The Secret to Confirming More Appointments

If you’re a dental office, medical office, or small business like a salon or spa, you know that confirming appointments with your customers and patients is a must. If you don’t set up appointments, or hear back from customers with confirmations, you not only lose control of your daily schedule, you also could lose important revenue.

What is your current process for confirming appointments? How many times do you reach out to customers and patients after they’ve booked, and how do you communicate with them when you do?

Some secrets to increasing your all-important appointment confirmation ratio:

Set an advance reminder to send out 14 days before a scheduled appointment

Sometimes people just forget their appointments, so sending out an appointment reminder allows them to make a mental note and add it to their calendar (or check to make sure it’s still on their calendar!)

Ask your customers and patients whether they prefer email or text communication, and walk them through how to respond

This is important because in an increasingly digital world, many people are on their phones more than at their desks. Sometimes people prefer text, other times they’d rather get an email reminder.

Stagger your appointment confirmations

This is important because you want to create a touch-point for your customers or patients across communication methods. Our Customer Success team recommends emailing 3 days prior to the appointment, texting 2 days, and laving a voice message 1-day prior. This of course is only for if you still haven’t received a confirmation of that appointment from your customer.

If you’re worried about setting this all up yourself, Demandforce can help! Our system provides a simple way to automate your appointment reminders and encourage more confirmations. You can track who has confirmed, who has yet to respond – and even set up a staggered reminder schedule.

If you’re a current Demandforce customer and you want a refresher, you can contact your Customer Care Manager and take a helpful walkthrough. Or contact Demandforce at (866) 507-7016 or www.demandforce.com, and we’ll show you a demo of the software!

Stay tuned for more advice like this, and have a Happy Wednesday!

  • Posted in
  • Subscribe
    Notify of
    guest
    0 Comments
    Inline Feedbacks
    View all comments