We tend to feed off a large executive housing estate and our post code is NE20. Whenever I take a booking outside of our immediate area is when we start to have people who don't turn up. It's almost like another sense that comes into play when you are booking in. We've got four blokes to keep busy so I need the work and when it doesn't arrive I tend to look forward in the diary and offer people the chance to have their car sorted today. It's not always convenient but more often than not they jump at the chance of the "cancellation" which gives me time to fill in their slot from the next day.

Just as an aside I started using Google ads on our website which can be targeted to your area and the response was good!! But it was a lot more time and effort doing estimates for work that you didn't always end up with. I still think word of mouth is by far the best advertising.

JW