When operating a business, it is assured that you have to deal with clients, employees, and task management every day. If you don’t have your schedule worked out, you’re going to run into trouble quickly. Many companies can benefit from a tool that reminds employees what they need to do and at what time. These appointment reminders are designed to make sure you never miss another appointment again.
1. CUT DOWN ON NO-SHOWS
Every time someone misses an appointment translates to a lost revenue opportunity. Even a low no-show rate over a year can make a significant cut into your potential revenues. If you’re charging $10 an hour and you miss one hour a day, this equates to $3650 lost every year, and that’s assuming you’re losing comparatively little. The no-show rates vary by industry, but in the private medical world it’s as high as 30%.
2. USE RESOURCES BETTER
Most of these reminders allow customers to respond to appointments. In other words, they can change or cancel them before they’re missed. This will allow you to better deploy resources to meet current demand. It may also solve problems of a lack of demand in other areas.
3. REDUCE WAITING TIMES
If you have to go across town for an appointment, you may find yourself in a situation where you have to alter another appointment in order to make this appointment. The catch is, the appointment you went across town for ended up turning into a no-show.
If you had a reminder system in place, you could have avoided this in the first place and spent your valuable time meeting someone else.
4. CONTRACTUAL APPOINTMENTS
Most contracts have provisions in place for missed appointments, but this is still a grey area. A reminder system will reduce this grey area when it comes to charging for missed appointments. When customers are integrated into a system where they can respond to, change and cancel appointments, it is inferring an acceptance of the contract and a knowledge of the contract. This means you won’t be facing any difficult arguments with clients later on.
5. CLIENTS LOVE THEM
The main reason why people miss appointments is that they forget about them. An SMS or email a day before the appointment is much appreciated because it reminds them that they had one in the first place. This will reduce the likelihood of missed appointments. Also, it can save embarrassment. Strong relationships between clients and their service provider can lead to a lot of red faces if an appointment is missed. Reminder systems prevent this from happening.
6. REDUCED ADMIN TIME
Using an integrated appointment system places every appointment within the same dashboard. Forget about dealing with phone and postal reminders ever again. This is time-consuming and it’s only going to waste more time. Now your admin team can dedicate their time to more pressing issues, such as addressing customer service issues and upselling.
CONCLUSION
Appointment reminder systems are cost-effective system and will increase efficiency. It benefits both the clients and employees and is an investment that will repay itself many times over.