Wednesday Thoughts: Med Spas, This Appointment Confirmation Text Is Costing You New Patients! - Med Spa Success Strategies

Summary

Med Spa Success Strategies Podcast Summary
Episode: Wednesday Thoughts: Med Spas, This Appointment Confirmation Text Is Costing You New Patients!
Host: Ricky Shockley
Release Date: April 16, 2025

Introduction

In this insightful episode of the Med Spa Success Strategies Podcast, host Ricky Shockley delves into a critical yet often overlooked aspect of patient management: appointment confirmation text messages. Titled “Wednesday Thoughts: Med Spas, This Appointment Confirmation Text Is Costing You New Patients!”, Ricky addresses how traditional confirmation texts embedded within Electronic Medical Records (EMRs) may inadvertently deter potential clients, impacting both show-up rates and overall business growth.

The Problem with Traditional Appointment Confirmation Texts

Ricky begins by highlighting a common practice among med spas: the use of standard appointment confirmation texts generated by EMRs. He illustrates his point with an example:

“So, Richard, our records indicate you have an appointment scheduled for 4.1, which as of filming this is tomorrow at 11:20. Please reply C to confirm or are to reschedule. If we do not hear from you within eight hour hours of your scheduled appointment time, it will be canceled. Thank you.”
— Ricky Shockley, 02:15

Ricky argues that such messages present the appointment as a "5050 proposition," forcing patients to reconfirm their intent to attend. This approach can lead to increased cancellations and no-shows, as it reopens the decision-making process for patients who may already have reservations about their treatments.

Understanding the Patient Decision-Making Journey

Delving deeper, Ricky discusses the psychology behind patient confirmations. He references the concept of “buying sensitivity,” emphasizing that each patient has a unique threshold that influences their commitment level:

“Some people, all you got to do is get into a 7 to purchase. Some people, you got to get them to a nine. Some people that are really sellable, you maybe only have to get them to a 4 or a 5.”
— Ricky Shockley, 05:30

This variability means that a one-size-fits-all confirmation text can either overly pressure certain patients or fail to engage others, ultimately reducing the effectiveness of appointment confirmations.

The Downside of the Current Confirmation Approach

Ricky critiques the default nature of traditional confirmation texts, which implicitly assume that the appointment is tentative until confirmed. He explains:

“If we don't hear from you, they're just going to cancel the appointment. You've now left the default position as your appointment is going to get canceled.”
— Ricky Shockley, 07:50

This setup transfers the responsibility to patients, making them rethink their commitment just moments before their scheduled time. For new patients who have already invested time in booking an appointment, this can create unnecessary friction and doubt.

Recommendations: Optimizing the Show-Up Sequence Drip

Shifting focus to solutions, Ricky advocates for a proactive show-up sequence drip that fosters excitement and solidifies commitment without reopening the decision-making gate. Key strategies he recommends include:

Relying on Text Messages Over Email
- "With text messages we ensure nearly 100% delivery and that our prospects are going to have eyes on the messages that we send."
  — Ricky Shockley, 13:45
Immediate Confirmation and Excitement Building
- "Tell them as soon as they book the appointment that the appointment is confirmed. And then we're going to add some social proof to get them excited about doing business with us."
  — Ricky Shockley, 14:10
Incorporating Social Proof
- Including elements like welcome videos, links to Google reviews, and invitations to follow on social media to build trust and anticipation.
Aggressive and Timely Drip Schedule
- Sending reminders at strategic intervals: 10 days, 5 days, 2 days, the day before, and even on the day of the appointment.
Shifting the Default Expectation
- "In my version of the text, if we don't hear from you, we're expecting to see you. And that's going to lend itself to a better show up rate and more people getting across the finish line."
  — Ricky Shockley, 19:25

By assuming the appointment is a given and inviting cancellations rather than confirmations, this strategy minimizes friction and reinforces the patient’s initial commitment.

