A well-timed reminder absolutely transforms your relationship with clients, customers, and even team members, so it’s easy to think that you need to send a reminder for everything. But reaching out too often harms your relationships instead of helps them. (Nobody wants to be bothered that much…) Here are some of the best times to send reminder texts.
Before an Appointment or Meeting
Meeting and appointment reminders are the simplest and most obvious reminders. They’re perhaps so simple and obvious that you’re wondering why we included them in this list. Isn’t it a no-brainer? You’d be surprised by how many businesses don’t properly utilize appointment reminders.
When you send a reminder text, you exponentially increase the chance of someone showing up when they said they would. But a text to confirm an appointment and then a couple reminders (a day or so before and then the day of) should be sufficient.
Think about the potentially negative “message” you send when you bombard people with reminders. For one, they may think that you don’t trust them to remember what they need to do. Or they may think that you don’t care about their time because you keep bothering them about the same thing.
Note: Daily reminders prove useful under special circumstances. If someone asks you to send them a reminder every day, great! Go ahead and do that. For example, clients working with a personal trainer may benefit from daily reminders about their fitness or nutrition routines.
The key is open communication. Establish with customers and clients the amount of contact each party wants to have.
When Rewards Are About to Expire
A loyalty or rewards program helps with customer retention. You don’t want people to miss out on accumulated rewards that could keep them coming back! And they certainly don’t want to miss out on free goods or services either.
However, text customers about this when they have rewards worth redeeming. If a customer needs 1000 points before anything happens, it won’t do any good to remind them to use their 400 points.
Utah-based medical spa Elase uses Skipio to send out these sorts of reminder texts and it’s a key part of keeping customers coming back. Clients reply to texts about loyalty points with gratitude and often schedule appointments immediately. They’re also more likely to spend more overall once they come in for their free services.
Again, open communication is key. Some customers will want texts about rewards and others may not care. By establishing which customers want those texts, you keep everyone happy (and hopefully loyal).
When Billing Is About to Expire
When someone sets up automatic payments and then unexpectedly doesn’t get what they pay for, that makes for an unfortunate customer experience. Help ensure this doesn’t happen to your business by automating billing-related reminders.
If someone’s on-file credit card is going to expire soon, make them aware so that they can update it before that happens. Not only does this help your own revenue, you also ensure a customer or client doesn’t lose out on your services. Think how beneficial this could be to a client who relies on your business to do their own job!
When Memberships or Subscriptions Will Be Ending
Keep someone around as a client or customer by negotiating a new contract or signing them up again before their contract has even lapsed. By notifying someone of this well in advance, you keep your business top of mind. Don’t give a customer or client the opportunity to choose another business over yours.
That reminder starts the conversation and gives you an opportunity to schedule a meeting or appointment to talk about the new contract. Even if you don’t have reason to believe someone would choose a competitor over you, prove to them that they matter to your business and that you want them around by actively engaging in a conversation about their needs.
Before Key Maintenance
With all the things we need to remember, it’s not surprising that we can’t keep track of all the exact maintenance needs for our homes or other items.
For Skipio client Anchor Pools, maintenance reminders are huge. Their customers can sign up to receive specific messages to help ensure their investment is kept in good shape. This is particularly helpful for new pool owners who don’t know the care process for a pool.
Fortunately, businesses can automate the process to send reminder texts. Prioritizing this aspect of your business texting strategy helps to improve customer engagement and build stronger relationships.