Guide to SMS Appointment Reminders

Introduction

With everyone being busy and occupied in one’s life, it is only natural that a few important things slip from the crack and down into oblivion. As dramatic as that might sound, it holds true as most people forget about their important appointments. 

A study for the healthcare industry shows that as much as 30% of patients forget about their follow-up appointments and a whopping 50% of patients don’t show up.

As people’s lives are getting busier they are now more attached to their phones than ever. This can be leveraged to your advantage. Research shows that the recipients read 98% of text messages. So, where exactly are we going with this? 

Well, appointment reminders in the form of text, just maybe your savior.

Let’s dive into the details and see why automated appointment reminders are the way to go. 

Why should you use SMS appointment reminders? 

We know how important appointment reminders are to ensure that customers keep up with their appointments. There are multiple ways you can remind customers of their upcoming appointments: Email, phone, postcard, and text. Out of all these methods, sending appointment reminders via text is the most beneficial for you. Here’s why: 

• 98% of texts are opened as compared to only 20% of emails. 
• Texts also have a better response rate. People respond to text messages within 90 seconds. 
• Text messages have a high delivery rate of 95%. 
• 90% of businesses that use SMS for appointment reminders report a significant decrease in missed appointments.
  

Clearly, texting has a superior advantage over any other means of communication for appointment reminders as it guarantees better engagement. If you wish to take this advantage one step further, allow us to introduce you to “Automated appointment reminders.”

Introducing Automated appointment reminders – Set it and forget it! 

Even though we have discussed how important appointment reminders are, it could still be cumbersome to send these reminders manually every time. No one is immune to human error, what if we forget about it? What if we thought we did, but didn’t really send the reminder? This is where automation would help us!

Automated appointment reminders follow the simple principle of set it and forget it! So how to send automatic text reminders?

All you need is an appointment reminder software that integrates with your CRM/EHR. The sync between the two softwares means that essential information about the customer and their appointment can be transferred. An SMS appointment reminder software would be able to read the appointment slots stored in the CRM or calendar, derive information such as appointment date, time, customer name, and fill in the details in a pre-saved appointment reminder campaign. This way the only effort needed from your end is adding the appointment to your calendars.  The rest would be taken care of by the reminder software. Just remember to turn on the appointment reminder automated campaign and SMS reminders will be sent every time for each appointment.

You can also edit the automated campaign to set the cadence of reminders. 

What are the aspects of an SMS Appointment Reminder?

A typical appointment reminder text would contain the following elements:

1. Customer Name
2. Business Name 
3. Type of Appointment
4. Date of Appointment 
5. Time of Appointment
6. Location 
7. CTA 
   

Here is what an appointment reminder text  would look like: 

“ Hi {{customer name}}, this is {{business name}}. You have an upcoming {{type of appointment}} with us on {{date}} at {{time}}. Here are the directions {{location}}. Reply to this message if you wish to reschedule or cancel your appointment.” 

Benefits of SMS Appointment reminders

High deliverability

If you possess the correct phone number, the deliverability of SMS can be assured. Generally speaking, SMS has a deliverability rate of 95%, making it a reliable source for information transmission. 

High open rates

As we discussed at the beginning of the article, 90% of text messages are read within 90 seconds, contributing to its high open rates.

Cost-effective

Since text message marketing has a high open rate and response rate, it can garner a high return on investment as you connect with your target audience. This makes it a cost-effective tool to add to your overall marketing strategy.

Texts are less intrusive and disruptive

The nature of texts is such that customers can answer at their own convenience. They are not disruptive and intrusive like calls. It gives agency to the customer to reply to messages at a time convenient to them. This ensures that customers do end up replying to messages as opposed to them disconnecting in frustration if reached at a wrong time like calls.

Increase operational efficiency

Throughout the week people tend to be occupied, leaving little time for them to check up on their personal commitments. Therefore the best time to connect with the patients is on weekends and on after work hours. Expecting your staff to call patients at these times can be unreasonable. 

This is where an automated appointment reminder can help you. You can schedule to send these reminders even on weekends and after hours when the reminders are more likely to get read. 

Gain back administrative hours with automated appointment reminders

It can be really cumbersome for your staff to try and follow up with the patients again and again. At times patients may not pick up the call due to unavailability or being reached out at an unsuitable time. Your staff would then have to try and call them again until they get a hold of the patient and even then the confirmation cannot be guaranteed.

Automated appointment reminders could free your staff of this responsibility and leave them to cater to more important things that need their attention.

Reduce no-shows by 90%

A series of reminder texts appropriately spaced out for eg, 2 days prior to the appointment, 1 day prior to the appointment, and on the day of the appointment will help ensure that customers show up to the appointment and hence reduce no-shows. Many studies have been conducted on the effect of appointment reminders on no-shows:

A study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) found that text message reminders reduced the no-show rate for medical appointments by 23.1% compared to control groups.

Research from the Journal of Telemedicine and Telecare indicated that sending text reminders can reduce no-show rates by up to 39% .

Reduce errors

Automated appointment reminders work in integration with CRMs or EHRs. This means that essential information about the details of the appointment can be automatically obtained from these software ensuring that no errors are made while sending the reminders.

How to send appointment reminders via text? Appointment reminder software: the answer to all your reminder needs!

If you want to start implementing appointment reminders at your businesses you should consider getting an appointment reminder software. Appointment reminder software will facilitate sending appointment reminders along with many other useful features for customer engagement. 

With appointment reminder software you do not need to get a new phone number to start sending reminders. You can use your existing landline or mobile number to get started! 

