4 Automated Messaging Features that Simplify Your Scheduling

Crafting results-oriented messages is simple when you have a goal. Targeting clients at different stages of appointment booking, from confirming to follow-up visits, helps you avoid no-show appointments and build better relationships. When you properly support your clients, they’re more likely to stay loyal to your organization.

The kind of messaging your clients need depends on your business – communication between healthcare professionals and their patients will be completely different from the email campaigns a spa franchise with several locations would send. Identifying where clients tend to break your appointment booking funnel can help focus your messaging efforts in that area.

For example, if you notice that clients who book their next appointment at the end of their current visit rarely show up, you may need a reminder email campaign to refresh their memory before the appointment day arrives. Keep reading for tips on messaging that can streamline scheduling for you and your clients.

Confirmation email

Clients shouldn’t have to second guess their appointment status. Sending them a brief email with booking details is easy if you set up messaging with your scheduling tool. Don’t assume confirmation emails are just inbox clutter that your clients will skip over – you could be missing out on an easy way to increase your retention rate.

Remember to include relevant information like directions or instructions on where to park in your confirmation email. You don’t want your email to be lengthy or filled with fluff, even though you have good intentions. While you have your client's attention, you don’t want to squander it.

Reminder email

Following up with clients between the time of scheduling an appointment and the day of the visit can save you the frustration of a no show. Everyone manages their schedule differently, so it’s best to assume people appreciate a reminder in the days leading up to their appointment so they can prepare.

As your business grows you can give you front desk staff more time to serve clients by setting up automatic reminder emails and texts. You can use scheduling software capable of building messaging campaigns, making it easier to create templates that you can duplicate for your clients.

Next steps

Some appointments are more complex than others. Training courses, for example, carry on for several weeks and have tests or performance evaluations that also need to be scheduled. Once a course is completed, the members need direction on what’s to come next. To make things easier on yourself, build an email campaign that automatically goes out to course members when the course date ends.

In your email, list the steps your organization has developed for course members to gain their certification or a quick guide on how to schedule final testing. In certain cases, these emails can be used for onboarding after new clients make an appointment. If there’s nothing else to be done, send a helpful message like tips on putting their new skills to use.

Annual appointment trigger

Yearly check-ins are vital for monitoring a client's progress and getting ahead of any problems that may have arisen since the last visit. Still, annual appointments tend to be missed quite often. The reason why varies from bad time management, financial issues, or a break in communication between the organization and client.

It’s essential to identify where clients with annual checkups are slipping through the cracks, especially if you’re taking care of patients. In the healthcare industry, preventive treatment can be a matter of life and death. Running a healthcare practice is hard work with a lot of responsibility. With endless tasks to prioritize, healthcare professionals gain tremendous benefit from automation. As the days lead up to your client's annual appointment, a text or email trigger campaign will notify clients of their upcoming visit.

Conclusion

Getting these common email campaigns set up in your scheduling tool is the first step to creating strong messaging for your clients. The more detailed and helpful your automated emails are, the less time your team will spend responding to questions. Focus on anticipating your clients’concerns in your automated communication and watch how your schedule flows improve!

Do you need a scheduling software solution that can automate messaging and client relationship management for you?