A Guide to Appointment Reminder Calls With Examples

Clear communication is key if you’re in a client-facing business where you make appointments with your clients. Telling your clients the vital information they need about their appointment, whether via SMS texting or phone call, will ensure they remember the details and actually attend. 

Whether you are a doctor’s office, a real estate agent, or another service business, setting appointments the standard way to coordinate when your customers connect with you. Scheduling appointment reminders are just as valuable and fosters an orderly system that helps you better manage your schedule.

Setting up those appointments is the first step in the process, but no one’s perfect; sometimes a reminder is needed. Sometimes, your customers may forget they made an appointment. It happens–everyone is busy, and the appointment may not be top of mind for them. That’s why you’ll want to build an appointment reminder strategy into your overall booking approach. 

How Appointment Reminder Call Examples Can Help You Build Effective Appointment Reminders

In this post, we’ll walk you through what an appointment reminder is, why your business might need one, some best practices for creating appointment reminders, and finally, give you some appointment reminder call examples to get you started. 

Using our guidance, you’ll be able to craft winning appointment reminders that keep your customers informed in an unobtrusive way without missing the information they need. 

Related: What is Intelligent Voice Broadcasting? 

What Should an Appointment Reminder Include? 

Reminders can take many forms. They can be phone calls. They can be text messages. They can even be a postcard or letter, though these aren’t as popular as the world becomes increasingly more digital. 

All reminders, like appointment notifications, should be simple, direct, and contain the following information: 

• The date and time of their appointment
• The location
• Any other pertinent instructions your customer will require (information or materials they’ll need to bring such as a driver’s license, insurance card, etc.)
• For medical appointments, there may be specific actions the patient needs to take (i.e., fasting for a certain time period)

The information included here may vary–for example, if you’re a dentist with a brick and mortar building, your location will be your office’s address. If you’re an accountant providing a virtual walk-through of your services for a potential client, the videoconference link is your “location.” Regardless, you’ll want every detail to be concise, clear, and focused on your purpose for the reminder call.

While it’s clear what an appointment reminder is and should look like, there are a few reasons why almost any business that books appointments will want to use them. 

Why Your Business Needs Appointment Reminders

In an ideal world, you tell someone the details of their appointment, and they show up at the appropriate place and time without a problem. But your customers have families, jobs, and other obligations they need to balance in their lives. Keeping track of appointments can be difficult for your customers, no matter how important that appointment may be. 

So why do you need appointment reminders? Here are two major reasons:

They Decrease the Number of Missed Appointments

If you don’t communicate reminders to your customers, many of them may forget about the commitment entirely. This lapse in memory leads to a missed appointment. Not only will you miss out on their business, but you’ll also experience gaps in your schedule, resulting in lost time and revenue. 

Even if you have a policy in which you charge customers for missed appointments, you won’t leave the customer feeling satisfied. It’s better for all parties when they come to their scheduled appointment without having to reschedule.

Intelligent, interactive appointment reminders offer an easy way to combat this problem. These kinds of reminder calls allow customers to press a number to confirm, cancel, or reschedule and increases the odds that your business will know your customer’s intentions in advance, allowing you to keep a consistent flow of appointments that actually show up.

An Intelligent, Automated Appointment Reminder Call Lightens the Load on Your Administrative Staff

Your administrative team likely has a lot of duties on their plate. Without automated appointment reminders, your staff will have to issue reminders and confirm appointments manually. This can be time-consuming and inefficient.

In addition, if your customers miss appointments, your office staff will have to spend time contacting them and attempting to reschedule. They’re the ones who often deal with the fallout of a lack of communication. 

Appointment reminders minimize the effort they’ll have to put into following up with your customers. The reminder does the work for them and–with the right platform–can be integrated with your existing calendars to streamline everything. 

