Appointments

I know I've said this before, as I feel this is one of the things I go over and over and over about... but regardless of what I tell you about what day I will be available and whatnot... we STILL are open by appointment only.

I've had a lot of people lately, where they'll inquire about an animal, and so I'll ask, ok, did they want to make an appointment to come see the animal?  Yes, they do, so they ask what my availability is.  So I'll tell them, for example, I'm available all day Tuesday, Wednesday after 4, Thursday before 2 or after 6... and so on and so forth.

You can see where this is going, can't you?  So... they don't respond back, they just show up, Wednesday after 4, or Thursday before 2, or whatever.

Maybe I need to start wording this sort of thing differently, or something, because when I say, those are the available times (which is usually followed by, "what works best for you?"), I intend it to follow, something like... they respond with when works for them, I respond back confirming whether / not the time works for me, and we have an appointment set.  Not people just showing up.

I mean... do people really do this in other settings?  If they call the doctor's office, and the nurse responds that the doctor has Monday morning appointments open... do people just show up Monday morning?  I'm starting to think they do!