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No-shows are a major problem for any appointment-based business. They waste valuable time and cost you money in the form of wasted labor hours and missed revenue. They can increase customer acquisition costs, even for businesses that don’t charge per appointment.
So how do you make sure customers show up to their appointments on time? Customer data suggests that sending appointment reminders to customers can decrease no shows by 80% or more.
But reminding customers via phone takes too much time, and not everyone checks their email inbox on a regular basis. According to one study, only 20% of emails are ever opened at all. Meanwhile, 90% of text messages are opened by recipients within three minutes of reception. With this in mind, it seems like SMS is the best way to send an appointment reminder. But we’ve all had busy days where we open text messages once and completely forget about them a few seconds later. Customers also have a lot of distractions these days, so how do you write an appointment confirmation text they’ll actually respond to?
To help you decrease no-shows, let’s take a look at the best practices for writing an appointment confirmation text. We’ll also show how it looks in practice when you choose to use custom reminder templates (such as those offered by GoReminders).
There are plenty of ways you could write and send an appointment confirmation text. But any time you send a message to your customers, it deserves a bit more thought than the average text. While many of these practices can work for email as well, remember that SMS is its own medium with limited space and certain conventions.
Here are some best practices for writing your own appointment confirmation texts:
Personalizing your messaging lets your customers know that the message is intended for them (and isn’t spam or a mistake). You should at least use your customer’s first name in each reminder. Something as simple as “Hello Jamie” will work fine. Aside from that, write your appointment confirmation texts in your company’s voice. While you only have a few characters available, that little extra personality goes a long way in terms of your customers’ experience with your brand. You’ll want to always include your business name somewhere in the text or as a signature at the end. This way, customers know who the message is coming from.
In a text message, you have a limited space to get your point across. Most text messages are written to be read in a few seconds. Keep your appointment confirmation messages focused on a single point: reminding the customer about their appointment. Don’t worry about promoting other services, requesting a second booking, or anything else. Just provide the necessary information so they don’t have to think too much before confirming their appointment.
Keep your appointment confirmations as short as possible without compromising the message or leaving out key information. Usually, it’s best to keep your text to 320 characters or less. Otherwise, your text may end up being split into two messages. This can be inconvenient for readability.
In order for your confirmation text to serve its intended purpose, you don’t want to forget any key details. That doesn’t mean including every detail about the appointment (remember to keep it brief so the customer can retain everything). But you’ll want to include what’s necessary for the customer to keep their appointment.
With that in mind, you’ll want to include the date and time of the appointment. You may also want to include the location or address of the appointment. If it’s a virtual appointment, you may include the link to the virtual meeting ahead of time so customers can easily join when it’s time. In other cases, you could include the type of service, the name of the staff hosting the appointment, and a phone number the customer can call if they have any questions.
A lot of people will ignore a text from a number they don’t recognize. They (or their phone itself) may misinterpret your reminder message as spam. Once you send the first reminder, it’s important to send future reminders from the same phone number each time. Luckily, a good appointment reminder app like GoReminders will set this up for you.
Sometimes, one appointment reminder will be enough for someone to show up. But reminders can still be forgotten or even go unseen. To make sure the message gets through to your customer, you may want to send several reminders at different intervals. This can increase the chances of the customer retaining the necessary information and showing up on time.
The goal of an appointment confirmation message is to increase the odds of the customer showing up to the appointment. If you can get your customer to confirm their appointment, they’ll likely commit to showing up on some level.
With GoReminders, you can easily include reply options with your appointment reminders so that customers can confirm, cancel, or request to reschedule their appointment. However, it may be best to only include the option for confirmation (i.e. Reply “C” to confirm) if you want to prevent rescheduling or cancelation requests. If customers feel like confirmation is the default response, it’s more likely they’ll choose that option. That kind of engagement with your reminder is more likely to stick with them. When they confirm, the appointment’s confirmation status will also be updated on your GoReminders calendar automatically.
While GoReminders automatically includes these confirmation instructions in the initial reminder text, it won’t include them in subsequent texts after the customer confirms their appointment. You can also manually update the confirmation from the calendar interface, if your customer decides to confirm their appointment another way (such as calling you or sending a custom direct message).
A good reminder message goes a long way. But even if a customer forgets about your reminder, they are more apt to show up to an appointment if it’s on their regular schedule. With GoReminders, you can easily allow customers to add their appointment to their calendar app of choice once they confirm the appointment. You can also sync these appointments to your company’s internal calendars so staff members know which appointments they are responsible for.
