Automated text and e-mail reminders can help eliminate lost revenues from cancelled and no-show appointments. The U.S.-based contact solutions company AnswerNow’s internal surveys and research show reminders can lower no-show rates by as much as 70 percent. Going by this, the company has added a new text and email messaging capability to its automated appointment reminder service.
The automated messaging function conveniently reminds an organization's clients, patients and customers of important scheduled events and appointments. Adding text and e-mail messaging to the existing automated appointment reminder capability helps service providers and businesses reduce costs associated to missed appointments and no-shows.
The feature has been incorporated into the ScheduleNow and MessageNow suite of contact center solutions. Both solutions now offer multi-channel reminder options, including live contact, pre-recorded messages, e-mail and text messages for mobile customers.
"AnswerNow's automated messaging and appointment reminders help organizations effectively reach their customers the way the customer wants to be reminded, whether by email, text, voicemail or live contact," Michelle Weiss, vice president for AnswerNow, said in a statement.
Weiss emphasized that with this new enhancement, companies can reduce the need for staffing or reassign existing staff to more important tasks by deploying this automated feature.
Reportedly, the automated reminder features associated with ScheduleNow and MessageNow are used by AnswerNow clients for appointment reminders for physician offices to patient appointments. Key benefits of the multi-touch reminder feature includes automotive maintenance reminders, call notifications for upgrade services, debt collection, delivery notifications, event invitations, locator services, membership renewals, wake up calls, and past due and payment reminders.
Automated reminders can be used not only to increase sales and marketing effectiveness with service reminders, special offers and incentives, subscription renewals and order status updates, but can also be used in maintaining good customer service and keeping customers loyal.
Also, major advantage of using the new AnswerNow feature is that it offers appointment canceling and rescheduling too, said the company.
AnswerNow recently unveiled a new website to improve functionality, navigation, search capabilities and social media connections.