Both a solution implemented onsite and a hosted solution offer unique advantages.  To assist in the decision process, it is important to establish what advantages are more important to you.

Advantages of solution installed and implemented onsite

• Maintaining maximum control to customize the system to meet your requirements

• Customer data remains secure in your control on your premises

• Excess bandwidth can be utilized to send additional messages at virtually no cost  

• Return on Investment (ROI) is usually obtained in a matter of weeks

Advantages of a Hosted Solution or SaaS (Software as a Service)

• Reduced implementation time and effort

• Immediate access to the latest innovations and features

• Significantly reduced initial capital investment

• Significantly reduced infrastructure requirements

• Built-in redundancy

2.  How will a message be personalized for each customer?

There are situations where you may want to send one standard message to many customers.  In most situations, however, an automated call is more likely to receive a positive customer response when it includes information that is personalized to that customer.  A personalized message often includes the customer name as well as the day, time, location and reason for the appointment.  Custom information might include a balance-due amount or confirmation of a delivery address.  In addition to appointment details, your customers will appreciate instructions on what to bring or how to prepare for the appointment.  Such preparation can significantly reduce the amount of inbound follow-up phone calls.

3.  How will our customers receive our messages?

Appointment reminder systems should support the delivery platforms that your customers expect.  The three most important channels are telephone, email, and SMS text messaging.  Less important are fax and pager.

4.  Where will we get our appointment data?

An automated appointment reminder system is dependent upon its source of appointment and customer data.   Healthcare providers, for example, utilize practice management or EMR (Electronic Medical Record) systems to schedule appointments.  Appointment reminder systems often include a basic appointment scheduler.  

Software programs will usually have an export or print-to-file function that will create a data file in a format that can be imported into an appointment reminder system.  Alternatively, most appointment reminder systems can retrieve data from an ODBC database.  Appointment data is combined with pre-recorded phrases to produce a personalized call.  Here is an example:

“This is Dr. Taylor’s office calling to remind Jennifer of an appointment at our Lakeside office on Tuesday, May 16 at 2:30pm.  Be sure to bring your insurance card and picture ID.  Thank you.  Goodbye.”

Automating the process of importing appointment data upfront pays dividends everyday in time saved.

5.  Should we send messages in languages other than English?

Based upon the needs of your customers, you may want to provide them with the option of receiving messages in other languages.  If so, you will need to investigate what languages the system supports.  Also, you will need a way for the customer to select another language.  (“Para Español, oprime dos.”)

What will our call volume be?

It is important to determine the number of messages that need to be delivered each day and if the system has sufficient capacity to handle that call volume.  Hosted or SaaS systems can often deliver thousands of calls per hour, or more.  Simultaneous calls for onsite systems are limited by the number of telephone lines the system supports.  A good rule of thumb is that, on average, it will take about 45 seconds to deliver one automated telephone message.   In that scenario, a four-line system could make about 320 calls in an hour (3600 seconds in one hour / 45 seconds per message X 4 lines).

6.  What Calling Rules do we need?

Calling rules determine what actions the system should take in certain situations.  Here are some examples of important calling rules:

•   Calling Hours.  Who are your customers and when are they most likely to take your call live?  Do you need to make all calls between 5:00 pm and 8:00 pm, or would your customers prefer to receive calls during the day?

•   Placing calls in advance.  How far in advance of an appointment do you wish to contact your customers?  Do you want to send more than one reminder for an appointment?  

•   Detecting Voicemail/Answering Machines.  When an appointment reminder call is answered, the system attempts to determine if it has reached a live caller or voicemail.  The system should have the flexibility to provide one message for a live caller and a different message for voicemail.

•   Alternate Phone numbers.  Will the system dial a second or third number to reach a customer?

•   Family Member Check.  How does the system handle multiple appointments to the same phone number?

•   Do Not Call.  Does the system have a way to block calls to a given number if requested by your customer?

An appointment reminder system should offer you the flexibility you require to meet your customers’ needs.

7.  In addition to appointment reminders, what other types of messages do we want to send?

Appointment reminders are the most common message sent by a messaging system, however, there are many others.  Here are some examples:  

•   Emergency notification

•   Announcement of new services

•   “Elder check” calls

•   Inclement weather announcements

•   Past-due notifications

•   Last-minute event changes

•   Prescription refill reminders

•   Recall reminders to schedule an appointment

•   Safety alerts  

The flexibility of your appointment reminder system to handle multiple kinds of messages will greatly increase its value to your business.

8.  Do we need Interactive Voice Response (IVR) capabilities?

A system with Interactive Voice Response (IVR) capabilities is able to recognize touchtone (DTMF) signals or human voice.  Such a system could conduct an automated poll or survey by calling a customer, asking questions and then recording the customer’s touchtone responses.  

Some solutions include a speech recognition engine that can understand words or phrases spoken in English and other languages.  For example, a customer could respond to an appointment reminder call by saying “confirm” or “cancel.”  Even if you have no requirement for polls or surveys, this ability to record customer responses can provide you interactive contact with your customers.

9.  What information do we want in our reports?

Here is some of the information you will want to know regarding each day’s reminder calls:

•   Messages attempted

•   Messages completed

•   Messages delivered to live callers

•   Messages delivered to answering machines or voicemail

•   Calls with No Answer or Busy Signal

•   Calls with an Operator Intercept (“The number you have dialed has been disconnected.”)

•   Automated survey responses

An appointment reminder system can allow you to see at a glance who did not receive a reminder call, whose phone numbers are no longer valid, and who needs to reschedule.  Some systems will allow you to subscribe to a report and have that report emailed to you at the end of each day.

Summary

An appointment reminder system is much more than simply a delivery vehicle for a static message.  As you evaluate appointment reminder solutions, carefully consider the questions above and evaluate your current needs and your needs for the future.  The right appointment reminder system can become a complete messaging platform for quickly and efficiently distributing information to your customers as well as gathering valuable feedback from them.