How automated appointment/service reminders can help your small business

Are no-shows a big problem for your repair, pet services or home care services business?

The average no-show rate across industries in the United States ranges from 10-15%. In real terms, no-shows can be costly for many businesses, including yours.

When customers don’t come for their appointments, you lose revenues, ultimately impacting your bottom line. Last-minute no-shows also impact business productivity, result in downtime, and slow down business growth.

Fortunately, a simple way to reduce no-shows and curtail revenue losses is to send appointment reminders via SMS or text messaging.

This blog post explores the benefits of sending appointment/service reminders for your small business.

What are appointment or service reminders?

There are many benefits of text messaging for businesses. For one, text messages effectively share information about new products or services, promote special sales or marketing campaigns, and even provide customer support. This is because:

• Text messages have an open rate of 98% compared to email open rates of 20%.
• They also have a higher response rate of 45% compared to email response rates of just 6%.
• On average, 95% of recipients read text messages within 3 minutes.
• The average person responds to an SMS in less time, just 90 seconds.

Then why not leverage all these benefits of business text messaging to send appointment booking reminders?

By sending automated appointment reminders, you can confirm appointments and give customers a chance to ask for details about what to bring, pricing or how long it will take. They also have an opportunity to reschedule or cancel the appointment. 

Ultimately, you provide a helpful reminder to help ensure that they don’t forget about their appointments, which will positively impact your revenues and profits.

What are the benefits of sending appointment reminders?

If you are not using SMS to send appointment reminders as part of your customer communication strategy, here’s why you should:

Fewer no-shows

You can send service or appointment updates to customers through simple, scalable and affordable text messages with automated appointment reminders. This way, they don’t forget about their appointments – which means fewer no-shows.

Increased sales

By sending reminder messages via an automated appointment scheduling software, you can reduce the number of missed opportunities for profits when people don’t show up for appointments. Reducing the no-show rate directly increases sales and profits.

Increased customer satisfaction

When customers receive SMS appointment reminders, they don’t have to worry about forgetting the appointment. It increases their satisfaction with your business and can even generate repeat business.

Save time spent on calling customers

If your business doesn’t have an automated system to send text reminders, you may need to contact each customer individually. Otherwise, an employee may spend hours dialing phone numbers or composing email appointment reminders.

An automated appointment reminder software with scheduling functionality provides an easy way to send reminder messages. It will save time that you can spend on more profitable activities.

Do appointment reminders (really) work?

Yes, they do!

In one survey, 55% of respondents said they would reply to alerts to confirm, reschedule, or cancel appointments. Generally, people welcome text reminders from businesses.

Sending reminders for upcoming appointments via text can reduce missed appointments for service providers by 26%.

Leveraging management software to send appointment reminders is a time-saving investment that can have an immediate and direct impact on your bottom line. 

So why do appointment reminders work?

Low disruption means of communication

SMS reminders provide a low-friction way for business owners to connect with customers and provide helpful information. It just takes a few seconds for a person to check their text messages, so it doesn’t disrupt their day.

Easy opt-ins

Many customers prefer SMS communication over email or phone calls because of the simple opt-in method. By sending a simple link to click on, you can get their permission to send SMS messages and do so in a way they appreciate.

No app downloads

Customers don’t have to download an app or install special software to receive notifications. As long as they remain connected to their mobile provider, they can receive relevant and real-time SMS messaging from your company’s reminder system.

Direct and high-attention communication

SMS is often more direct than a push notification from an app. And if you target and personalize your messages, you can ensure that they don’t get lost in your customers’ messaging inboxes.

Reach more customers with Broadly

Broadly can help you send timely, personalized SMS appointment reminders to your customers at scale.

With just a few clicks in our app, you can “set and forget” automated reminders that reduce no-shows and drive customer retention. Choose from 24- or 48-hour timing options to reduce costly no-shows and decrease the time spent on manual follow-ups and reminder calls.

Broadly helps small business owners improve their customer experience. We support various business needs, including online review management, web chat and lead management services.