Sometimes, an automated text is too limited a format to convey everything a customer needs to know. You may have more to say to a specific customer, or your customer may have questions regarding the appointment. If this is the case, you should offer the option of two-way texting. To do this, make sure to pick an appointment reminder app that makes two-way texting easier. If you do indeed want to offer up the option for clients to send custom replies, include a note about this in your initial confirmation text (e.g. “Please reply to this text if you have any questions”).
The best reminder apps on the market make sending appointment confirmation texts easy for small businesses. The key feature here is automation — you don’t want to waste time typing out each appointment reminder. With GoReminders, you can save time by creating message templates that are automatically personalized for each appointment.
GoReminders allows you to create unlimited templates for your appointment confirmation texts. These templates are personalized for each appointment using template tags, which are identified by {{curly brackets}}. Once you create a new appointment, these tags in each message template are replaced with the appropriate customer and appointment information. This way, you can personalize your reminders with little effort and save time on sending out communications.
You can string together multiple reminder templates in a custom sequence of messages that will deploy automatically once you select that sequence for an individual appointment. For instance, a sequence might include sending out two reminders before the appointment and one follow-up message afterward.
You can also choose the reply options to offer your customer (or not) within the reminder settings. If you decide to include unique reply instructions (such as “call to confirm”), you won’t need to keep these built-in reply options activated. We have included them in these examples for illustration.
Here are some great message templates you might use for your business:
Here is a basic appointment confirmation text you can use for just about any situation. If nothing else, it demonstrates a good format to follow for most reminder texts.
Hello, {{First Name}}. This is a reminder that your appointment with (Your Business Name) is coming up on {{Day Name}}, {{Date}} at {{Time}}.
Reply “C” to confirm.
This template is simple but effective. It sticks to the point with conveying all necessary information and asks the customer to confirm their attendance.
If your industry uses more formal language or protocols, you may decide to match that tone in appointment reminders. You can use the {{Salutation}} and {{Last Name}} template tags to address someone in a formal way (e.g. “Mrs. Smith”).
Hello {{Salutation}} {{Last Name}}. Your {{Service}} appointment with (Your Business Name) is on {{Day Name}}, {{Date}} at {{Time}}. Please try to arrive on time and bring proper documentation.
Reply “C” to confirm
Here’s an example of a template with alternative confirmation instructions:
Hello {{Salutation}} {{Last Name}}. This is a reminder about your appointment with (Your Business Name) on {{Date}} at {{Time}}. Please call the office at (Your Front Desk Phone Number) to confirm your attendance.
Salon appointments should be a pleasant, positive experience. For this reason, you might consider adding a bit of personality to your messages so customers feel welcome.
Hey {{First Name}}. This is {{Staff Name}} with (Your Business Name). Just a reminder that your {{Service}} appointment is coming up on {{Date}} at {{Time}}. We can’t wait to see you!
Reply “C” to confirm.
Once your customer confirms their appointment, you can send them another reminder to make sure they arrive on time. With the right salon appointment scheduling app, you can easily automate your reminders to include the right information.
Hey {{First Name}}! Don’t forget about your {{Service}} appointment with {{Staff}} this coming {{Day Name}}. You’re gonna look great. See you at {{Time}}!
Barbershops are no stranger to no-show appointments. To give your clients the best chance of showing up, it’s best to send them a few reminders.
Hey {{First Name}}! Your haircut with {{Staff}} at {{Location}} is coming up on {{Date}} at {{Time}}. Get ready to have the best look of your life. – (Your Barbershop Name).
Reply “C” to confirm
Once your customer confirms the appointment, you can send them a second reminder just to be safe.
Hi {{First Name}}, {{Staff}} from (Your Barbershop Name) here. We look forward to seeing you {{Date}} at {{Time}} for your haircut. See you soon.
As someone who offers professional services (e.g. financial advisors, lawyers, etc.), you may or may not charge per appointment. But a no-show appointment can truly throw the schedule (and the budget) off in several ways. Plus, your time is too valuable to be spending it at the office waiting around for no-shows.
Here are some professional reminders to use when reminding clients to show up for meetings:
Hello {{Salutation}} {{Last Name}}. This is (Your Name) from (Your Business Name) reminding you of your appointment on {{Date}} at {{Time}}. Please remember to bring all necessary documents. Call {{Staff Phone}} with any questions.
Reply “C” to Confirm
A day before the appointment, you might decide to send them another reminder to confirm the appointment.
