Almost every field of business involves some form of appointment scheduling: medical check ups, salon appointments, business consultations, personal training sessions… the list goes on and on. It’s one of the most common tasks performed by a business — and when you book more appointments, it has a huge impact on your success.
You do what you can to keep missed appointments to a minimum and ensure clients are getting in the door, but sometimes they slip through the cracks. It all comes down to numbers though. The more appointments that show, the higher your conversions will be. But how do you make that happen?
Expert Appointment-Setting Advice
Medspa Advertising owner Xavier Di Petta understands that numbers game. He’s consulted medical spas that have dramatically increased their conversion rates by implementing automated appointment reminders.
Did you know that the average phone call to schedule an appointment takes over eight minutes?
Multiply that by the number of appointments scheduled each day and you’ll quickly find that your most vital work hours are being spent tracking down people to make appointments.
We spend these “vital hours” reminding people to show up because missed appointments is one of the biggest challenges businesses face. People don’t mean to miss their appointments. (We are all human… Sometimes we forget!) However, it’s pointless to spend the time sending email reminders or leaving voicemails if your clients and potential clients won’t see them. Here are three tips to include ensure you get people in the door.
Send Reminders Via Text
Nearly 78% of consumers would like to receive appointment reminders from a business via text. If you want to be seen, your reminders need to be where your clients and potential clients are looking: their phones.
Don’t believe it? Let’s check the stats:
- Sales prospects who are sent text messages convert 40% higher than those who aren’t sent text messages.
- People are three times more likely to respond with a positive or “yes” answer from a text request over any other method of communication.
Take it a step further with automation. Utilizing an appointment reminder software system will increase the number of people who show up to appointments (and on time!). It will also give you back those vital hours lost making phone call after phone call all day.
For example, use Skipio’s appointments and reminder campaigns to schedule an appointment, set automated customer reminders, and follow up, all without ever leaving the conversation. This one small aspect of your business process could make a huge difference to your bottom line as you book more appointments.
Keep Your Messages Personal
People will stop paying attention if you send reminder messages too often. Also, if the message is irrelevant and impersonal, people will most likely ignore you. Texting is one of the most personal forms of communication. Don’t treat it like a formal email or phone call. Communicate in a personal and casual way.
With Skipio, it’s not hard to personalize every message you send. In text messages it’s easy to address your contact by name and give them the specific details of their appointment. If people are not clear how, where, and when to show up, that confusion will too lead to a no-show.
Ask for Confirmation
It sounds simple, but just the act of asking someone to confirm their appointment with you could increase the likelihood of them showing up by 95%. The American Society of Training and Development did a study on accountability and found that if you are accountable to a specific person regarding a goal or plan, you will greatly increase your chances of success.
Automate your scheduled appointments via a personalized text, and then get confirmation via text. You’re sure to get more contacts in your door. When they show up — and they will because of your automated reminders — your conversion rates will soar. The reality is when you book more appointments, the more people you see, and the more money you make.