Implementing the New Strategy

Ricky outlines the components of an effective show-up sequence drip:

Initial Confirmation Message:
Includes appointment details and expresses excitement.
Example: “Hey [Name], this is a reminder that we have you confirmed for your appointment on [Date]. We’re so excited to meet you! If you need to reschedule, please let us know.”
Subsequent Reminders:
Scheduled reminders that continue to build excitement and offer easy rescheduling options without pressuring the patient to confirm.
Cancellation Policy Mention:
Casual inclusion of cancellation policies as a secondary note rather than the main focus, ensuring the conversation remains positive.
Example: “Please note we have a $50 cancellation/no-show fee if notice isn’t provided 24 hours in advance.”

Benefits of the Optimized Approach

Ricky emphasizes that this shift in communication style can lead to a significant increase in appointment show-up rates. By removing the need for immediate confirmation and maintaining a positive, enthusiastic tone, med spas can better retain new patients and reduce no-shows.

Conclusion

In wrapping up, Ricky urges med spa owners to reassess their current appointment confirmation practices. By adopting a more patient-centric approach that emphasizes excitement and minimizes decision friction, practices can enhance patient retention and foster a more reliable client base.

"Implement that in your showup sequence drip if you can and let us know how it goes in the comments below. I think that can make a big difference for your business."
— Ricky Shockley, 25:40

By implementing these strategies, med spa owners can optimize their patient communication, leading to increased attendance, higher client satisfaction, and ultimately, greater business success.

Disclaimer: This summary captures the key points and recommendations from Ricky Shockley's podcast episode based on the provided transcript. For a comprehensive understanding, listening to the full episode is recommended.

Transcript

A (0:00)

