Missed appointments frustrate both businesses and customers. Having ‘no-shows’ can quickly throw off your business day and annoy your customers when they realize they have to reschedule the appointment and may still get charged for their missed time slot. When you uncover a strategy for reducing missed appointments, you can build customer satisfaction and make the day run smoother for your entire office. SMS reminders can play an important role in improving your appointment attendance.
How will SMS reminders help people remember appointments?
With an SMS reminder, your customers will receive an alert via text message about their upcoming appointment. You might send out friendly alerts the morning of the appointment or the day before, offering people a reminder of where they need to be and when.
The text message will automatically prompt the customer to open it, thus providing them with a concrete notification that helps cut through the noise and chaos of modern busy schedules. When your customers see the alert, they will have a chance to verify that the appointment is on their schedule for the day. If they need to reschedule it, they can also contact your office immediately, thanks to the convenience of the text message on their phone. Your office personnel will not field as many calls from customers who want to verify when their appointments are, making their days easier as well.
Why do customers appreciate SMS reminders?
Eighty-three percent of customers report that they appreciate the appointment reminders they receive via text message because of the convenience and unobtrusive nature of the reminder. People already have other devices on them almost continually. They also think nothing of glancing down to check them. Receiving a helpful alert through their phones does not feel like an intrusion or annoyance, which helps to explain why texts have an open rate of 98%, compared to just 20% for email.
Your customers also do not like missing appointments. They don’t want to have to pay for appointments they miss, reschedule hard-to-get time slots, or deal with the disruption that comes from missing something important on their schedule. Therefore, using SMS campaigns to keep people engaged with your business, and letting them know that you care about their experience helps to create an overall more favorable impression of your business.
Using SMS campaigns to boost appointment attendance
When you put SMS reminder campaigns to work for your business, you can see immediate results in attendance and customer support. Fifty-two percent of customers say that messaging is their preferred means of engaging with your business for support. When you keep your customers updated and engaged with you through SMS reminders, you also open the door to communication, letting them know how they can quickly reach you.
By putting SMS campaigns to work for you, you open another channel for your customers to interact with you. You help your customers reduce their frustration and increase the positive associations they have with your business. This simple step not only reduces the number of people who unintentionally miss an appointment, but it can increase customer satisfaction and let people know that you genuinely care about their experiences with your organization.
Learning how to incorporate SMS strategies with a platform like Mitto does not have to be complicated. You do not have to know coding, programming, or how to integrate SMS API. All you need is an understanding of how you want to phrase your reminders so that you can get started personalizing the experience you offer.
See what SMS campaigns can do for your business and the power they can bring to your quest to increase appointment attendance.