- no end of search engines to look at--on a large board outside our place-on our terms which they have a copy of. Do you honestly think texting (if we could and had time) would make any difference? WE have on average this time of year 15/20 clients turning up in those 2 hours of opening. Even though we are closed to the public Sunday afternoon we are still working looking after the 40/50 pets boarding with us

would you open up your studio after your closed and your only half day off in the week? I don't think so
 
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realspeed said:
ANNA

Wouldn't work ,they are told when they book-rang them before we closed giving ample time to get here - on our web site- no end of search engines to look at--on a large board outside our place-on our terms which they have a copy of. Do you honestly think texting (if we could and had time) would make any difference?
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I do feel your pain. We get people turn up at the studio to collect on, eg, Mondays, despite the fact we TEXT and EMAIL them the opening hours, and SAY we are closed on Mondays.
However, the texting does help mitigate the problem to a degree - also it can be automated so it is not a big thing to have to do, once it is worked into a routine.
But, did I mention people are awful?
 
Also, do you have a sign out on the street to say closed, to stop them even BOTHERING to turn up when they shouldn't? Our local kennels has gates - if the gates are locked (and they do this promptly) then it is tough luck
 
Oh I know how you feel...when I worked for a major credit card company in the customer services call centre we had opening hours published openly and the telephone line for customer services would close then, but we would still have hundreds of people that rather than phone that number would phone the lost card number instead :( and then get angry that we would not handle there call, yes we had access to do the job of course we did but that was not why we were there out of hours there was minimal staff just there for lost card calls and to process online communications via the online banking service

There was actually one customer that called virtually every night claiming to have lost his card but mercilessly he always found it just after passing security so one evening I went though an extended security and at the end of the security told him I'd cancelled his card and that a new one was in the post it would be with him in 7-10 working days :) and thanked him for calling the LOST card line ;) he never called up again out of hours
 
I saw a sign very similar to this "rear of house" in a large retail outlet.
Yep couldn't agree more!

Rottenecards_19278814_xvq3s2bh4g.jpg
 
We have a huge 4x3 ft sign in bright yellow with opening times on it, yet they ignore it. large gates locked as well.

The thing is as we live on the premises they think we will open up just for them,next time if we did that they would say "well you opened up 20minutes after you closed last time, we are only an hour late this time"
 
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I say tough on your customers. The vaccination rules are in place to protect everyone, and their pets. What would your "friends" have said if you'd taken in a pet without a certificate and the love of their life caught something, potentially fatal?

Stand your ground. We've had cats for 35+ years and they always require certificates when boarding, even though we've been going to the same place for over 20 years.

It protects everyone, and more importantly it protects the pets.

We'll done you.
 
We normally do, but this particular client turned up just as we were closing and we would have accepted his pet had he come with a current vaccination certificate. If we accepted a pet without it and got a spot check by the environmental heath officer who issues our licence, we could have been closed down.

The results of this is being sued by those who made future bookings- all the animals in our care removed- taken to court and prosecuted apart from loss of business built up over 20 years going down the pan and staff loosing their jobs.It is that serious, so why should we risk all that for one or two who think their times are ok and ignore ours

THEY CAN JUST SOD OFF,we have more clients than we can cope with now, well over 5000 and turn away on average about 15 bookings a day peak times. On average we take on around 10 new clients a week as well on our books
 
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realspeed said:
We normally do, but this particular client turned up just as we were closing and we would have accepted his pet had he come with a current vaccination certificate. If we accepted a pet without it and got a spot check by the environmental heath officer who issues our licence, we could have been closed down.

The results of this is being sued by those who made future bookings- all the animals in our care removed- taken to court and prosecuted apart from loss of business built up over 20 years going down the pan.It is that serious, so why should we risk all that for one or two who think their times are ok and ignore ours
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er, you shouldn't!
 
realspeed said:
It is that serious, so why should we risk all that for one or two who think their times are ok and ignore ours
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You can do without that sort of customer. They won't thank you whatever you do for them, but they will hold you responsible if they think you've fallen down on the job. Time for you to start a blacklist (or whatever it's called in our present PC mad world!)
 