Hey, MedSpa owners, most of your EMRs are set up to include this question when somebody books an appointment. I think this is a massive mistake. I'll explain what it is and why in this video. You may be spending money on marketing and advertising to reach and acquire new patients to your practice. Right? Whether that's Google Ads, Facebook and Instagram, people coming in, finding you from organic search on Google, all sorts of ways people find you and decide to schedule that first appointment. So they've weighed their options. They've explored multiple med spas, they've browsed the websites of other businesses and scrolled the Instagram profiles of your top competitors. Yet they've chosen to schedule that appointment with you and then you send them this text. So Most of your EMRs are designed to include this text leading up to the appointment. And it looks something like this. I actually just got this text for a endodontist appointment and it reminded me of this issue that we have with our clients in the med spa space. So, Richard, our records indicate you have an appointment scheduled for 4.1, which as of filming this is tomorrow at 11:20. Please reply C to confirm or are to reschedule. If we do not hear from you within eight hour hours of your scheduled appointment time, it will be canceled. Thank you. I think this is one of the craziest things that's built into your emr and let me explain why we believe that to be the case and what we recommend doing instead. So most people, when they make a decision to schedule an appointment, they're not 100% convinced. It's absolutely undoubtedly the thing that they want to do. They might be on the fence about getting treatment at all. They may be, they may have explored multiple providers. They may be wanting to kick the can down the road. There are a lot of reasons that people may hesitate to actually book that appointment. So I don't remember what book it was that I was listening to, but somebody had this idea of everybody has a different buying sensitivity. So let's put that on chart one through ten. Some people, all you got to do is get into a 7 to purchase. Some people, you got to get them to a nine. Some people that are really sellable, you maybe only have to get them to a 4 or a 5, for example. But there are all these different, there's a different calibration for each prospect on what gets them to actually take the next action in your purchasing funnel. So one of the goals of marketing and advertising to it should be to reduce friction, to get people to come in the door for that first visit. And once people have already weighed their options and made the decision to schedule an appointment with you, I think it is ludicrous to present them as a 5050 proposition. The option to either basically not take this appointment and cancel it or reschedule or to confirm. This text message presents the confirmation of your appointment as a 5050 proposition. It asks remake the purchase decision all over again. So if that person had any doubt in their mind as to whether or not they wanted to proceed with this appointment, you've just given them the invitation on a silver platter to say no or by default. Well, you know what? Yes. I was thinking about getting Botox, but maybe I should do some more research or I don't need to do it this week. Okay, well, they said if they don't hear from me, they're just going to cancel the appointment. You've now left the default position as your appointment is going to get canceled. The onus is now on the prospect have to go out of their way to confirm that they actually wanted to do what they already already told you they wanted to do, which was schedule an appointment with your practice. So I think this is a very silly thing to include in your automation drips, especially for new patients. Now, if you've got a relationship already with an existing patient that's been with you for months and years, that's totally fine. Maybe because the relationship's already established and we're now just trying to figure out are they, are we on, are we off? But I really think this is a crazy thing to do, especially with new prospects. Once somebody already made the decision to book with you, our only job is to get them as excited about that appointment as possible, not to ask them if they're really sure they wanted to schedule the appointment. We are inviting cancellations. And specifically with this type of text, no shows. So what we recommend is having a really good, what we call show up sequence drip that goes out to your prospects prior to their appointment time. This episode is brought to you by Med Spa Magic Marketing, my agency. We help med spas and aesthetics practices grow with more effective marketing strategies. And I know that's a vague phrase, Right? It's a vague claim. So I have an offer for you. I offer this to any new prospects. If you're interested in exploring any of them. Another marketing option, a new agency, or just getting into Facebook and stream Google Ads for the first time. I'd love to show you why we're different, what we're doing for clients. And we can do that via a one and a half hour planning session where I'll outline a specific marketing plan and I'll give you all of the blueprints that we would implement if we were to do business together. Now you can take that, use that on your own, hire someone else to help you execute it or work with us. We really don't hold anything back on that strategy call. And I think you'll have a lot of confidence in how you manage your marketing investment moving forward, understanding some of the nuances that can help you implement more effective marketing strategies for your business. So if you want to do that, you can go to medspa magicmarketing.com I'm going to pull up a screen share on the other screen here so I can kind of just walk you through what that generally looks like for us. And there are different ways of doing this. We've got our own little blueprint. But I want to give you like the best practices for how to build a good show up sequence drip for new patient acquisition. So let's go ahead and pull this up and I'll give you the tidbits. So principle number one I would say is we just want to confirm the appointment and tell them we're excited to see them. So the first message that goes out in terms of timeline a is we're relying heavily on text messages for these reminders. Email tends to get lost in the shuffle. With text messages we ensure nearly 100% delivery and that our prospects are going to have eyes on the messages that we send. So heavily rely on text is step one. So we are going to tell them as soon as they book the appointment that the appointment is confirmed. And then we're going to add some social proof to get them excited about doing business with us. A welcome video, a link to your Google reviews, an invitation to follow you on Instagram. If you can build those things into those first touch points, I think that's to your advantage. So include who you are, the address, the appointment time and the confirmation. Okay, so we recommend a pretty aggressive drip. So 10 days before the appointment, five days before the appointment, two days before the appointment, day before the appointment, and perhaps even same day of the appointment. So pretty aggressive with that show up sequence drip. And the entire time we're just going to get them excited about the appointment that they've already decided to make when we give them the option to opt out. Generally when we do that, in the first message we send, we'll add a little note at the bottom that says please note we have whatever cancellation Policy, if we do not receive notice of cancellation, you may be charged or you will be charged $50 cancellation or no show fee. So most likely you don't have their credit card info. You're not going to be able to enforce that. But it's just at least a note that we're confirming the appointment. But we do have this cancellation policy kind of as an addendum to the text. In text message two, we say, if you need to reschedule, please let us know. But the first part of the text says, hey, blank. This is just a reminder, we have you confirmed for appointment date. We're so excited to meet you. Right. If you need to reschedule, please let us know. Otherwise, we'll plan on seeing you then. Big change in the default communication style. In the message I'm showing on my screen, the default is if we don't hear from you, your appointment's canceled. In my version of the text, if we don't hear from you, we're expecting to see you. And that's going to lend itself to a better show up rate and more people getting across the finish line. So five days before, three days before, same type of thing. We're just telling them we're excited to see them. You can remind them of the cancellation policy again a couple days out. So confirm the appointment, we're excited to see you. If for any reason you need to cancel, please cancel within 24 hours. So you're inviting people to cancel if they need to, but that's not the default of the conversation. And I think that simple shift in your show, in your show up sequence drip that you're sending out to your prospects will increase the amount of people who are actually showing up for the appointment because we're putting the onus on them to cancel. And, and we're assuming the default is that the appointment is on, that we're going to see them in our office. Implement that in your showup sequence drip if you can and let us know how it goes in the comments below. I think that can make a big difference for your business.