SMS messages are one of the most useful tools your business can take advantage of. We will show you all the SMS tips and tricks to reduce no shows, save precious time, and provide an even more amazing experience for your new and existing clients.
Before your client arrives
Lock in your booking confirmation notification messages
Instead of calling your customers to double-check if they can make it, let bookitLive automatically send them a notification message to confirm their booking.
Reduce no-shows by 30% with booking reminder notification messages
Without a doubt, no business should live without booking reminder notification messages. bookitLive makes it as easy as possible for your client to turn up on the right date and time, saving you hours each week in missed bookings and lost revenue. Choose an amount of time you’re comfortable with before your client’s booking, and bookitLive will send an SMS reminder notification with all the important details like the date, time, and location of the booking.
Tips:
- You can schedule booking notification reminder messages to be sent between 15 minutes and a week before the booking. We recommend 1 or 2 days before, to give your client enough time to get organised if they’ve forgotten.
- Use merge tags in your SMS templates such as *[BUSINESS.NAME]*, *[CLIENT.FIRSTNAME]* and *[LOCATION_NAME]* to make your messages more informative and personal.
Make your reminder messages work harder for you
bookitLive lets your clients manage their own bookings from their very own dashboard. You can add a link to your booking reminder messages for your clients that will let them logon to their own dashboard to view and manage their own bookings. It’s a great experience for your clients, and cuts down the time you need to spend contacting clients and ensuring they book the right appointment.
Customise your links and make the most of your SMS characters
Using a link shortening site like bit.ly to customise and reduce the length of the links in your messages will not only give you more characters to work with, but it also looks more professional, will encourage your clients to click on your links, and you can even use the analytics tools available to see how many people are clicking on your links.
After your clients leave
bookitLive’s post follow-up automated notification messages will help you add value to your services, build loyal client relationships, and keep your business top of mind.
Follow up with your clients via SMS notifications
Follow up messages are great for checking in with your clients to make sure they’re following aftercare instructions, to thank them for booking in with you, and for requesting reviews.
Aftercare SMS notification
Do your treatments often involve aftercare, take a while to start working or have a lengthy healing process? If so, it’s a great idea to send an automatic follow up message to the client, reminding them of any important aftercare information, and what to expect after their booking.
Not only does it save you time, it’s also a nice touch. You’re letting your client know that you care, and showing them your outstanding service continues after the booking.
Tip: Add a link to aftercare instructions on your website so you don’t need to include everything in an SMS message. As a bonus, you’re introducing your clients to your website content.
Thank you SMS notification
Build your client relationships and lift your brand image without doing any extra work. A thank you message adds the cherry on top to your client’s booking, especially when they’ve spent a lot of money at your business or they’re a new client! Thank you messages are a great touch, especially if you’re a brand new business and you’re working hard to build a loyal client base.
Review SMS notification
When a client is looking online and finds your business, chances are they’re going to look at your reviews, so it’s important that you have lots of great reviews to convince them to book with you.
It can be time consuming to ask all your clients to give you an oscar-winning review, so get bookitLive to do it for you. Whether it be Facebook or Google reviews, or any kind of review you want, bookitLive can help you get the online reviews you need with a Review SMS message.
Tip: To make it even easier for your client, include a link to where they can post a review in the message.
Feedback SMS
As well as reviews, it’s a great idea to ask your clients for feedback. You can schedule a custom automated message notification to send to clients after their bookings requesting feedback; then you can use any negative or neutral feedback to improve your client experience, and ask those who send something positive for a review.
Set up contact tracing for Covid-19
In the current climate, you need to make sure you’re on top of your client information, and bookitLive makes it easy for your clients to check and update their details so you don’t have to follow up with everyone. Just include a link for clients to check and update their details in your reminder messages, as a requirement for your Covid-19 records.