Calling clients to confirm

I had a client from last week post a review of me and gave me 4 (out of 5) stars for "Communication"... I don't understand that. She called me, I booked her. I went over everything with her and then the party was last Saturday. She called me in the morning to make sure I was coming. I am assuming that she expected me to call to confirm??? I guess that's why she only gave me 4 stars. I have never had to call to confirm before... but then again, I have done more events than private birthday parties. I book, I show up...period.

Your thoughts?

Although I've only been doing this 8 months, I have called to confirm private parties, not larger venues. One of my fellow FP'ers just showed up for a huge outdoor event & was given back her deposit due to "...lack of space." (her quote). Either they were terribly disorganized or there was a stipulation re: communication that she didn't notice.
What do some of you more experienced artists think?

I personally have always done confirmation calls the day before the party. I just make sure the address, time, and amount of people are still the same because sometimes the persons like to flip them on me.

I never call to confirm... I have some customers that feel the need to call or email me again to confirm, whatever... if I have a deposit, I consider myself confirmed and there is no need to check further. If I show up and there's no party, that's what the deposit is there to cover... haven't had any of those yet (knock on wood) but I don't have time to start worrying about whether or not I could get a confirmation from someone on top of getting the booking and deposit taken care of.

I do most of my booking and communication via email, rarely phone. I will send a confirmation once I received the contract and deposit, and for private parties I generally send another email confirming things the week prior (I have had last minute changes on venues before so I like to check!)

This particular lady did not send a deposit and did not have a contract with me. I guess I live dangerously... but I don't use contracts, unless it is provided by an event. I have to suck it up and take the 4 stars I guess. Man, I'll be calling everyone from now on!

I don't bother with contracts, but definitely deposits.

I ususally only communicate thru email. I let them know when I recieve the deposit to let them know they are officially booked, and usually I email the day before just to confirm the time.

I have had people who seem annoyed that I keep contacting them, and others who still call me the morning of the party as a final confirmation! People can be funny

The company I work for (Day job) gets tons of customer service surveys, and often people rate less than perfect simply because they don't believe anything can be perfect! Consumers do not always realize that this kind of thing is based on your satisfaction, not that all your wildest dreams were fufilled.

I fell like a "less than satisified" rating should have to be accompanied by an explaination. That way we don't go crazy thinking about what went wrong!

I have e-mailed my customers to confirm a week before the parties. I just write a quick "hello" and re-state the specifics (time, date, length of event, number of kids, etc.) and say something like "please let me know if there's any last-minute info you need me to have." I think some party-givers just like to have a confirmation. It probably is one less thing to worry about during their party-planning week.

Still, I'm sure those four stars really deserve to be five Ronnie! )

Awww, thanks JJJJ! But this particular client gave a nice review in words, but she also only gave me 4 out of 5 stars for professionalism...? How professional did she expect me to be? I have a professional, neat, clean set-up. I come into their house with screaming girls and a dog that jumped all over me. I painted like a professional and talked sweetly to the girls. Hmmmmmm.... the woman and her husband expressed how wonderful I was and thanked me profusely and blah, blah, blah... I couldn't figure it out... until this morning. They lived in a raised split level which sat high on their property.... three flights of landscaped steps to get to their front door and then another flight to get up to their living room. I saw that and knew I couldn't handle it with my fatmax, so when they answered the door I asked if I could come in through the garage instead. She explained it was just as many steps so her husband had to bring Maxine in and out for me... I'm sure now that is why they rated only 4 stars for professionalism.

So it isn't a bad thing after all, because the next day (last Sunday), and also for three other parties this weekend, I created a new birthday party set-up which fits in a small rolling flight bag. I still carry my cat litter container with a lid that is covered in red duct tape to cover up the cat litter words. I use that to empty dirty water into and then when I'm all done I put my water tub in there, too. I tie up all my trash, dirty sponges and brushes in a plastic grocery bag and put that in the cat litter tub as well... close the lid and carry it away.
I will only use Maxine for bigger events now... used it twice yesterday and will use it again today... but for private birthday parties I can see that "more" isn't necessarily "better"...

I always use my fatmax BUT i'm not just face painting, I also bring all my balloons and parachutes and colouring books and crayons, etc... so I figure fitting my whole circus into one rolling toolbox is about as small as I'm going to get.

Some people just don't like giving top scores... where is it that they are rating you? do you have some kind of survey on your facebook page or website?

I've decided to skip the traditional testimonials page now and just put a guestbook page on my website for people to write comments. Right now I only have one comment on there, but I have a plan for this summer that should get me lots of comments

Ohhhh, a guestbook on my website!!!! Me likey! I'll have to see if I can do that with mine.

The website with the reviews is gigsalad.com

Thanks, Perry! I added a "Tell Miss Ronnie" page to my website already!

hehehe... I'm hoping that the more interactive style of a guestbook than a traditional testimonial bragging page will be considered more authentic. Yeah, I have 5 or 6 testimonials that I could put up there, but on that kind of page, you know that only the best comments go there... yes, I can take down anything really nasty on my guestbook, but it isn't necessarily MY top choice comments that go on there.

I agree about the ratings thing. It's pretty arbitrary and subjective really, using a number of stars to rate a service. Because like Perry said, some people just don't give the highest number of stars. Also, there are some people who would be more than glad to carry your Fatmax (um, I mean, your MAXINE ), up multiple flights just to be kind. I try to do it all myself, because I like to, but I am often asked if I need help, and I usually have to politely refuse it in a way that makes a very nice man feel like it's okay that he's not helping. Because I've run into a lot of nice people who just like to help.

The thing about this particular star rating system on gigsalad.com is that your profile is offered along with the other businesses in your area when you submit an inquiry. So, the stars ARE important because you are being compared side by side to others artists or entertainers. It doesn't matter to me so much because I am friendly with the other artists and we are all equally talented. Hopefully people will actually take the time to read their comments and not just go by the stars. But not getting 5 stars does give you mixed feelings.... a bit of a blow to the ego but then, incentive to try and improve yourself in areas you might be overlooking.

I have made the plan to call and confirm 1 week in advance just to make sure it's still on and no changes... EVERYTIME I make the plan the customer calls me the day before I planned on calling to confirm. I always feel bad that they feel they had to call even though I was going to call the very next day. I have started to tell them at booking. I WILL CALL YOU one week before the event to confirm the details and make sure no changes and the expected # hasn't changed...