Mickledore

Our computer boarding program already has the facility for adding remarks which the client can't see-some of which include bad payers-vicious dogs- awkward customers-banned- noisy-filthy to name but a few. If things don't go their way they don't like it but its ALWAYS their fault but try and blame our boarding establishment.
We try and go that bit further than other places by offering free pet insurance up to £1500 and 3 days after leaving for anything that happens here- free grooming/bathing should they need it and carrying out medical requirements if the pets are already having some.Thats on top of providing food- beds- blankets, heated beds for cats and a third acre exercise field for dogs to play in individually

All we ask is for clients to abide by our terms which for some is beyond them

Our record is in 20 years only 5 pets have passed away here ,due to existing illness or age related problems, not a bad record for around 8/10,000+ booking a year or in other words around 200.000+ bookings since we took over

Out of interest our furthest client is comming down from the Shetland Isles next month we have already had one from Southern Ireland, yet we are in the West Midlands, often have clients from down south or the west country
 
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Well, on that basis I'd be happy to come to you, AND abide by your rules. At the end of the day your rules protect me and my precious, and that's what's important.
 
Mickledore

One thing we don't do is mention our kennel name on any other web site but our own, as we don't think it is right and proper using other means of advertising. So you won't find it here or any other forum.
 
Don't worry, I'm much too far away, and have much too good an arrangement with our present establishment to book with you - no offence intended!!!
 
None taken, if you find a good boarding animal establishment then stay with it


some of the dogs enjoying themselves





hpor.jpg


 
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Having worked in the public sector, I've found that most people are fine by whatever rules you impose/set up. But there always a few who seem to think the rules don't apply, or that you can "bend" them on this one occasion or similar.

The other thing to remember is that some people are just stupid (and I'm trying to say that in the least offensive/demeaning way possible). The average IQ is 100, which means that some people will be far, far brighter and some, unfortunately, will be dimmer.

Don't let it get you down or wind you up. It'll stress you out and no good will come of it.
 
On my wife's website, opening hours, class times and teachers' details are all clearly visible and easy to find with plenty of cross links to make it easy to navigate. On practically every page it asks people to contact the teacher of the class they want to discuss directly but my wife still gets calls (as early as 6 am...) asking what time another teacher's class starts and what's the class like etc. It would be nice to be able to ask them if they're so stoopid they can't read simple instructions but it can't be done!

Our cat's "hotel" take her vaccination details every time we drop her off but do keep the dates on their records. The lady of the house (cattery) is also a vet so in extremis, she could do the booster (but would always rather pets were brought in all ready jabbed).

I know for a fact that some places actually take all the phones off the hook 15 minutes before closing time so that nobody gets stuck with a client past home time.
 
Used to get similar when I worked in a call centre many moons ago. Customer Service lines closed at 20:00, you would always get peopl calling just before closing time.

OK, from personal experience there are times when you don't get in til later and need to discuss things but a lot of the time it was old/retired people who've had all frickin' day to pick the phone up!

The telephone system used to work on who hadn't been available for the longest got the next call so from about 19:45 I'd switch to idle then available again......... ;)
 
realspeed said:
My wife and I work 7 days a week all year apart from November when we have the month off.
Our opening times on a Sunday for clients to bring/collect their pets is 10am-12noon and we keep strictly to those times and longer during the week.

Today having rang a client at 11.40am telling them we close at 12 noon and they only live 10 minutes away you would think they would turn up before we closed. Turned up at 12.02 and didn't bring the pet vaccination card which is a legal requirement for our business. They said they would bring it in a couple of hours??? we are closed then, so they next said they would bring it on pet collection!!! No way everyone is told we must see proof of vaccination on arrival and it is on our terms and conditions which they have a copy of,and this couple have been many times before.

So we refused to accept the pet, then the arguement started but I have to be firm and said bring it in tomorrow instead with the pet or get someone else to do it.

Needless to say they wern't happy, but that,s their tough luck. Just got rid of them and 20 minutes later someone came to collect their pet and got the same answer, come back tomorrow. Still 2 hours later 2 more cars turned up.

We might as well not have published opening hours on our web site, outside our premise and on our terms and conditions.

What is wrong with people? can't they tell the time or what? we get really Pi**ed off with them
Click to expand...

Know your pain. We shut at 10PM, every night. Always at 5 past there will be some numpty banging on the locked door asking to be let in. Either that or at 8PM someone will walk in and ask are we open. :bonk:
 
There will always be people who miss their slot either by mistake, unforeseen delays or because they're just slack, when the window of opportunity is so small.

And there will always be people that if you opened all day, would still turn up in the middle of the night.

people are divs / end
 
Maybe a revolving sign needs to be added so it says ' F off we're closed' rather than just closed when a vehicle is sensed...

Or impose a late fee of £100 if they try and book an animal outside hours or make you open up. Everything has its price. If they're particularly obnoxious then it's £500 ;)
 
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