Is your clinic trying to grow? Are you focused on profitability? Maybe you’re keen to improve pet owner loyalty and satisfaction? No matter what your clinic’s goals are, a strong appointment reminder strategy can help.

In this blog, we’ll review why appointment reminders are important, how they can help achieve your goals, and we’ll give you cadence suggestions and message examples to help you hit the ground running. We’ll also share how to implement your own appointment reminder system.

We’re all busy and it’s easy to forget things — even important things — like scheduled veterinary visits. Appointment reminders are an easy way to connect pet parents to clinics to improve communication and satisfaction. Here’s a few ways appointment reminders benefit clinics:

Adding more clients means adding more administrative tasks to your team’s plate — unless you leverage automation. Automated appointment reminders give your team time to focus on higher value activities to support your clinic’s growth.

You can either increase your revenue or decrease your expenses. It may not look like it on the surface, but automated appointment reminders can help with both. They decrease your no-shows which increases revenue, and they take manual work off your staff enabling you to do more work — with fewer staff members. In an industry where staff shortages are a way of life, automated appointment reminders can save the day and improve team culture.

Automated pre- and post-appointment notifications provide pet owners with critical visit information and give them the opportunity to reschedule if needed. These reminders help manage pet owner expectations and set both the pet parent and the clinic up for success.

Automating appointment reminders provides significant benefits to veterinary teams including:

• Reduces redundant, manual tasks on the veterinary team.
• Decreases missed appointments.
• Improves pet owner compliance with bringing essential samples to appointments such as fecal samples, etc.
• Reduces inbound calls.
• Provides more proactive touch points than manual processes allow.
• Impresses pet owners with a standardized approach to communication, this can help with both loyalty and referrals.
• Enables notifications to be sent across multiple communication channels such as text and email.

Sending appointment reminders through email is good. Sending reminders via text is better. Sending them both ways is best. Tools such as Flow by Otto make it easy to automate pre- and post-appointment reminders that are delivered via both email and text.

According to an article from Today’s Veterinary Business, text messages get a 99% open rate. This is much better than even very high-performing email campaigns. Clinics around the country are using text message-based communication for appointment scheduling, payment collection, digital form intake, and — you guessed it — appointment reminders.

Text messages can also make it easier to reschedule appointments with self-serve reschedule links (for appointments booked far enough in advance). Consider implementing a late-reschedule fee to discourage appointment rescheduling within five days of the planned visit.

Let’s dig into the formula for the most effective appointment reminder cadence. Yes, booking confirmations are great. Yes, day-of reminders are awesome. Yes, email reminders rock. But they are not enough. To maximize communication and reduce the chances of forgotten appointments, follow a communication cadence that looks like this:

Timing: Immediately after the appointment is scheduled.
Deliver via: Email and text
Content: Thank you for your booking. Include the date, time, pet name, and details about what the pet is visiting for. Outline your intake process to manage expectations.

Example: Thank you for scheduling a [visit name] for [pet name]! Your visit is confirmed for [date and time]. If anything changes please use this link to reschedule your appointment. We’ll send you another note a few days before your appointment to let you know what you need to bring.

[provide full details of your intake process that the pet owner can come back to for reference]

Timing: Two weeks before the appointment.
Deliver via: Email and text
Content: Remind them about their appointment, and your cancellation/ reschedule policy. Include a button that allows them to reschedule if the time/date no longer works.

Example: Just a quick reminder that [pet name] is scheduled for [visit name] on [date and time]! If anything changes please use this link to reschedule your appointment. We’ll send you another note a few days before your appointment to let you know what you need to bring.

Timing: 5 days before the appointment.
Deliver via: Email and text
Content: Let them know it’s their last-call if they need to cancel or reschedule and that you’ll be sending them their digital intake information in a few days via text message.

Example: [pet name]‘s [visit name] appointment is just 5 days away! This is your last chance to modify your appointment.Iif anything changes please use this link to reschedule your appointment. We’ll send your pet’s intake form in a few days to collect any new health information before your visit.

Timing: 2 days before the appointment.
Deliver via: Email and text
Content: Send them digital intake information so you can collect everything you need from the pet owner. This ensures they’re invested in the visit and reduces the chance that they’ll go somewhere else.

Example: We’re looking forward to seeing [pet name] tomorrow! For your [visit name] appointment you’ll need to bring [items to bring such as a fecal sample]. Please call us at [clinic number] for any last-minute questions!

[Send digital intake information — deploy via text if you can]

Timing: Day of the appointment.
Deliver via: Email and text
Content: Send them any day-of instructions such as “don’t forget to bring a fecal sample” or “make sure your pet arrives with a full bladder” etc.

Example: See you and [pet name] soon! Just a quick reminder to bring [items to bring such as a fecal sample]. If you haven’t already, don’t forget to fill out your pet’s intake information that we sent yesterday.

With Flow by Otto implementing automated email and text appointment reminder cadences is easy. Flow makes it easy to keep clients engaged, and your phone lines free. The Otto team helps you customize workflows to save your team hours per week with the capability to:

• Send and collect digital forms via text.
• Automate pre- and post-appointment messages based on your clinic’s medical protocols and internal workflows.
• Send and collect payments through text.
• Appointment scheduling through website widget
• And more.