Hello {{Salutation}} {{Last Name}}. This is (Your Name). When you arrive for your appointment tomorrow, please check in with the front desk, and we’ll get started. I look forward to our discussion. – (Your Business Name).
For sales meetings with prospects or potential clients, you might not charge by the appointment. However a no-show can still increase your customer acquisition cost.
Say your business spends $1,000 on customer acquisition (paying salespeople to make calls, paying for marketing campaigns, etc.) with a goal of acquiring ten new customers. That’s $100 per customer. Now, say that four of those 10 leads don’t show up to sales calls. You can’t un-spend that money, but you need to generate more leads and close more deals to make up for the people that didn’t show up. Your customer acquisition cost just went up by roughly 40%.
There are too many ways for deals to fall through the cracks — but no-shows are one of the most preventable. Use these templates to remind prospects to show up to sales calls and keep your customer acquisition costs low:
Hello {{First Name}}. This is {{Staff Name}} from (Your Business Name). I’m looking forward to talking more about {{Service}}. Please confirm you’re still available for our call on {{Date}} at {{Time}}.
Reply “C” to confirm.
Many sales calls are virtual. If this is the case for you, you might want to include a Zoom link in your message template. With GoReminders, you can create a unique Zoom link and add it to your list of locations in your settings. Then, you can use the {{Location}} tag to easily insert the Zoom link into an automatic reminder. Here’s an example of a message you might send a day before the sales call:
Hi {{First Name}}. I’m looking forward to our call on {{Day Name}}. You can join the Zoom meeting on {{Date}} at {{Time}} here: {{Location}}.
Talk soon!
(Staff Name / Your Business Name)
If you work at a busy doctor’s office, you’ll know that top challenges for the office likely include coordinating patient appointments and getting patients to show up on time. Appointment reminders are a great way to increase on-time attendance, so patients have time to fill out paperwork and receive the care they need without throwing off your schedule.
With these reminders, it’s important to stay compliant with HIPAA regulations. This means you’ll need to avoid mentioning specific medical details in messages (among other requirements). Here is a sample appointment confirmation sequence you can use:
Hello {{First Name}}. Your appointment with {{Staff Name}} is coming up on {{Date}} at {{Time}}. Call (Your Front Desk Phone Number) with any questions or if you need to reschedule. – (Your Business Name)
Reply “C” to confirm.
Once the patient confirms their appointment, you can send them another text the day of the appointment (usually at least a few hours before):
Hello {{First Name}}. We look forward to seeing you later today at {{Time}}. Please remember to bring your insurance card and arrive 15 minutes early to fill out paperwork. The front desk attendant will direct you from there.
Lab testing sites also need to manage appointments and prevent no-shows to remain efficient in their work. During the COVID-19 pandemic, this was especially important when testing sites were built with little time for planning. This is also important for drug testing labs which are often used in the pre-employment screening process. A quick and easy-to-implement appointment reminder solution is essential in this scenario to prevent long lines and no-shows.
With both of these scenarios, there’s a good chance that the person attending the appointment has never been to your location before. Appointment reminders are essential for making sure they show up for their test on time and at the right location. Here are some templates you might use:
Hello {{First Name}}. This is a reminder for your testing appointment with (Your Business Name) at {{Location}} on {{Date}} at {{Time}}. Please arrive 15 minutes early to fill out paperwork.
Reply “C” to confirm.
Once they confirm the appointment, you can send them a second confirmation text to provide further directions a few days (or hours) before the appointment.
Hello {{First Name}}. This is a reminder from (Your Business Name). When you arrive for your appointment at {{Location}} at {{Time}}, enter through the front door and take the elevator to the right. The lab is on the second floor to the left. Please remember to bring (necessary documents/items).
You can also use appointment reminders to send test results in a follow-up message after the appointment (if applicable).
Hello {{First Name}}. Your test results are ready. You can access them through the secure portal here: (Portal Link).
Like doctor’s offices, dental practices need to stay on top of appointments to provide the best service possible to patients in an efficient manner. Appointment confirmation texts can help customers stay on track and remember to bring necessary documents. In this case, HIPAA compliance must be a priority. Here are some templates you can use as a jumping-off point:
Hello {{First Name}}. You are scheduled for an appointment with {{Staff Name}} on {{Date}} at {{Time}}. Please remember to bring your insurance information. We look forward to seeing you.
(Your Business Name)
Reply “C” to confirm.
If your dental practice has a specific check-in process, you’ll want to include details about it in a second reminder to be automatically sent the day of the appointment.