Related: 10 Ways Automated Voice Broadcasting Can Benefit Your Business

Best Practices for Appointment Reminders

Before we get to appointment reminder call examples, there are a few specific best practices you’ll want to abide by. Here are a few general guidelines to live by: 

• Limit the personal information. While you want your messages to be direct, clear, and provide all the information your customer or patient needs, be aware of their need for privacy and limit personal information to what is needed.
• Don’t flood your customers’ inboxes. Reminders are good. Too many reminders may lead to the customer regarding your messages as “white noise” to be disregarded, achieving the opposite of your intended effect. That said, a recent study found that two reminders are better than one in some cases.
• Follow up close to the appointment date. Sending a reminder a week or two away from the appointment may be helpful. But what’s even more useful is sending one the day before. 
• Send it at the right time. According to one study that included billions of email addresses, emails received around 10:00 a.m. in the recipient’s time zone got the greatest response. While this study refers to emails, it’s a good rule of thumb for appointment reminders as well. The best practice here is to avoid scheduling your appointment reminder too early or late in the day. 

Appointment Reminder Call Examples

Now that you’ve gone through some of the best practices, let’s look at some actual appointment reminder call examples that you can use for your practice or business. 

A voice broadcast appointment reminder can be a powerful way to personally connect with your customer while giving them the information they need on a communication platform they check daily. 

Your customers are constantly in contact with their phones – by leaving a message there, you’re more likely to catch the customer and make sure the reminder sticks. Here are a few appointment reminder call examples you can use for your business today:  

The Customized Confirmation Message

With the right platform, you should be able to insert your customer’s name into your message automatically using a customizable template. Dale Carnegie once famously wrote that “names are the sweetest and most important sound in any language,” and addressing your customer by name will let them know that your call is specifically for and about them. 

Here’s an appointment reminder call example for a personalized message:

“Hello [insert customer name]! Thank you for booking your appointment with us. Your appointment is scheduled for [insert date] at [insert location]. If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to reach out to us at [insert contact information]. We look forward to seeing you!” 

Asking for a Reply

While a simple confirmation message is a good baseline for your appointment reminder approach, it’s also helpful to include a request for a reply on your reminders. This asks your customer to engage with you, decreasing the likelihood they’ll ghost on the appointment. 

“Good [morning/afternoon] [insert name]. Thank you for booking your appointment with us. Your appointment is scheduled for [insert date] at [insert location]. If you need to reschedule, please call is right away at [insert contact number]. Thank you, and we look forward to seeing you!” 

If the platform you use for voice broadcasting has the capability built-in, you can integrate interactive voice features into your message. For example, instead of giving a phone number, you can ask the recipient to press 1 to confirm the appointment or 2 to speak to the front desk to reschedule. 

The Follow-Up

Let’s say you send the initial appointment reminder and either do not receive confirmation, or you want to send one more reminder the day prior to the appointment. A follow-up message helps ensure the customer or patient is still available at that time, as well as reminding them about the appointment itself one more time. 

“Good [morning/afternoon] [insert name]. This is a reminder that you’re currently scheduled for an appointment with us on [insert date]. Please remember to bring [insert required materials/information they will need]. If you need to cancel or reschedule, please contact us ASAP at [insert contact information]. Thank you and we look forward to seeing you!” 

The “How Did We Do?” Message

This example isn’t technically an appointment reminder. But after your appointment, you may want to circle back with your customer to see how you did. This provides valuable insight into what you’ve done well and where your business could improve.

“Hello [X}! We always want to know how well we serve our customers and how we did. Please share your feedback on your most recent visit. [Include information for survey or comment form].” 

Start Sending Appointment Reminder Calls Today

The type of appointment reminder you use is less important than the fact that you send them, and using the right platform can make the difference in how efficient and effective your appointment reminder calls are. 

If you’re searching for an effective voice broadcasting platform that will help you streamline your appointment reminders and keep your schedule flowing, look no further than VoiceShot.  Our cloud voice solution allows you to easily schedule and send interactive reminder phone calls to your customers from anywhere, ensuring they’re notified at the right time and with the right information. To see how we can help you, contact us today.