A beauty salon loses around eight appointments a week to clients who simply don’t turn up. Each no-show is an hour of a therapist’s time that can’t be sold again. Over a year, it adds up to a painful amount of lost income, and frustrated staff.
The owner has tried phoning clients the day before, but it takes time and often goes unanswered. Then she switches on a feature already included in her booking software: an automatic text reminder 24 hours before each appointment, with a simple link to confirm or reschedule. Within a couple of months, no-shows drop noticeably. Some clients who can’t make it now reschedule in advance, freeing slots for others.
It isn’t glamorous. It doesn’t involve AI. But automated reminders are among the most reliable, best-evidenced and easiest automations a small business can switch on.
One Like insight: Sometimes the most valuable automation is the one that simply reminds people to show up.
What reminders do
Some of the strongest evidence on reminders comes from healthcare, where missed appointments are costly and have been studied extensively. In 2013, the Cochrane Collaboration, an international network that produces systematic reviews of health research, published a review by Ipek Gurol-Urganci and colleagues on mobile phone text-message reminders for healthcare appointments.
Combining evidence from several randomised trials, the review found that text-message reminders increased attendance compared with no reminder, and that they appeared to work about as well as phone-call reminders, while costing considerably less to send. The authors noted that the quality of the evidence was limited and that more research was needed, but the direction of the findings was consistent.
Other studies across healthcare and services have reached similar conclusions: timely reminders reduce forgetting, which is one of the most common reasons people miss appointments. Making it easy to cancel or reschedule also matters, because it turns a silent no-show into a freed-up slot that can be offered to someone else.
The Cochrane evidence comes from healthcare settings, and results will vary in other industries. But the underlying behaviour, people forgetting commitments made days or weeks earlier, is universal. For salons, clinics, tutors, consultants, tradespeople and any business that works by appointment, the logic applies directly.
Designing good reminders and follow-ups
Most booking, invoicing and customer-management tools already include reminder features. Setting them up well takes an hour or two.
Time them sensibly. A reminder a day or two before an appointment works for most businesses. For bigger commitments, a second reminder a week ahead can help.
Make action easy. Include a link or simple reply option to confirm, cancel or reschedule. A cancelled slot can be rebooked; a no-show can’t.
Use the channel customers read. In South Africa, that’s often SMS or WhatsApp rather than email. As we explored in WhatsApp Is Where Your Customers Already Are, meet people where they are.
Keep it short and friendly. Name, date, time, place and how to change it. A warm tone reflects your brand.
Extend the idea beyond appointments. The same logic works for invoice due dates, as explored in Why We Don’t Chase the Money We’re Owed; service reminders, such as annual geyser checks or car services; renewals; and follow-ups after a job asking for a review.
Respect consent and frequency. Service reminders about something a customer has booked are expected. Marketing messages need consent, and too many messages of any kind become noise.
[Infographic placement] The reminder loop. A circular flow: Booking made → Automatic reminder 24 hours before (with confirm / reschedule link) → Customer attends, or reschedules → Freed slot offered to someone else → Follow-up thank-you and review request. Caption: Gurol-Urganci et al. (2013), Cochrane review: text reminders increased attendance compared with no reminder.
Switching it on
Start by measuring your current no-show or late-payment rate for a month. Then check whether your existing booking or invoicing software includes automatic reminders. Many do, and they’re often switched off. Turn them on, add a reschedule option, and measure again over the following two months. Most businesses that rely on appointments or payments see a worthwhile improvement for very little effort.
A few questions can help:
- How many appointments or payments do we lose each month to forgetting?
- Does our existing software already offer reminders we haven’t switched on?
- Can customers easily reschedule instead of simply not turning up?
- Where else could a timely reminder help: payments, services, renewals or reviews?
Which brings us back to the beauty salon and its eight weekly no-shows. No new technology was needed, and no AI. A feature already in her booking software, set up thoughtfully with a friendly message and a reschedule link, recovered hours of lost time each week. Before investing in anything more advanced, it’s worth asking which simple automations you already have and aren’t using.
Sources
- Ipek Gurol-Urganci, Thijs de Jongh, Vlasta Vodopivec-Jamsek, Rifat Atun and Josip Car, “Mobile phone messaging reminders for attendance at healthcare appointments”, Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews, 2013.
