ICTContact is a unique auto dialer that can be used as an automated appointment reminder software. Appointment reminders in simple words are devices, software application or alarms that help remind us of different events. Appointments are necessary and thus part of every walk of life. Every person desires that any important or minor appointment should not be forgotten. Importance of appointment reminders
Appointment reminders are conducive to both parties of the appointment. Take a doctor for example. Most of the appointments that are made at the doctor’s office are usually made either a few weeks in advance or sometimes even a month in advance. It is very easy for the appointment to slip from both parties mind since with the normal hustle bustle in life it is quite easy to forget about appointments so far off in the future. Conventionally patients are reminded of their appointments with postcards and calls but both of these are not that feasible. Cards can get misplaced quite easily and there’s no guarantee that the card will reach on time. Making calls to remind the patients of their appointments is costly and a lot of precious time is wasted. Thus appointment reminders made virtually are far more reliable and feasible in reminding doctors and patients of their appointments. Appointment alerts also help save the time and resources that a doctor’s secretary usually wastes in making the appointments again and again.
Appointment Reminder Campaign
Appointment reminder campaign places a reminder call to all the contacts in a group. This campaign requires that every contact should have scheduled appointment start time and appointment end time in any of the custom fields in contact form. All calls will be placed before appointment start time. Campaign administrator will set ‘reminder call time’ in the campaign creation form that will specify how many hours before the appointment start the call will be placed. There is also a ‘reminder expiry time’ field in the campaign creation form that makes sure no calls should be placed after the expiry time. When admin/user selects this campaign, it will open a form that lists all the options and settings for creating this campaign. Reminder Campaign Steps to create a Reminder Campaign
- Navigate to Messages => Message Designer => New IVR Message. Design a new IVR Message in the message designer and then save the message.
- Once message is created through message designer, now navigate to campaign => campaign management => Add New => Reminder Campaign.
Fill the campaign form with required feilds like:
a) Campaign Name
b) Contact Group
d) Reminder Message
e) Appointment Type: Appointment type can be either individual or group.
Individual Reminder
In individual reminder, every contact that is dialed may have different appointment schedule time. Examples of individual appointments are doctor’s appointment or lawyer’s appointment where each patient/client have different timings for the meeting. Administrator of the campaign will select where the appointments are stored for each contact by selecting the appropriate value in ‘Appointment Start Field’. Then admin will select how many hours before the appointment time a reminder call should be placed. Reminder expiry field will ensure that no call should be placed after the expiry time. Campaign schedule will also apply on the calls to ensure legal time calling.
Group Reminder
In group reminder, a group of people will be dialed according to the campaign schedule time. Examples of group appointments are training attendees or class/school students where all the members of training or class students have time for a training session/class. Administrator of the campaign will himself manage how many days/hours before the appointment campaign should be run. In group appointments, campaign scheduling time will apply for dialling contacts.