Notifications and Reminders – Hints and Tips
By Malcolm Sloan | 25th February 2021 | Advice
SIF Health Malcolm Sloan spends everyday speaking with, and helping exercise and therapy professionals streamline their business processes to allow them to do what it is they love to do....help clients.
Notifications and reminders have become an essential part of businesses in order to provide a positive client experience and do reduce no shows / DNAs.
With people’s email inboxes getting increasingly busy and email providers being far more aggressive about putting emails in to promotional, spam, junk type folders then the ability to rely on emails for reminders has decreased hugely.
A study conducted by researchers at Imperial College London1 is one of many to have shown significant decreases in no show rates from SMS reminders with results ranging from 35-80% coupled with reductions in rearranged appointments. To put that into context if you had 2 no shows a month that would save you 9 missed appointments a year.
What does that mean from a financial perspective?
1 appointment = average price £50 = Saving 9 appointments = £450 a year
If it’s new clients, the savings are far greater:
1 client = approx. lifetime value (10 appointments plus 1 referral) = £1,000
If saved 9 new clients = £9,000 a year
Should I send myself instead of automate?
“Software charges me for SMS whereas I can send them for free on my phone plan so doing it myself is better right?” Potentially yes but only if you have a handful of clients.
Business SMS rates are typically 5-10p per message so there is a cost associated with them.
However, with business SMS, it can be fully automated, so you never have to remember or find the time to do it. It becomes a simple time vs money equation for you to choose what is right for you.
Assuming 5 clients a day, treating 200 days a year = 1000 appointments
Assuming SMS costs are 10p (with SIF they’re less) and it takes 2 minutes to manually remember & send an SMS then:
1 SMS per appointment = £50 to automate or 33.3 hours to send manually.
2 SMS per appointment = £100 to automate or 66.6 hours to send manually.
Automated SMS can also have URL links to forms for clients to fill in to increase completion rates too.
As always it is a personal decision and one in which your own personal circumstances are incredibly important. If you would like further information or a free discussion about how to get it set up then pick a time that suits you here or email info@sif.health