Hi {{First Name}}. We look forward to seeing you today at {{Time}}. When you arrive at {{Location}}, please check in via this link: (Check-in Link). Follow the prompts, and someone will direct you to the correct room from there. See you soon!
(Your Business Name)
As a personal trainer, you may have seen several customers who know they have an appointment but don’t show up simply because they’re dreading a tough workout. Sometimes the best way to approach that fear is to send them a personalized text that balances a friendly tone with motivation. Use these appointment confirmation templates to pump up your customers and make sure they show up on time:
Hey {{First Name}}! It’s (Your Name), your personal trainer. It’s time to get your workout in. Don’t forget about our training session later today at {{Location}}. Bring your best attitude and get ready to sweat at {{Time}}!
Reply “C” to confirm
If your trainees haven’t booked another appointment in a while, you can use a personalized reminder to encourage them to sign up again. With GoReminders, you can create a custom branded booking link to send to your customers via social media, a QR code, or a link. The {{Booking Link}} template tag allows you to easily insert that link into any confirmation or follow-up message. Here’s an example:
Hey {{First Name}}. It’s (Your Name). I haven’t seen you at the gym in a while. Hope everything’s okay! Let me know when you’re ready to work out again and we’ll jump back in. You can book another session with me here: {{Booking Link}}.
Like many other appointment-based businesses, pet groomers need to maximize efficiency to make sure customers’ pets get the care they need. You’ll also want to sprinkle in a little personality to showcase your brand.
In this case, you really have two customers: the pet and the pet owner. With GoReminders, you can create custom fields (such as {{Pet Name}}) for each appointment and easily insert both names into any template. Use this appointment confirmation template to remind your customers to show up on time:
Hey {{First Name}}! We’re looking forward to seeing {{Pet Name}} on {{Date}} at {{Time}} for their {{Service}} appointment. Please call us at (Your Business Phone Number) if you have any special requests so we can take care of your pet the best we can.
– (Your Business Name)
Reply “C” to Confirm
Once your customer confirms the appointment, GoReminders will automatically send them a link to help them add the appointment to their own personal calendar. After that, you can send them a second reminder the day of the appointment with special instructions.
Hey {{First Name}}! We’re so excited to take care of {{Pet Name}} today at {{Time}}. When you arrive, please come in through the front door and leave {{Pet Name}} on the leash/in the crate. We’ll take them back to the grooming center when it’s time. See you soon!
– (Your Business Name)
A busy auto shop can quickly get out of hand without a solid scheduling platform. While many in this industry choose to allow walk-in appointments, this can get overwhelming. Add a few no-shows to your list, and you’ve got all your service bays full and perhaps a line out the door.
Try using these appointment confirmation texts for your pre-scheduled customers to keep things straight:
Hello {{First Name}}. Your {{Service}} appointment with (Your Business Name) is scheduled for {{Date}} at {{Time}}. When you show up, please pull into the parking lot and bring your keys to the front desk. One of our technicians will pull your car in. See you soon!
Reply “C” to confirm
To keep your customers coming back to your shop, try sending them a reminder to book their next appointment. With GoReminders, you can create your own booking form and include that link in a follow-up message scheduled to deploy a few months after the initial appointment.
Hello {{First Name}}. This is {{Staff Name}} from (Your Business Name). It looks like your vehicle is due for another {{Service}} on {{Date}}. You can book your next appointment with us here: {{Booking Link}}
If you run a cleaning service, you’ll want to make sure customers know when you’ll be arriving at their homes. You don’t want to surprise them or set off their security system.
With these reminders, it’s important to be somewhat personal in tone so the homeowner knows who is arriving at their home and will be comfortable knowing there’s a real human answering them. Here’s a template you might use to confirm the time and date of a cleaning service:
Hello, {{Salutation}} {{Last Name}}. This is {{Staff Name}} from (Your Business Name). Your cleaning service is scheduled for {{Day}}, {{Date}} at {{Time}}. The cleaning should take about {{Appointment Length}}, so we should be done by {{End Time}}. Please be sure you are home at {{Start Time}} to let us inside.
Reply “C” to confirm
With GoReminders, booking appointments and setting up appointment confirmation texts is easy. With email and text reminders, two-way texting, and flexible booking options, you can effectively communicate with your customers and prevent no-shows with little effort.
Setup only takes 30 seconds. Then you’re ready to start automating your custom appointment reminders, each personalized to reach your customers.
All you need to do is sign up at GoReminders, create your custom message template(s), and start booking appointments. Reminders are sent automatically, so you can focus more on doing the work you do best: providing services to your customers. Try GoReminders for free!
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