Don’t Let a Late Client Disrupt Your Schedule
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By Sal | March 3, 2010
It sounds obvious, but sometimes trainers need to hear it; you book appointments and it’s the client’s job to get there on time. Your client should be at the gym early enough to put their stuff in a locker, change and warm up for at least 5-7 minutes before” the clock strikes.” Your obligation for their promptness begins and ends with you explaining that they have to the gym early enough to get ready and warm up.
Clients, especially 30-minute sessions, have to get to the gym early so that they can warm up a bit before starting their session. A client is wasting their time and money when I have to take time away from the day’s plan so I can warm them up. But really it doesn’t matter what the length of your client’s session is, any time you spend warming them up is wasted time.
So the question remains, “What do you do when a client is late?” To which I give this very insightful answer, “It depends.”
For the client who is rarely, if ever, tardy and is only 5-minutes late do what you can to accommodate them without adversely impacting your next appointment. If you have an open slot after the session in question, there’s nothing wrong with giving the late client their full session. However, if you are booked solid for three or four hours there is no way you can accommodate someone who shows up 10-minutes late. And if you have three people who are even 5-minutes late and try to give them all their full time, you will run 15-minutes late on your schedule, which is unacceptable.
You should not make any effort to accommodate clients who are chronically late, as their behavior indicates that they do not respect you and are not willing to participate in the client/trainer relationship.
I had a client who was always 10-minutes late for their 30-minute 9:30 AM appointment and they complained that they just couldn’t get to me on time. My 10 AM was interested in switching to an earlier time, so I flip flopped these clients. As it happened, my 10-minute chronically late 9:30 AM client became my 10-minute chronically late 10 AM client who got only 20-minutes worth of training and who became an ex-client because they couldn’t get with the program.
I put this client with another trainer and gave the time slot to a client who had been on a waiting list, and it was one of the best moves I ever made. While the late client has disappeared after being chronically late for other staff members, I still train the replacement client 10 years later.
Don’t let clients who are late for their sessions disrupt your schedule.
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