March 15, 2024
A good reminder email that successfully accomplishes its objective is the most efficient and time-saving skill that a business can possess. It's the perfect solution to nudge people into action in case of upcoming events, meetings, appointments, or even missed deadlines. Although for an awkward conversation such as a reminder, it's absolutely necessary to get the tone, content, timing, and messaging for the email just right. Automating reminders for appointments, events, or even meetings in scheduling apps such as Appointo through custom workflows allows consistency and ensures efficiency.
Workflow automation helps streamline processes by assigning job roles, automating approvals, and quickening the end-to-end process. Although, most employees avoid change and are usually slow to adopt new technologies choosing to rely on traditional methods. Overcome this by creating a custom workflow that matches the inherent business process as much as possible and ensures the employees do not have to adjust to any major changes. A few simple rules to keep in mind while creating a custom workflow:
- Ensure a minimum number of people are involved in a given activity
- Add approvals only where necessary and keep to a minimum
- Let go of time-consuming processes from the traditional workflows
- Take the team's input before finalizing the process
- Test the workflow to clear out glitches, create backups, and avoid redundancies
- Integrate and set up automated email notifications where customers, vendors, and other third-party stakeholders with zero visibility into the process are involved.
While drafting an email or message notification confirming orders, appointments, or payments is easier to undertake and set up, reminder emails and messages are slightly challenging. Reminder emails can be mistakenly construed as rude or annoying if not done right. For example, multiple reminder emails in a short frequency before the scheduled activity seem pushy and annoying - not what your business wants to portray to the customer.
Email drafting is a tricky process in itself. From the subject line to the email content and signature, every element of an email is designed to coax the recipient into the desired action. The most important things to consider when writing a reminder email are tone and timing.
The email needs to showcase priority and importance while also being polite and professional. The reminder emails in a workflow are usually to send reminders before the event occurs and hence do not require a stern tone. Although, the email does need to be to the point and direct. Take the subject line, for example, a short and crisp subject line stating that the email is a reminder and the event it needs the recipient to remember works wonders. Recipients can skip opening the email, just reading the subject line popping up as a notification would do the job. Since email open rates are quite low on average, the trick is to convey more in lesser words just through the subject line. Some examples of short and crisp subject lines:
- Reminder for your haircut appointment on <date> at <time>
- Upcoming meeting/event <name> | <date & time>
- Action required: Please confirm your upcoming appointment with Dr.<name>
- Business name | Reminder for your upcoming <appointment/meeting/event>
Once the subject line is figured, the email message body is the next to grab the recipient’s attention. A simple personalized greeting such as Hi <name> or Dear <name> helps improve open and read rates. The email message tone must be direct such that it addresses the topic at hand at once. A simple one-sentence stating the upcoming activity details with the date and time highlighted covers the topic. Reminder emails are also useful in communicating pre-event checklists that the customers may need to maintain. Communicating the hair regime to be followed before a hair color appointment or the foods to avoid before a blood test appointment or even the things to carry for an upcoming meeting become easier in an email and since reminder emails are scheduled closer to the event date, the customers are more likely to follow through. For appointments and meetings, this might also be a chance for the customer to review their schedule and make modifications in their appointments, if required. A link or opening for the customer to reschedule the appointment or send across queries proves to be helpful in this scenario. Another element that a reminder email must carry is the calendar invite in case the customer missed adding it the first time. Calendar invitations, when added to the customer's calendar not only help customers plan around their booking schedule, it also help them set reminder notifications as per their convenience.
Depending on the activity, booking time, and the importance/urgency of the activity, a reminder email frequency and time are set. The duration between the booking and the actual event also helps determine when a reminder is appropriate. Take music festivals, for example, the workflow set up for bookings in such events would send an instant notification post the booking confirmation, but since these events sell out almost a year or so in advance, the reminder email notifications can be scheduled to go out as countdowns or upcoming events starting 3 months prior to the event, once a month and one each a week and a day before the event. Here, an hourly reminder is not useful as the event would require the customers to travel to the destination and they need to start their journey well in advance. On the other hand, a workflow for a doctor's appointment would send out reminders to customers who've scheduled appointments at least a day before and an hour before the appointment. This ensures that the customer has plenty of time in case they need to reschedule it or be reminded of their booking to avoid missed appointments.
Creating custom workflows for events, appointments, meetings, or sessions helps streamline your business processes. Take a look at Appointo's custom workflow feature that allows you to auto-schedule custom reminder emails before the appointment. Send out multiple reminders at scheduled times before the event or appointment and ensure lower no-shows, reduced delays, and better efficiencies. Leverage the power of reminders today!
Wish to streamline your reminder scheduling process with Appointo? Try our free demo now!
