Automated Reminder Calls
When to use Reminder Calls
Automated Reminder Calls are a great choice when you have a lot of information that you need to convey. You can also set up your account to trigger reminder calls if text message reminders fail due to an invalid mobile number.
In some cases reminder calls are simply the best choice based on the demographic and the type of appointment it is. For example, if you are reminding someone of a specialized procedure with lots of specific instructions, it just makes more sense to put that in a call (or maybe an email reminder) rather than a text message. Text message reminders are excellent for short messages with just basic information. Also, if you are attempting to reach an older demographic, many times a call may be a better choice simply because many people either prefer calls, or do not have texting capabilities.
You will need to consider your specific use-case when deciding whether to use call reminders. As for which outreach method is more effective in reducing no shows, our experience as well as study data on texts vs calls show that they have very similar outcomes.
Customize Your Reminder Calls
Our reminder calls our completely customizable.
You can build your calls using the following…
- An in-house library of prerecorded voice files. such as…
- “I am calling to remind you of your upcoming appointment on…”
- “If you wish to cancel or reschedule this appointment, please call…”
- “To confirm this appointment, please press 1. To reschedule this appointment, please press 2.”
- “You do not need to do anything to confirm this appointment.”
- Numbers zero through fifty
- Months January-December
- Days of the Week
- Days of the Month
- AM, PM, Afternoon, Morning
- More!
- Record your own files right through the phone
- Use our text-to-speech engine
- Request high-quality professional voice files from our AI voice or in house voice talent.
- Dynamic fields such as appointment date & time, customer name, company name, address, and phone number.
- Custom fields such as room numbers, amounts due, arrival details and more!
Send your reminder calls at the appropriate time
Our reminder system allows you to schedule them at the appropriate time. You can also trigger them when an event happens such as a text message or email failure.
For example, you can send a reminder a week ahead of the appointment and then another on the day before the appointment. You can also change the reminder content based on the customer or patients reply to the initial reminder. Say the customer or patient confirms the appointment using the reminder you send out one week prior. In this case, you may want to just give them a gentle reminder the day before, rather than asking for another confirmation.
When you send your reminder calls, really depends on a few factors. If this is an annual appointment, you may want to send a reminder a couple weeks prior to the appointment. And then send another one a couple days before. However, if this is a recurring weekly appointment, probably one reminder on the day before or even on the day of the appointment is sufficient.
Learn your magic number as far as optimizing number and timing of reminders. This way you keep your customers happy and informed without annoying them or causing them to opt out of your reminders.
Allow your patients or customers to reply to your reminder
Allow your patients or customers to confirm the appointment with a simple keypress! In fact, we allow you to add up to 3 reply digits to each reminder call. For example, a typical scenario may be where you would allow your customer to either “confirm”, “cancel”, or “reschedule” the appointment by pressing the 1,2 or 3 keypress on their phone.
Which digits you allow is entirely up to you. You may want just allow “confirm” or perhaps you do not want to include the ability to reply at all. With our call reminders, you can include whichever replies are necessary for your specific case.
As well, we allow your customers to opt out of reminders using a simple key-press. If someone presses ‘9’ in response to a call type reminder, they will be unsubscribed from calls. If you want people to be aware of this option then you will need to add it to your call type reminder (e.g. press ‘9’ to unsubscribe).
Generate your calls from your Caller ID
You can also configure your phone call reminders to originate from your office Caller ID so there is no confusion about who is calling. This leads to more people answering your calls and in turn showing up for their appointment.
In fact, you can add as many Caller IDs as you like with our service. This way if you have different locations that are sending out reminders, they can all originate from the phone number associated with that location.
It’s very easy to add Caller IDs as well. Simply go the the Caller ID Screen and add a caller ID. Then click on verify. This will place a call to you at the caller ID that you entered and ask you to enter a code. Once you enter the code, the Caller ID will be verified. Now you can send your reminders from this number. If you are unable to verify the Caller ID through this method, let us know and we can usually add it for you.
