Best Practices for Using Automated Meeting Reminder SMS in 2022

The Best Practices for Using Automated Meeting Reminder SMS in 2022 – No-shows and late arrivals are common problems for many healthcare service providers.

It creates gaps in scheduling, reduces revenue, and makes it difficult to run an efficient practice.

Nonetheless, punishing your patients isn’t the correct answer either. Instead, communicate more with patients before their appointment through automated appointment reminders and confirmations to ensure they show up without heavy lifting on you or your staff.

You can easily set up customized appointment reminders for your healthcare practice with these tips and tricks.

How do SMS reminders work?

SMS notices offer a simple way to send personalized reminders to large groups of customers as and when necessary. Here’s how it works.

1: Identify the reminders you’d like to send. It could be for upcoming appointments, sales, late payments, etc.

2: Inscribe the message for each reminder you would like to send and the corresponding date/time you want to send it.

3: Identify the group of customers you’d like to send reminders to.

4: Set reminders. You can do this directly on the Exotel dashboard by uploading your database as a spreadsheet. You can also trigger SMS based on user action, such as requesting an OTP or placing an order, by integrating your business systems with the Exotel platform using our APIs. Be sure to schedule updates at least 48 hours in advance.

Timing is Everything

When sending an SMS, you must remember that time is an essential aspect. You will find that the SMS is not very annoying, but if you send it when the customer is busy, all the time and resources spent on creating that SMS will be wasted.

Here are some tips to follow:

  • It’s best to send a reminder 24 hours before the appointment starts.
  • However, send a reminder in the morning or the afternoon. In this way, the client will read the SMS before going to work or in the afternoon when returning from work.
  • Never send an SMS to your client during the afternoon unless it is an emergency. Since this is the time when they are busiest throughout the day.

Personalization

  • Remember that the key is to make the customer feel important. Therefore, you need to make your customers feel valued by adding a touch of gratitude. For example, suppose you run a dental clinic.
  • So you can send SMS reminders like “Hey, your teeth need some attention, check it out…”.
  • Slight personal messages like these add value to boring texts and, therefore, increase the customer’s chance to respond to the reader.
  • When sending an SMS text message, you need to understand the importance of psychology, especially the art of persuading people to pay attention to your text.
  • A little personal human touch can sometimes do the trick in raising your conversion rate.

Make Every Space Count

  • Unlike web messages, SMS has a very short character count (160) and can only be used to say important things.
  • Don’t engage in unnecessary greetings if your content is already long enough. Remember to keep all data relevant and meaningful while also making sure copying is straightforward.

Make a solid plan

  • Whenever you make appointment reminder text spaces, you should always plan and prepare the appropriate responses.
  • For example, reactions to a customer’s appointments, such as what to respond to their text messages or what appropriate response to give each time they ask.
  • In this way, the conversation will be more pleasant and fluid instead of becoming monotonous. It is essential because customers will not be sold with just text reminders.
  • They also need to feel a connection. Therefore, they need to be told why they must attend a separate appointment.

Also Read: Customer Base & Engagement Using Automated Appointment Reminders