How to Get the Best Out of Your Appointment Reminder Software
Appointment reminder software is among the most useful work or business tools in use today. The purpose of this program is to hopefully limit your no-show rate by at least 20%. Though this is a good purpose, it is not guaranteed that it will be effective for you. Still that doesn’t mean that if it’s not working at present, it never will in the future. Maybe you only have to improve how you use it so it becomes more beneficial.
Use the following tips as a guide:
Reviewing Call Results
Every appointment reminder software that sends reminders through the phone will present a call feedback. When you know the number of people who answered the call and listened to the reminder , you can determine why they did a no-show. Preferably, you’d like to get a success rate of 85% from all the phone calls made by your reminder. If you were able to do so, see if your reminder software is making several calls and if these are spread over a period of time.
Otherwise, find out if the problem was a no-answer or a busy line. It’s useless calling someone just after a few seconds from the last try. Once you have checked your call records and determined that the software isn’t doing as good as you expected it to, then start looking for another provider.
The Importance of Proactivity
Even if you’ve been using technology for your business, it doesn’t mean you can stop working yourself. You also need to be proactive so you don’t miss any key indicators of a potential failure. For example, get a list of all cancelled calls and instruct your staff to take them out of the scheduler. A cancelled call is a clear sign that the person has no plans of keeping the appointment, which means it would be good to open the slot for another client. One misconception people have about appointment reminder software is that it performs all the work for you. Certainly not! It is, after all, a mere tool. You have to make it work, especially to keep you from overbooking.
Venturing Into the Possibilities
Perhaps the reason you still have a high no show rate is that you have invalid numbers. Let your staff go over the call results and scan for numbers that aren’t useful. Chances are, you staff entered them by mistake; or if you have a virtual receptionist, clients may have entered the numbers incorrectly. If there are other methods of contact, then by all means, use them. Personalize the message to include a short introduction as to why you are sending them an appointment reminder through a contact method they have not given you prior permission for.
Reducing you no-show rate does take time and effort. When you have both good appointment reminder software and a proactive, driving down your no-show rate can be much easier.