If you work in the medical field or regularly see patients for services, such as counseling, it helps to make the best use of your time. That is why using automated reminders helps you keep your schedule current and increases client satisfaction.
You can also automated appointment reminders to ensure that your customers know about appointments for accounting services, lawn treatments, HVAC installation, legal consultations, and fitness workouts.
About every business that schedules regular customer appointments can benefit from automation technology. For example, a customer may forget he or she scheduled an appointment months ago. By sending out a text, call, or email, you’ll jog their memory.
How you automate your reminder will depend on whether the appointment is a regularly scheduled activity, if the client is familiar or new, or if the appointment is random.
You can choose from text reminders for appointments or you can send out calls or emails, depending on your specific needs.
1. Text Reminders for Appointments
Text reminders are great for a scheduler who wants to remind a regular patient or customer about their appointment.
For example, you can send out a reminder about a scheduled therapy session or you can remind a customer, by text, about his or her seasonal cooling inspection. Maybe your client books regular oil changes. If so, you can send a text to remind them of the upcoming checkup.
You can also use text to offer a helpful hint. For example, you can send a customer a tip about saving energy (if you’re an HVAC repair person) or deliver an affirmation (if you’re a therapist). Texts work out well when you are notifying your usual base of customers/patients about their appointments.
2. Automated Phone Calls
If you wish to add a more human touch to sending out your reminders, you might use automated reminders that alert customers via the phone. Receiving a friendly call from a welcoming voice will incentivize a patient or customer to keep their appointment. You can also remind a patient or customer about what they should bring to an appointment.
For example, if you call a client, you might remind them of their appointment and also add that they’ll need to bring receipts if you’re completing their tax return.
3. Automated Email Reminders
Emails offer another excellent way to remind patients or clients about an appointment. You can add attachments to emails and additional details for the recipient to read.
For example, if you’re a surgeon, you may want to provide a form for a new patient to fill out before their appointment. You can add this form to your reminder email so they’ll have the necessary paperwork filled out ahead of time.
Why Automated Reminders Work
Automation gives you a decided edge when you send out reminders to patients and clients. Not only do the messages increase customer satisfaction, they free up your employees’ time so they can focus on more pressing tasks. Use automation and realize more positive interactions with your customers or patients. Make setting appointments a streamlined task.