Here’s how you can get started with appointment reminders through Emitrr:

CRM and Calendar integrations

CRM integration allows the appointment reminder software to derive essential information. Any appointment marked in your CRM or EHR will be synced with the reminder software to automatically send appointment reminders. Similarly, if you use a third-party calendar instead, there are integrations with these calendars that will allow it to sync and send automatic appointment reminders.

Once you are integrated with your integrated CRM or Calendar you can simply turn on Automated campaigns and start sending reminders. You can create a new automated campaign or select from the ones already available in Emitrr and toggle the “status” on. 

Create your own campaign

If you do not wish to use the existing appointment reminder automations you can simply select “Create automated campaign” on the top right.
You can draft the message and add message personalizations by using properties. 

Set up Cadence for the Reminders

You can also decide the cadence of the appointment reminders by selecting exactly when you need the appointment reminders delivered. Select “immediately” if you wish to send the reminder as soon as an appointment is booked. Select “Send After” to schedule the message for a later time. You can add as many “Steps” as you like by selecting “add follow up message”.

Access a list of templates and create new ones

You can also utilize the list of available templates for quick message drafting, or create a new one suited for your organization by selecting “template” just below the text editor box.

Assign Replies to Team Members

You can make conversation management easy by assigning replies to a team or a team member. This will help increase efficiency and effective communication.

Select Contact List

In the next step select the list of contacts that you wish to send the appointment reminders to.

Use Schedule based Texting

Schedule based texting is a feature that allows one to send texts immediately based on their schedule. Suppose you have appointments scheduled for the following day, but your shop needs to be shut down due to some emergency. You can use the schedule-based texting feature to filter all contacts due for appointment on the day and schedule messages to be sent informing of the emergency. Similarly, if a certain employee is not available for the day you can filter out his/her clients and inform them of the unavailability.

2-Way texting

2-way texting enables customers to respond to reminder messages. This way businesses can receive confirmation, cancellation or rescheduling messages. 

SMS Appointment reminder templates across industries 

• Healthcare: medical centers, dentists, hospitals, chiropractors, physiotherapists

“ Hi {{customer name}}, this is to remind you that you have an upcoming appointment with {{provider name}} on {{date}} at {{time}}. Please reply to this message if you wish to reschedule.” 

• Schools, sporting clubs, community groups

“ Hi {{customername}}, this is to inform you that there is an upcoming event at {{organizationname}} on {{date}} at {{time}}. Get ready to have a fun-filled day, just remember to register today!”

• Postal services

“Hi [First Name], just a reminder that your parcel is arriving today. If you are unable to receive the parcel it will be left in a safe place or taken to the local post office. [Company Name].”

• Legal entities, lawyers, government
  

“Hi {{fullname}}, this is to inform you that your hearing for {{case}} is scheduled on {{date}} at {{time}}. Please be sure to arrive 15 mins early to avoid delays.”

• Retailers, shops, consumer goods

“ Hi {{customername}}, tomorrow is the last day of the summer sale. Please be sure to visit the store to avail huge discounts.” 

• Service providers, utilities, insurance, telecommunications, car dealerships

“Hi {{customername}}, this is {{DealershipName}}. This is to remind you that
You have an upcoming appointment for {{Service}} on {{date}} at {{time}}.”

• Beauty and hair: hairdressers, beauty salons

“Hi [First Name], thanks for booking your appointment with [Company Name] Salon. Confirming your appointment tomorrow at [Date And Time] for cut, wash and blow wave. Cheers, [Hairdresser1 Name].”

• Banks and other financial institutions

“Hi [First Name], just a reminder that your loan repayment falls due tomorrow. Please ensure funds are in your account to avoid overdrawn fees.”

How Emitrr customers leveraged SMS appointment reminders

Many customers who have been using text appointment reminders have seen great results. Here is how some customers have used the text appointment reminders:

Octomaids

Octomaids was using an Email based reminder system to inform clients of their appointments. For cleaning services at home, clients generally provided their personal email address, which was at most times not checked regularly. This meant that they missed the reminders sent by Octomaids. To counter this problem, Octomaids wanted to create more touchpoints with their clients that would ensure that they read their reminder messages.They then started using Emitrr’s text appointment reminders.

SMS appointment reminders were a complete success as Octomaids was now able to entirely manage appointments through SMS.

Results:

• No-shows were reduced exponentially and customers always kept up with their appointments
• Octomaids has now entirely shifted to text-based communications as a solution for their missed calls, appointment reminders, webchat, and reviews.

Check out other Emitrr features that helped Octomaids achieve their business goals. 

Animal wellness clinic 

Animal Wellness Center of OKC used to remind patients of their appointments manually by calling each one of them before their appointment.

Results:

• With Emitrr, they have not only automated reminders completely but also seen a No Show reduction of 60%. 
• Out of all the patients that are sent reminders, 60% of them confirm via text.
• To achieve such a high number in such a short period of time, Animal Wellness Center implemented a reminders strategy using Emitrr, below is where and how often they send reminders:
  
  • 2 Weeks before appt (by text and email)
  • 1 week before appt (by text and email)
  • 1 day before appt (by text and email)
    

Check out other Emitrr features that helped Animal Wellness Clinic achieve their  business goals

SMS Appointment Reminder FAQs 

Conclusion 

SMS appointment reminders with their great delivery, open, and response rate should be the go-to medium to keep customers informed and engaged. The versatility of SMS lies in the fact that it is available to everyone and allows customers to respond to them at their convenience. All these clubbed together make it a formidable medium to send appointment reminders. If you wish to get started with your appointment reminder journey with Emitrr and see stellar results, schedule a demo today!