If you want to alleviate most of the problems with booking and maintaining an appointment schedule you need to send appointment confirmation texts.
Confirmations make everyone’s lives easier. Think about what happens when you don’t confirm something.
You go to a Starbucks drive-through and order a Venti, five-shot, half-full Americano. There’s a long queue of cars, so the employee waves you through before confirming what you ordered.
You collect your order and drive off and at the next traffic light reach for a sip––only to realize that your drink is a hot chocolate.
Not getting your caffeine fix is a relatively minor inconvenience. There are horror stories on travel forums about not receiving a flight confirmation email or text, and then not being able to fly.
Similarly, text message appointment reminders and confirmations can prevent minor misunderstandings and chaos if you run a business that provides appointment services.
Plus, they’re easy to send and can be a gamechanger: as one study found, once an appointment is confirmed, there is a 90% chance it will not be missed or rescheduled.
If you’re ready to send your first appointment confirmation text, we have good news. We’ve done all of the legwork for you, providing confirmation text examples and guidance on what you need to write the perfect booking confirmations.
An appointment confirmation text is a message sent by SMS minutes, hours, or days before an appointment. Recipients can reply or follow a link to confirm or reschedule. They’re often used by doctors and dentists, veterinarians, salons, dentists, and any other business that offers appointments.
You might be thinking, “Why should I send texts and not emails?”
While 90% of text messages are opened within the first three minutes of being received, over two-thirds of emails are never opened. (Phone calls show a much lower success rate than either email or SMS.)
Wondering what to say when confirming an appointment by text?
There are certain elements you absolutely need to include in your confirmation message for appointments.
After all, your recipient is expecting confirmation details for their appointment, like the appointment date.
With that in mind here are three components all appointment texts must include:
1. The date, location and time of the upcoming appointment.
2. Options for canceling or rescheduling.
3. Who the text message is coming from – you shouldn’t assume someone has your number saved.
Save yourself thousands of dollars each year from missed appointments with our guide to setting up appointment text message reminders. READ MORE
If you want to take your appointment confirmation texts to the next level, then here are 11 additional tips:
4. Use your customer’s name to make your message more personal.
People want conversational customer engagement, this means making interactions more human and relatable for customers where possible.
5. Keep your SMS confirmations brief.
People are busy! You don’t need to send a short essay to relay an appointment time and place.
6. Reinforce the benefits of attending by using language that is inviting.
Many appointments aren’t booked as something to look forward to, ease those nerves for your customers or patients by being friendly.
7. Let appointment holders know their spot is vital in your schedule and that their actions will affect other customers.
Cancelled appointments cost U.S. healthcare $150 billion every year. Time is money, and minimizing no-shows is a crucial part of running a successful business.
8. Include a clear call to action (CTA) such as reply “Yes” or “C” to confirm
Rather than calling to confirm, make it as simply as a swift ‘yes or no’ to confirm or cancel an appointment.
9. Provide a link to reschedule or send separate reschedule appointment text messages.
To avoid losing a customer or patient altogether, send a separate SMS with a new appointment link if the customer requests to cancel their current appointment.
10. Get the timing right with when to send your message.
Send your messages so that you have ample time to fill the appointment but not too far ahead that you need to send a second confirmation.
11. Automate your message to send on a recurring basis.
Avoid follow-up appointments slipping through the cracks by setting up scheduled recurring text messages.
12. Use an appointment reminder template to save you and your team time.
We’ve given you both the breakdown of what every appointment text message needs and templates further down the article. Use these to formulate your own template for appointment reminders.
13. Give your customers the option to call you.
Some customers would rather chat than text – give them the option by including a phone number. If you’re extremely busy, add a caveat to let them know lines may by occupied.
14. Let customers know they can opt out from your messages.
Customers may have moved away or simply no longer require your services. Make sure you send an opt-out text to let them know how to stop receiving your messages.
These confirmation text message templates are meant to give you an idea of how to confirm an appointment by text or what to say when confirming an appointment.
Your confirmation message texts’ voice and tone will vary depending on your brand and the service you provide.
If you’re sending appointment confirmation texts for a nail salon, you can be more informal.
If you’re texting about a medical appointment, you’ll likely want to be more formal. The same goes for business meeting confirmation text messages.
Without further ado, here are our appointment confirmation text examples.
This text is for a dentist confirming a teeth whitening appointment. It considers the service, the time of year, and reminds the patient of the benefits of attending. It also includes all of the essential elements.
The following communicates clearly that by confirming their appointment, they will be locking in a block of time meant just for them—and that others will be counting on them to follow through on that confirmation.
It’s much easier for your customers to reschedule an appointment at a time that suits them than it is for you to go back-and-forth checking availability.
Not only that but providing a link to reschedule increases the chance that someone will pick a new time and date rather than cancel the appointment entirely.
The good news is that most customers look forward to their salon appointment.
Extend that friendly customer service salons are known for into your text messages to remind your customers to notify you of any changes.
Asking for money can be difficult to navigate, even when you’re owed it. We’ve shared our go-to payment reminder templates in this article, but the key is to be direct.
There’s a chance payment has just slipped the recipients’ mind, so don’t go in too hot in the initial text messages.
Call reminders can be straight to the point, as recipients will be expecting this to be an automated text message. Simply include when and where the call will text place, and if possible let them know how long the call will take.
If you’re not the one interviewing, but want to confirm your client’s upcoming interview, sending a text in advance is quick and effective. Put their mind and ease and remind them of the time and place.
While it’s unlikely that you’ll prevent every single cancellation or last-minute request to reschedule, using a channel with 98% open rates to confirm appointments will drastically improve your attendance rates. True story, we recently heard as much from Lighthouse Dental, a practice that saw a major reduction in missed appointments after they started texting.
Now that you have the skinny on what’s involved in sending a text reminder that people will respond to (and several appointment confirmation text message samples), nothing is stopping you.If you’re looking for a platform to send these appointment SMS , sign up for a 14-day free trial of SimpleTexting. Every account comes with a complimentary, text-enabled number.
Drew Wilkinson is the Head of Marketing at SimpleTexting. Drew has more than a decade of experience managing successful integrated marketing programs to build brands, raise awareness, and generate demand.
More Posts from Drew WilkinsonStay up to date on the latest marketing trends, tactics, and strategies when you subscribe to our monthly newsletter.
Read the guide on reducing missed appointments for doctors and dental offices using medical appointment reminders.
Lighthouse Dental used texting to get in touch with hard-to-reach patients and cut down on missed appointments with just a few simple steps. Read on to find out how.
ReadRather than tirelessly trying to bring new patients to your practice, these five patient retention strategies can help you grow your practice by improving patient loyalty.
Read
Start a text marketing campaign or have a 1-on-1 conversation today. It's risk free. Sign up for a free 14-day trial today to see SimpleTexting in action.
No credit card required