3 Common Mistakes of Appointment Reminders

Mistake 1: Not Confirming the Appointment After It Is Booked

After you book an appointment with a client, you should confirm the date and the time with the client to make sure that there wasn’t any confusion about the date, time, or location.

Verbally
Most people naturally repeat the date and the time when they book the appointment as a way to confirm that everyone entered the information correctly in their phones and computers.

Send an appointment confirmation message
Sending an email or a text message confirmation after an appointment is created can significantly reduce any confusion. Some people process information better visually, so the added written confirmation is helpful. It can also serve as a record if there is any confusion in the future. Lastly, smartphones make it easy to add the appointment to the phone’s computer if the date and time comes in the form of an email or text message.  

Although mistakes are inevitable, confirming appointments both orally and with an appointment confirmation drastically reduces the chances of any misconfusion.

Mistake 2: Not Sending An Appointment Reminder to the Client

Research shows that appointment reminders reduce no shows and late cancellations by up to 90%. Not only does an appointment reminder remind the client, but the reminder also serves as a method for confirming that everyone has the same date and time of the appointment.

Using appointment reminder software:

Saves your staff time
Using automated appointment reminder software is much more effective than manually sending reminders to all of your clients. It saves your staff valuable time so that they can focus on the many other important tasks.

Keeps your customers happy
With automated appointment reminders you can send text, voice, or email reminders. Text message appointment reminders are extremely effective for some clients and some industries, while voice reminders may be better for others. With some solutions like Reminderly, you can specify the method based on each of your client’s preferences. This increases the likelihood that your message will be noticed and it will increase the overall satisfaction of your clients.

Is extremely cost effective
Reminderly has plans starting at $99 a month. We work with small businesses to large enterprises and government agencies. Our software and our plans easily scale to meet your needs

Easy to use
Your reminder app should be easy to set up and use. At Reminderly, we have worked hard to make our interface extremely intuitive to connect to your existing calendar and to send messages to your clients. Though our customer service team is also here to help if you ever have any questions.

Mistake 3: Not Including All of the Critical Information in the Appointment Reminder

Including all of the relevant information in the appointment reminder can act as a last catch to any miscommunication that could lead to a no-show appointment.  

Confusion about the date and/or time
Sometimes clients write down the wrong date and/or time in their calendar. Appointment reminders close to the time of the appointment (less than 2 days before) ensure that your meeting is top of mind and gives your clients a chance to confirm that they have the right date and time in their calendar. 

Thought the appointment was canceled
Sometimes the client thought they called to cancel when they didn’t or sometimes there is a glitch in the scheduling software that didn’t properly cancel the appointment.  In either case, an appointment reminder can catch these miscommunications in time for the appointment to be filled by another client. 

Went to the wrong office
Many businesses have multiple locations or sometimes clients Google a similar but incorrect business name. Including the appointment address in an appointment reminder prevents any ambiguity. (Admittedly, I’ve shown up to the wrong location for a doctor and cost them a no-show).

Sending Appointment Reminders with Reminderly

Getting started
Getting started can take as little as five minutes. We only require the bare minimum of information to get you started sending appointment reminders immediately. Simply log in and sign up for a 14 day free trial with no credit card needed. Give us some basic contact info, link your appointment calendar, and begin sending reminder messages.

Integrations
We sync with Google Calendar, Microsoft Outlook, Excel/CSV files, and many other scheduling software.