In India, a straightforward SMS reminder blast is all it takes to enhance vaccination coverage and even decrease rates of preventable childhood infections. This study by Johns Hopkins Medicine and the Indian nonprofit child health organization Bal Umang Drishya Sanstha (BUDS) proves the ability of SMS reminders — when used right.
It’s easy to forget the small things you scheduled through the week in your planner unless you set reminders for them. From healthcare to recruiters — message reminders are often easily leveraged as a cost and time-saving exercise, for both the business owner and the end-user.
What are SMS reminders?
SMS reminders are alert messages conveyed to a customer using SMS as the communication channel. They’re utilized by businesses to make sure that their customers don’t forget their existing appointments or ones that they have to schedule in the near future. This also ensures that there are a lesser number of missed slots — allowing the business to carry on its functions without being suffering from the loss of appointments.
In a dental clinic: most appointments are taken by patients at least a week in advance, one of them missing it results in the slot going vacant. The dentist cannot ask another patient for that specific slot as it could be inconvenient for them. This leads to losing some business for the day, or worse, reflecting poorly on the brand’s identity.
A fairly common challenge, it is often easily resolved using an automatic reminder message system. The business team sends an alert message to its customers for upcoming or scheduled events or even personalized messages based on prior interactions.
Types of message reminders
- Upcoming Appointment Reminders
It is a busy world we live in— unless everything is on the planner, there’s a high chance that we’ll remember the next appointment. The appointment would have been taken a week before, as per the convenience of the customer. A reminder message ensures that customers don’t forget what’s important for them, creates brand loyalty, and at the same time, ensures that you simply don’t lose your time and money.
- Event Reminders
A reminder SMS is often sent to promote upcoming events at your business. this could be a customer event that you’re hosting or simply the launch of the latest products or services that are useful to the customer. a fast message reminds them of the same and creates the impression that you simply truly care about their changing needs.
- Recurring Appointment Reminders
Just like a monthly subscription, you’ll be able to actually set recurring appointments with your customers. Using appointment reminders, you can rest assured that their appointments are less likely to be missed
- Scheduling Appointments
Don’t just ask customers to schedule their next appointment on their way out. Follow it up with SMS reminders to do a similar. Thanks to widespread text messaging usage, your customers will thank you for giving them a neater answer.
- Follow-up Reminders
You can also use SMS reminders to follow up with your customers after a meeting and ask for their feedback too. Doing so within 24 hours of their visit will make sure that you get first-hand reviews from the customer to form your business better.
Advantages of text message reminders
The benefit of using an alert SMS vary for businesses, depending on their respective industry. Here some common advantages of sending text SMS reminders to customers.
- Reduces no-shows
Every missed appointment is lost revenue. To plan your time and allocate resources better, make sure that your pipeline is full and moving along the defined user journey in a timely manner by leveraging a reminder system to communicate with your customers. After receiving a reminder SMS, automatically lesser people left the scheduled event/ appointment.
- Reduces defaulters
By sending SMS alerts to customers for payments, you keep down bad debts with your business. This helps customers remind them about their dues, and even saves them the additional charges that they may incur from delays.
For instance, insurance companies send automated reminder messages about premium payments that a customer has to make. A simple alert SMS make sure savings for both the customer and the company, while also evolve greater brand adherence.
- Better customer experience
Reminder messages not only ensure sales for the business but also create a greater customer experience. By ensuring that the customer needs are met on time, and are available on the mobile phone, the reminder message act as the much-needed bridge for communication between the business and the customer.
For instance, regular check-up reminders help doctors stay in-tuned with their patients. This ensures the correct treatment on an ongoing basis, helping them stay within the better of their health.
- Saves costs
Message reminders are often used to let customers track their orders or the status of any application. Since text messages are cheaper than emails and outbound calls, they assist businesses to save costs. Nowadays shipment services use a reminder message to send the status of a shipment.
Why should businesses use SMS reminders?
The growth of mobile phone usage has resulted in enabling businesses to stay in-tuned with their customers. A recent study has proven that the primary thing that individuals do after awakening is checking their phone.
But with the growth of mobile, the one channel that’s surpassing even Facebook in being the foremost frequently used data service is a text message. Most of the text messages are opened within the first three minutes of being received, while almost two-thirds of emails are never even opened!
Yes, texting is really 10 xs more efficient than even reaching your customers via phone calls.
That is why SMS reminders are being increasingly used by businesses to remain connected with their existing customers to make sure brand loyalty.
How can you use it?
Text messages can actually serve as a good addition to your marketing and sales campaigns. Apart from advanced scheduling and alerts, you can use them as a medium to regularly nurture your customers. Here are a couple of ways different industries use SMS reminder system:
- Healthcare
It’s vital for the healthcare industry to remain in-tuned with the patients. this is often done to ensure their well-being and offer timely treatments that improve patient care. A message can be used to remind the customers or patients to schedule their next visit or apprise them of an upcoming one, or even alert them about self-examination.
- Automotive
The sole way an automotive brand can ensure an excellent driving experience for their customers is through timely service of their vehicles. From oil changes to tyre rotation, businesses can use SMS reminders to reduce missed appointments that require to be scheduled on a recurring basis. or even use it as a channel to let customers know when their vehicle is ready after the service.
- Education
Establishing a relationship between parents and teachers is extremely important for a student’s growth. to make sure high attendance rates during meetings and events, the academic institutions can use reminder messages that let everyone plan their days in advance. They also let you communicate any last-minute changes — be it declaring a vacation or rescheduling examinations.
- Beauty
Cut down on no-shows for your salon by sending customers message reminders for their scheduled appointments, or even alert them about discounts. you can also send them an SMS about the newest trends that they might be interested in.
- Hotels
Hotels can use a reminder message to send a booking confirmation text to guests. This lets them allocate rooms based on confirmation and also as a technique to carry reservations.
- Travel agencies
It’s practically impossible for travel agents to follow up with customers through phone calls to remind them of their upcoming travel or the documents they could need for an equivalent. In fixing an automatic reminder message will make sure that the customer is ready for the travel and has everything in place before the scheduled departure.
- Airlines
Using an alert SMS, the airline sends all information about check-in times, flight delays, flight cancellations, and more. This helps their customers plan their travel better and ensures an excellent experience in any given scenario.
Reminder messages are an excellent way to stay connected with your customers and at the same time, save your business time and money. Want to form reminding your customers about their upcoming appointments easier? The Datagenit reminder system can assist you set up automated messages to remain in-tuned with your customers which make further good and prosper relation with client.
About Author
Vikram Dixit is a seasoned marketer and a sales expert. He is the Manager of Datagenit, a leading digital marketing company that offers Bulk SMS service Or IVR solution, Internet research, email & chat support, and more.