Harness the Power of SMS for Business Growth: How to Start Using Text Message Reminders

In today's fast-paced world, capturing the attention of your client base is vital for driving business growth. With automated appointment reminder software, you can leverage the power of sms messages to remind clients of their scheduled services, gather feedback, and send special offers. Below, you can learn why text message reminders benefit your business, and how you can get the most out of them.

Why Use Text Message Appointment Reminders?

Cut Down on Missed Appointments

When clients miss their appointments, nobody is happy--your bottom line can be negatively affected, while clients will have to reschedule their service and possibly pay a missed appointment fee. Sometimes, a missed appointment is unavoidable--life happens. But many missed appointments can be avoided with a simple reminder message, letting clients know when and where their appointment is close to their appointment date. With this simple step, you can reduce no shows and make life easier for clients and admin staff alike.

Gather Feedback to Improve Your Business

With the right text message software, you can do more than send appointment reminders. You can also use it to follow-up with clients after their appointment to gauge how satisfied they were. This simple survey allows you to highlight the strengths in your day-to-day operations, while targeting areas that might need improvement.

These surveys can also be used to drive growth and build your online business presence. When customers report that they were satisfied with their appointment, you can encourage them to leave a review on your social media pages. Studies show that 90% of customers read reviews before they solicit a business, and 84% of people trust online surveys the way they would a friend's opinion.

Leveraging the power of online word-of-mouth to drive customer engagement is a must for any successful business owner. Surveys sent via text message are a big step toward building your online reputation and expanding your client base.

Simplify Your Administrative Operations

Automated text reminders don't just make things simpler for clients--they also streamline the workflow for your administrative team. Sending appointment reminders with an automated software cuts down on wasted resources and will save time for your staff to focus on other important tasks.

An appointment reminder software that offers two way messaging is a must. That way, clients can make inquiries and confirm or reschedule appointments without picking up the phone. Text message reminders save clients the hassle of staying on hold, and reduce the likelihood that your office staff will find themselves juggling multiple calls at the same time.

Send Special Offers to Show Client Appreciation

Whether it's a birthday treat or a discounted service bundle, offers via text message are a great way to bring clients back and fill your schedule during slow periods. By rewarding clients who have been with you for a while, you can build loyalty and improve customer satisfaction. Scheduled text offers can be sent automatically on specific dates, or a certain number of months after a client has last visited your business. These special offers can be especially impactful for small businesses, who can use them to net steady revenue and fill gaps in their schedule.

How to Get Started With Automated Text Reminders

Now that you know why they're valuable, let's dig into getting started with text message appointment reminders and maximizing their value.

Find an SMS Appointment Reminder Service That's a Good Fit

When you first start your search for software to send automatic appointment reminders, it can feel a little overwhelming. Which functions do you need? How will this addition change my existing workflow? When you're looking for the right match, there's a few must-have factors. The software should integrate with your online calendar or calendar app of choice. This makes it easier to start sending text message reminders without overhauling the way you schedule appointments.

The software you choose should also have multichannel communication--meaning, you should be able to make phone calls and send email reminders as well as sms text messages. Sending appointment reminders through multiple channels increases the odds that your clients will see them, and it makes it easier to reach a wider demographic.

The text reminder service you choose should also offer customizable messaging, so you can include important details and use the customer name to personalize your message reminders. Two way messaging allows clients to respond to their text appointment reminders easily. Lastly, look for an intuitive interface that will make it easy for anyone on your administrative team to send reminders.

Create a Free Account

The text reminder service you go with should offer a free trial. That way, you can see how your business can benefit from text message reminders without an upfront cost. Once you have your account set up, you can move on to setting up your phone number for text reminders.

Set Up Your Dedicated Appointment Reminder Number

Ideally, the text messages you send should come from a single number. Many automated text reminder services include a dedicated number that you can use to easily manage communications, any time of the day. With this number in place, you can start sending text message reminders easily.

Customize Your Frequency and Messaging

The best software options for sms client reminders give you full control over schedule, frequency, and what you're sending to clients. You'll have to decide how far in advance you want the first reminder to reach clients, and how many times you want an appointment reminder to send. With these details in place, you can get started customizing messaging.

Whether you're writing from scratch or using provided appointment reminder text templates, you can create custom messages based on appointment or service type. With these customizable messages saved, you'll save time and won't have to type out a new message each time.

Include a Call to Action in your SMS Reminder Templates

To keep your reminders to one message, it makes sense to encourage clients to confirm or reschedule by visiting a link, or responding directly with a prompted keyword. When clients can interact directly with their appointment details on their cell phones, they'll be more likely to remember their appointment, and they'll appreciate the convenience.

Start Scheduling!

With all these details in place, you're ready use the power of text messaging to reduce no shows and improve customer satisfaction. Once you're in the flow of things, you'll see how easy it is to use sms appointment reminders.

Why Use Reminderly?

Pick any method of communication

Reminderly allows you to send text messages, emails, or pre-recorded voice calls to your customers.

Real-time Text Messages

Reminderly allows you to send and receive text messages in real-time. This is an effective way to facilitate communication between your office and your clients without picking up the phone. Save time for everyone involved with real-time, responsive text messaging.

Full Integration

Reminderly integrate easily with many scheduling solutions, including Google Calendar, Outlook Calendars, and Excel files. If we don't have an existing integration for your scheduling service, we can build a custom one to match your business needs.

Group Messaging

You can create custom groups in Reminderly and choose if the message should be sent via text, voice call, or email. This way, you can reach clients via their preferred method of communication.  With one click, you can reach the client list you need.

Customizable Templates

When need to send the same message over and over, Reminderly lets you create templates instead of rewriting it each time. Your staff will appreciate the saved time and reduced monotony.

Free Trial

Ready to get all these features and more for your business? Reminderly offers a free 14 day trial, so you can see if it's the right fit for your business. To sign up, no credit card needed, click here and see why so many people use sms appointment reminders.