Know your Email Etiquette

Last week we talked about the journey of an email and the importance of crafting a friendly reminder email to your clients and customers. You can see that blog here. This led us to think about email etiquette and how so many professionals don't actually know proper email etiquette. In this blog we'll start off with a story about a young girl, we'll call her Ashley, who worked in an attorney recruitment firm.

Ashley was 20 years old and working as a Secretary. She sat at the front desk to an office of 15 recruiters and attorneys. Although Ashley had been working since she was 15 years old in other positions that included customer service, this would be her first experience in a formal "downtown office" setting. After working in this office for more than 8 months Ashley learned how bad her boss was at some of the basic characteristics such as communication through email, managing the staff in the office, and communicating with Ashley about her tasks. One day Ashley got what we would call "fed up" and in a moment of high emotion sent her boss an email that explained how frustrated she was at her lack of communication with not only herself, but with others in the office. Ashley learned an important lesson that day. What might sound a certain way in your head or out of your mouth does not sound the same in an email.

Needless to say Ashley's boss did not take the email very well. Ashley was invited into her boss' office for a lecture about her email etiquette and her place in the office. Many of us probably wish we could say what we feed to our bosses without the repercussions of getting lectured, or worse, fired. We certainly wouldn't encourage you to do what Ashley did but unfortunately many professionals, regardless of age, have to learn email etiquette the hard way which usually results in the loss of a client, customer, employee, or job. It's amazing to think that most of U.S. employees spend a quarter of their time at work communicating through emails every single day, according to The Business Insider. Here are some of our tips and tricks for you to remember the next time you craft your email, regardless of the subject matter or recipient:

1. Every email should include a clear and direct Subject Line. Especially if the email is important or urgent, a subject line can determine when someone will read your email.
2. Don't email angry. Very much like Ashley's story, when you get angry or frustrated about something wait until you are calm to send an email to address the situation.
3. Use exclamation points sparingly. This is probably one of the most common mistakes made in every day emails. Exclamation points do sound like either yelling or excitement and if you're not trying to express either then don't use it.
4. Use professional salutations. While "Hey guys or Hey" is fine for talking with your friends, when you are communicating with other professionals use formal salutations such as "Hi or Hello".
5. Know that different cultures write and speak differently and keep that in mind as miscommunication is most common and can easily occur in written form.
6. Respond in a timely manner. Regardless of the urgency of the email, even if the email is a "Pleasure meeting you" email, make sure to respond in a timely manner out of good courtesy.

We could keep going. There are so many things to keep in mind when crafting a good email but instead of listing the many, many courtesies of emails, check out more articles like this one here.  We hope you learned something like Ashley did! 

The Life of an Email

Email has become the preferred medium of contact in business. As many of us don't want to go through the trouble of picking up the phone to be greeted by a recording, we choose another email, one that doesn't require us to speak either through the phone or face-to-face.

Many online services not only ask their customer to contact them for issues or questions via EMAIL, they also offer instant chats with representatives, online tickets, etc. Basically anything to prevent of from having to make the daunting call. We're so use to this platform that we don't even second guess or emails. They way we craft them, engage with them, and send them off to do our bidding doesn't move us in the slightest...but maybe it should.

First, take a look at this really cute, short animated video created by Google called "The Story of Send". This new perspective let's us see the journey of what happens to our email when we send it out and so begins the journey of our message.

Now that you've gained a familiarity with your email journey and understand the process based on the cute video, it's time to learn how to craft that perfect email. Creating a polite email reminder is certainly one of the harder emails to render but a very important one at that. Check out some of these tips that can help make you a great email creator no matter what your email needs to say.

http://www.writing-business-letters.com/letter-of-reminder.html

4 Ways to Reduce No Shows

Discussing no shows for appointments is like opening a can of worms. There are as many methods to eliminating or reducing no-shows as there are face creams for acne. And many of them work, but the the truth is, some work more than others and those are the ones we are going to talk about in this blog! Some of these methods may be considered specific to medical patients, as medicine as the highest no-show rate among all appointment based industries, but these methods can be applied to any industry.

#1: Start tracking why you have no shows. Many people don't find out why their client or appointment didn't show up but if you find out why you might find their reason is something you can avoid in the future. Start tracking your no-shows to look for a pattern to help you eliminate something you might be doing to cause them.

#2: Use an automated program to send reminders to your appointments. This should be an obvious one but so many people are still not using them! Programs such as ours include a free demo or a free trial so you can feel confident about using the program. Once you see the difference it makes you won't go without it again!

#3: Create an incentive for keeping your appointment. People don't realize they do this all the time! Think about the last time you made an appointment at a coffee shop, or over lunch, etc. When there is a free meal or coffee involved you are much less likely to miss your appointment and the same goes for everyone else.

#4: Make sure your appointments are happy or they might not show up again. A lot of patients don't want to show up for a second time if they didn't leave happy the first time, and that same rule applies to clients. Make sure you are giving the best customer service satisfaction at every appointment.

Text reminders improve Appointments across the board!

Research after research proves that sending a SMS reminder ( a text reminder) significantly improves attendance. One of the most interesting articles that was published recently by the British Journal of Cancer found that women who received text messages reminding them about their breast cancer screenings were more likely to attend their appointment. This fascinating article is only one of the many research articles that prove getting a text message reminder, or some form of reminder, increases attendance by at least 30%. Read more about this great article here.

Apart from breast cancer screens, which are extremely important, there is no reason this useful research wouldn't be just as applicable to any form of business that could benefit from a higher attendance. Think about your webinars, seminars, lectures, presentations, and client appointments. This improvement in attendance can literally be applied to any business. From sales, to recruiters, to employees, anyone can benefit!

