"No! I can't possibly book reoccurring appointments with my clients."
"They have too many objections."
"It just isn't possible."
"I'm not comfortable because I feel like a sales person."
I've heard it all. This article is looks at ways to work around your barriers as a clinician and your clients (seemingly) barriers to booking in reoccurring appointments.
Firstly, why do it? When you provide the same time/day appointments to your client you are allowing for yourself to do less prep work because you will know who is coming in when. You are allowing yourself to know all of your clients because you're only able to accept clients who can attend a different time than other clients, thus limiting the number of clients to your diary (Yes, this is scary, but you need to do it right). You are increasing the chances that your client attends without rescheduling or cancelling. You are reducing the number of no shows you have. There are many more reasons, but let's just start there.
Objection #1:
I don't know my schedule.
This is totally valid. Right? I mean shift work and changing days and such is the way of the world. However, instead of saying, "okay, call me whenever you know." You can discuss with the client the importance of attending and consistency. Ask the client if they have any days of the week that they normally have off. Is there a specific time they don't work? Is their shift work steady enough to understand a pattern? Maybe instead of weekly appointments on Wednesday at 3:00 pm you work with the client to book fortnightly appointments on Wednesday at 3:00 pm and fortnightly appointments for Tuesday at 8:00 am. At the very least, keep it to the same day.
Objection #2:
I'm not prepared to book future appointments.
If your client is this forthcoming with you, kudos. However, if this is the objection I would say that the client doesn't actually understand what it looks like to work with you in therapy. They fear there won't be an end date or they struggle to comprehend (commit to) what therapy means in reality. Discuss with your client what the end of therapy looks like and the reasons that they should be attending future appointments.
Objection #3:
I'm actually struggling to come up with another objection. The main reason is that when a client has decided to come into therapy, they are seeking your expertise on ways to assist them to move past their problem. Whilst client expectations are sometimes unmanageable or manageable with a lot of hard work, a lot of barriers come straight from the clinician themselves.
Think of these practitioner barriers:
You can't offer regular times and days because of your diary management.
You aren't comfortable with raising the conversation that the client should be attending regularly as your style is client driven.
When discussing with the client that you'd like them to attend regular appointments you feel like you're "selling" to your client.
I suggest observing the conversations around reoccurring bookings and write down objections (yours and your clients) and post below and allow us to come up with a way around that barrier. Client's have enough mountains to climb during their journey, attending their appointment because they can't remember when it is, shouldn't be one of them.
