Why appointments are missed
The causes are similar from one trade to another, and none of them is bad faith.
- Forgetting. Especially for an appointment booked long in advance, or arranged over the phone in the middle of something else, without writing anything down.
- Misunderstanding. Tuesday or Thursday, 2 pm or 4 pm, which practice, which address: a date heard over the phone gets distorted within a few days.
- Not letting you know. The customer knows they won't come, but letting you know is a hassle: the line is engaged, the voicemail kicks in, the practice is closed when they think of it, and embarrassment does the rest.
- Double booking. They found an earlier slot elsewhere and forgot to cancel yours.
- The slot accepted out of politeness. On the phone, with no other option offered, they said yes to a time that didn't really suit them.
Each cause has its remedy. A written record corrects misunderstandings. A reminder corrects forgetting. A simple way to cancel turns a no-show into a freed-up slot. And offering two slots when booking avoids the polite yes: that's the method in our guide to booking appointments by phone.
What a confirmation SMS should say
The confirmation SMS goes out during the call or just after it. It should be readable in a few seconds and answer six questions.
- Who. The business name as the first word. An anonymous SMS looks like a scam, and your customer may have several appointments this week.
- What. The service, in two or three words. For a healthcare practice, “your appointment” is enough: never a medical reason in an SMS.
- When. The day written out, the date and the time. The day of the week avoids a lot of confusion.
- Where. The address, and the directions that really help: the floor, the car park, the entrance through the courtyard.
- What to bring. One or two instructions, no more: prescription, health insurance card, vehicle registration document.
- How to cancel or rearrange. The most important sentence, and the one most often forgotten.
Nothing else. No promotions, no links to your social media, no polite padding that makes people scroll.
Three examples to adapt
Salon Marine: your cut and colour appointment is confirmed for Tuesday 10 November at 2:30 pm, 12 rue des Lilas. Can't make it? Call the salon: we answer at any time to rearrange your appointment.
Acacias Physiotherapy: your session with Mr Lefèvre is confirmed for Monday 9 November at 6:15 pm. Bring your prescription and your health insurance card. To rearrange or cancel, call the practice, even outside opening hours.
Garage du Pont: your service is booked for Thursday 12 November at 8:30 am. Remember your vehicle registration document and service book. Can't make it? Let us know by phone, even in the evening.
These businesses are fictitious: replace the name, address and instructions with your own.
The reminder: when to send it
The day before is the right default setting. It's close enough for the appointment to be on people's minds, and early enough for a cancellation to free up a slot you can still offer.
- Appointments booked long in advance: the confirmation keeps a record, the reminder the day before jogs the memory. If your tool allows it, an extra reminder a few days beforehand helps for long appointments.
- Early-morning appointments: a reminder that same morning arrives too late; the one the day before is the only useful one.
- Appointments booked the day before or on the day: the confirmation is enough. A reminder just after the confirmation is redundant.
- Sending time: when people read their messages, never in the middle of the night.
The reminder repeats the details of the confirmation, more briefly, and gives the way to cancel again.
Reminder, Parc Dental Practice: appointment tomorrow, Wednesday, at 9 am with Dr Morel. If you can't come, let the practice know by phone: we will offer the slot to another patient.
The last sentence matters. It explains why letting you know is helpful, without threats or reproach.
Making cancelling easier than not turning up
A customer who can't make it chooses between two efforts: letting you know, or doing nothing. Your job is to make the first easier than the second.
- A number that answers. If cancelling means reaching voicemail, many people give up. Our comparison between a voice agent and voicemail details this point.
- The rule announced when booking, not after the event: “If you can't make it, let us know the day before.”
- Rescheduling in the same call. Offering another slot straight away turns a cancellation into a rearrangement.
- The freed slot, then offered to someone else. A cancellation the day before is only worth something if someone benefits from it. For practices that keep a waiting list, our guide to phone answering for allied health practices explains how to organise it.
- Confirmation of the cancellation, by SMS, so that the customer has proof they let you know.
Salon Marine: your appointment on Tuesday 10 November at 2:30 pm has been cancelled. Thank you for letting us know, see you soon.
Salon Marine: your appointment has been moved to Saturday 14 November at 10:30 am. See you on Saturday!
Mistakes that cancel out the effect of the SMS
- A wrongly noted number. The best SMS never arrives: have the caller repeat their number during the call.
- A wrong date, from a misunderstood appointment. Summarising at the end of the call prevents this.
- An unfamiliar shortened link. It worries people more than it reassures them: use a contact method the customer recognises.
- Too much information, or sensitive information.
- A reproachful tone in the reminder, which makes people regret booking.
What Sayelo does
At Sayelo, appointment confirmation and cancellation SMS and the no-show reminder the day before are switched on by default. When a customer calls back to cancel or rearrange, the agent answers at any time, finds the appointment from the name and number, offers another slot according to your rules, updates the calendar and confirms by SMS. The freed slot becomes available again for the next caller. During the call, the agent can also send, with the caller's consent, SMS messages you have prepared, such as the address or a useful link; it never writes their text itself.
The calendar itself needs to be ready: our Google Calendar guide explains how. The dentists and osteopaths pages show these SMS in a complete call, and the pricing page gives the SMS volume for each plan, with a 14-day free trial.