So how can we help you? With AppointmentReminders.com we give you an opportunity to test our service before you pay or commit to anything. In fact don't commit to anything! We don't require a commitment unless it's use committing to the best customer service and product we can offer. Our features include merging with your calendar, automation, and the best customer service team you can ask for! Take advantage of our free demo now, or our free account, and start improving your business!

Why You Are Missing Out if You're Not Using Appointment Reminders

If you haven't already started using automatic appointment reminders then you really need to read this article and allow yourself to be convinced of why you desperately need them! This blog will highlight the top 5 reasons, in order of importance, on how this easy-to-use and inexpensive feature can make a big difference. 30% difference to be exact!

Top Reason #1: Countless case studies, such as those done by John Hopkins, have shown that appointment reminders via call or SMS text messages have shown to DECREASE no-shows by 30%! That is a huge statistic and what you need to realize is you could be losing 30% of business simply because you are not providing an appointment reminder. That's money people!

Top Reason #2: User engagement is important for every single business and you can create this engagement by using appointment reminders. Imagine getting a tailored text from your doctor's office reminding you about your specific appointment. Makes you feel a little special doesn't it? It should and you should be using these programs to make your client feel special too.

Top Reason #3: Automated reminders save you TIME. Time is money so what I'm saying it these programs save you money! All that manpower your staff uses to create and send out appointment reminders to your customers could be used in more productive and effective ways. And if you're not using any staff to implement reminders, well that's just lazy. Don't be lazy. The goal here is to work smarter, not harder.

Top Reason #4: Automated reminders are an on-time guarantee. An emergency in your office that requires all of your staff on hand doesn't have to mean calling your clients or patients to remind them of their appointment is forgotten. You get what you need in your office and your client gets what they need on their phone. Win-win!

Top #5:  Improve customer satisfaction. Studies have proven when companies take the time to cater to their clients (or practices to their patients) their customer surveys show a higher increase in customer satisfaction.

So basically automated reminders are a win all around. Use your time to make money and leave the time-waster necessitates to automation.




Sources:
https://www.webpt.com/blog/post/top-11-benefits-appointment-reminders-patient-engagement
http://www.dialogtech.com/blog/general/6-benefits-appointment-reminder-calls

Improve your Life by improving your Timing

If you are constantly late to your appointments and can't figure out how to get a handle on being on time, then this article is for you! Being prompt is not only important in your professional life, but spills over to all other areas of your life as well. Many people would rather believe that being habitually late is just "how it goes", but that is not true, and being only 5 minutes late can make the difference between a lasting first impression and a bad reputation. Here are some tips to help you stay on track and improve your life by improving your timing:

Tip #1: Set a reminder for yourself. Many people look at our services as a great feature to remind their clients or others about appointments, but it works both ways. You can just as easily use our services to remind yourself about important or daily appointments that you need to be on time for. Our FREE account is a great way to test out our services and see how beneficial they can be for your personal life.

Tip #2: Don't schedule events that aren't important to you. Many times people are late simply because they don't see the importance of the appointment. The whole things comes down to an attitude that a person has towards being punctual. Start to change this attitude by changing what you choose to commit to. Only schedule and commit to events that you consider important and then being on time will become important as well.

Tip #3: Set your clock a few minutes ahead. I have my clock in my car set 5 minutes ahead. Although I know in my mind that the time is 5 minutes ahead, there are many times I have been on time only because I am paying attention to that particular clock. After a while you forget that it's set ahead and that works to your advantage. Check out the Procrastinator's Clock, which is a cool little gadget that might work really great for you!

Tip #4: Plan ahead. If you are habitually late many times this happens because you didn't plan for the traffic, or that phone call, or the lights, etc. There are so many reasons to why you're late but the truth is it all could have been avoided if you had planned ahead. Leaving at 4:30 pm? Plan for traffic and give yourself an extra ten minutes to get to your event / appointment. It's the little things that can make the biggest difference.

Tip #5: Decide that being on time is going to become important to you! Your attitude is the number one reason you are late. Until you decide that being on time can improve your life and is an important life style change, you will always be late. Decide now that you can improve your life by improving your timing! 

Turn Cold Calls into Hot Appointments

You may have heard recently that cold calling is dead. Apparently cold calling died along with dial-up, MySpace, and the Blackberry but in actuality cold calling is still used today. Except is not so much cold calling as it is emailing, networking, using social media, and then calling! Cold calling hasn’t died it’s just evolved and if you aren’t evolving with it then you’ll most certainly be left behind. Here are some great tips on how to turn a cold call into a warm call and a hot appointment!

1. Know when to call. This goes for any kind of communication really. You should know your target audience inside and out, so assuming you do, then you should also know when is the best time of the day to reach them. Not only to call them, but to email them, LinkedIn message them, or whatever form of communication you are choosing to use. Are they more likely to answer in the morning? Maybe the end of the day is the best time? Whichever one it is make sure you know so you can optimize your opportunity to get in touch with them.
2. Make sure you have an egaging opener. No person wants to hang up faster when they hear “Hi! My name is ___ and I’m calling from ____” so whatever you say after that better be pretty darn interesting or you’ve just about lost them! Take some time to work on this, it’s important.
3. Build a rapport first. Trying to sell within the first 30 seconds is very likely to lose the person on the other end of the line of communication. Talk to them first, attempt to start a relationship, build a rapport, THEN SELL! Remember, people work with who they know, trust, and like!

We hope these tips help you in your next go-around! Remember to utilize our appointment reminders so the next time you make that hot appointment they show up!