subject: Using SMS Text Reminders to Reduce No-Shows [print this page] Using SMS Text Reminders to Reduce No-Shows
For any business that depends on clients or patients attending appointments no-shows, or did-not-attends, are a problem. Missed appointments cost businesses money. Luckily there is an easy and affordable way of reducing the impact of no-shows - using SMS appointment reminders.
Many businesses have never tried this approach due to a perception of high costs and technical difficulty, or have simply never thought of using SMS reminders to reduce no-shows.
Web-based SMS reminder services, such as AppointmentSMS.com, make SMS reminders easy and affordable to any business regardless of size, allowing any business to increase their bottom line by reducing no-shows.
The software works entirely through a web browser, so there is no software to install, purchase, or maintain. An advantage of this is that user's can log into their account from any internet-connected computer to schedule their SMS reminders.
As for the costs, there are no setup fee's or monthly plans. User's can simply purchase SMS credits, which they can use at any time. Credit's don't expire, so the service can be used as little or as much as is needed.
SMS reminders can the scheduled for any date and time in the future. The user can simply set and forget, knowing that their customer will receive an SMS reminder at the scheduled date and time.
A common practice is to spend a couple of minutes at the start of each week to schedule SMS reminders. Users simply log into AppointmentSMS.com through their web browser, schedule reminders for that week, then log out. Some users prefer to do this every couple of days, scheduling reminders for new appointments that were made in the past 2 days.
One useful feature of SMS reminder software is the ability to set up templates. Templates can be used to save the user from re-typing messages each time they schedule a reminder. The contact's name etc. are automatically inserted into the text message, making it even faster to schedule sms reminders.
Some users may wish to schedule recurring reminders for their customers. This can be done easily as recurring reminders can be scheduled on a daily, weekly, monthly, or yearly basis. It's a great way to send 'happy birthday' messages to customers, or can be used in other ways such as medicine reminders.
In addition to scheduling SMS reminders for future appointments, users can also use the SMS reminder service to send out bulk SMS messages to their contacts. This is useful for special anouncements, or advertising special offers to customers.
Using SMS reminder technology is now easy and affordable thanks to web 2.0 software such as AppointmentSMS.com. If you don't already use sms/text reminders in your business try it today and watch your no-show rate drop.
