What Do You Say When Confirming An Appointment?

No one's going to be a nag. There is a delicate balance between helpful reminders that your customers will appreciate and messages that customers find quite annoying. Carefully timed, friendly messages can keep your clients happy and on time for your business.

You need to create a repeatable, effective appointment reminder process to get the most out of your reminders.

Here's a simple plan on how to confirm a key-point appointment and slow down those pesky no-shows.

• Right after the appointment is set

It doesn't matter if you're in corporate sales or running a small salon, a reminder needs to be sent to your client when the appointment is made. Why? Why? Your clients are living busy lives. It's so easy for a simple distraction to unravel their note keeping, leaving your appointment in the dust.

While SMS messages may allow you to contact your client quickly, email notifications in this instance are better. Email gives your customer easy access to their phone calendar, which gives your appointment a good chance to make it on their dock. An email also allows you to send a much more detailed message.

Keep this message simple and friendly. Tell the customer the date and time for their appointment. Gently, yet firmly, remind them of any cancelling policies you may have.

If they have any other critical items to prepare, bring or know before appointment, repeat them. Keep the language straight and inviting. While not all appointments are dates that customers are looking forward to, your reminder may help them feel confident about their choice of working with you.

• Two weeks before the appointment

If the appointment is booked far in advance, there is no reason to start reminding customers about two weeks away in most cases. Two weeks is enough time for them to adjust their schedule if necessary. Any further out, and the reminder is likely to be forgotten.

This confirmation will serve as a reminder for customers to actively think about keeping an appointment. For this reminder, email will again be the best way to send a detailed message quickly and easily.

Send an email with confirmation information this time, but let's take it a little further. An excellent method that you can use here is to add an element of why they should keep their appointment. It can be a problem for everyone involved when your customers adjust their schedule, so that extra push can help keep them committed to the agreed time.

• One week before the appointment

As the appointment week is approaching, it's time to get confirmation from the customer that they're going to be able to do it. The purpose of your messages from now until the date of your appointment is to ensure that your client is aware of the appointment and intends to appear. It's time for us to schedule our first SMS message.

• Days before the appointment

The appointment day now draws near, and the client still hasn’t confirmed. If your cancelation policy window is within 48 hours, they still have two days left to confirm. On this day, you can schedule one more SMS message to be sent.