Show Rate
Also called: kept appointment rate, sit rate
Show Rate is the proportion of booked inspections where the homeowner is actually there and the appointment goes ahead. It is the measure that separates appointments that were genuinely agreed from appointments that were merely recorded.
What it means
Show rate is the proportion of booked inspections that actually happen with the homeowner present. Appointments booked in a week, divided into appointments kept.
It exists as a metric because booking is easy to fake, not usually deliberately. A call can end with something recorded as an appointment when what actually happened was a homeowner saying that sometime next week would probably be fine. That goes into the system as a booking and comes out of it as a wasted journey.
Why it is the honest number
Because it cannot be gamed by the booking process, which is exactly the process most likely to flatter itself.
Any team can increase appointments booked. Book everyone who does not refuse outright, record every vague agreement as a slot, and the number goes up immediately. The cost is invisible until somebody drives to the address.
Show rate makes it visible. It measures whether the homeowner treated the arrangement as real, which is the only definition of a booking that matters operationally.
What actually moves it
Confirmation, more than anything else.
The mechanics are unremarkable and they work: confirm at the moment of booking by repeating the date, time, and address back; send a written confirmation the homeowner can see, which in practice means a text; and confirm again close to the appointment, early enough that a rearrangement is still possible.
Booking distance matters too. An appointment three days out has more opportunity to be forgotten, superseded by another contractor, or overtaken by the homeowner’s own decision. Sooner is better for show rate as well as for speed to lead.
So does booking with the right person. An appointment agreed with one member of a household, on behalf of another who has not been consulted, is a common source of no-shows that get recorded as unreliability.
Reading it properly
A low show rate points at the confirmation process, not at the customers. Homeowners who have agreed to something specific and been reminded of it generally keep it.
A very high show rate is not automatically good news. Combined with low booking volume it can mean the team is only booking people who were obviously going to proceed anyway, which is safe and leaves work on the table. The rate is meaningful next to the volume, not on its own.
The two numbers together describe the intake operation: how many conversations became commitments, and how many commitments held.
Common mistakes
Recording soft agreement as a booking, which corrupts both metrics at once.
Blaming no-shows on homeowners without examining whether they were confirmed.
And optimising show rate in isolation, which quietly incentivises booking fewer and easier appointments.
On the call
Show rate is the honest check on booking quality, because anyone can book an appointment the homeowner has not really committed to. If the rate is poor, the problem is almost always in how appointments are confirmed rather than in who is booking them.
This is how our agents handle it on storm appointment calls and day-to-day roofing answering service intake.
Questions people ask about show rate
- What causes a low show rate?
- Usually weak confirmation rather than unreliable homeowners. Appointments booked days out with no reminder, times the homeowner agreed to vaguely, and bookings made with someone who was not the decision-maker all produce no-shows that look like the customer's fault.
- Does a high show rate mean bookings are good?
- Not on its own. A very high rate combined with very few appointments can mean only the most obviously committed callers are being booked, which is a different problem. Show rate is informative alongside booking volume, not instead of it.
- Should the homeowner be present for the inspection?
- It is much better if they are, because the inspection's value is only partly the findings; the other part is the homeowner understanding them. An appointment where nobody is home may produce a report, but it rarely produces a decision.
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