SMS and Voice: A better way to remind customers of upcoming appointments

While seemingly harmless, customer forgetfulness can cost a business significant time, money and resources. Missed appointments, consultations and payments can add up, with ‘no-shows’ costing the US healthcare system over $150 billion a year. Moreover, having staff manually send reminders is inefficient, adding up to an average of $120,000 a year in expenses. Maintaining old home-grown technology is complicated and often pricey – it’s time for a new way to help customers.

Reminders are still the best way to ensure clients remember their appointments, so why not send notifications via SMS and voice?

The genius of sending messages through SMS is that 93% of consumers already use SMS every day for communication, and it is proven to reduce no-shows by 90%. Most customers (61%) don’t want to install a new app solely to communicate with one business, making SMS more viable. By selecting the right system, such as IntelePeer’s Atmosphere CPaaS platform, your staff can automate everything from invoices and follow-up reminders to fraud alerts and payment confirmations through SMS and voice. With our secure CPaaS platform, customers will have access to self-service options and other conveniences to help them pay bills on time and check account balances. IntelePeer’s technology will keep internal teams informed of necessary tasks while effortlessly notifying customers. This intelligent, omnichannel solution powered by automation, AI, and analytics, allows businesses to easily send out surveys to gather feedback, gaining important insight into customer preferences.

A potential hesitation to switching to voice and SMS with IntelePeer could be that your business already uses scheduling software to manage appointments. Or perhaps you don’t have the time or resources to implement a new solution. However, IntelePeer’s solution integrates with your current system adding SMS and voice automation to boost customer experience. And best of all, with our managed services, we can do the heavy lifting and installation for you.

Case in point: SimonMed Imaging

Missed appointments in healthcare not only cost organizations billions every year, but they also carry a serious risk for patient health. Research from BMC medicine found that patients with one or more long-term conditions who miss their appointments could increase their risk for premature death. Recognizing this danger, SimonMed Imaging, one of the largest independent outpatient medical imaging providers and physician radiology practices in the United States, partnered with IntelePeer. By leveraging Atmosphere CPaaS for voice services, SimonMed massively reduced operating costs and enhanced customer experience.

Before implementation, voice and data from its 98 operating sites totaled $5.4 million. Likewise, missed appointments were costing SimonMed $1,200 each, and with over 1,000 patients calling daily, those expenses were piling up. Now, after nearly doubling in size to 170 sites, they cut costs to just $3 million. Additionally, with IntelePeer’s automated SMS notifications and automated calls, SimonMed reduced missed appointments and boosted employee productivity.

If you want to find out how IntelePeer can upgrade your scheduling software, contact your IntelePeer Sales Representative or IntelePeer Business Partner.