Many ODs swear by patient recall messages when it comes to patient retention and reducing no-show patients, while others don't see as many benefits from implementing patient recall and reminders. If you fall in the latter group, it may be that you aren't making the most of your messaging and are missing out on really connecting with your patients. Today, we will look at a few important characteristics that make up a successful recall or reminder message.

4 Tips for More Successful Recall Emails in Your Eyecare Practice

Use a Familiar Email Sender

These days, when you open your email first thing in the morning you're often flooded with spam and subscribed-to messaging from some of your favorite stores and brands. While many of these are welcomed emails, they can easily stack up and get ignored. So when sending patient recall and reminder messages to your patients you want to make sure they notice them and pay attention. Instead of sending your email from a generic sender or a no-reply email address, try using the OD's name and email as the sender so that it comes across as familiar and trustworthy to your patients. 

Be Thoughtful in Your Subject Line

Along with using a familiar email sender, your subject line is going to be a big factor in whether or not a patient actually opens your message. Make sure that you're tying the actual content of the email to your subject line so that people know what you're asking, but also don't be afraid to get creative with it. It's important to test out different subject lines to see what best resonates with your patients. A few other tips for writing subject lines include:

• Keeping it short and sweet
• Experimenting with personalization tokens
• Not making false promises
• Using action verbs
• Making your patients feel special (i.e. "Our gift to you")
• Creating a sense of urgency
• Using numbers

Be Clear and Concise

Once you're able to get a reader to open your email message, make sure the content it contains is clear, concise, and visually appealing. Too much text can be imtimidating and you'll quickly lose the attention of your patients, and your message will end up in the trash. Make the messaging easy for a reader to skim, and have a clear call-to-action that will quickly stand out to the reader. If you want them to confirm their appointment, make that stand out with a bright colored button or bolded text. 

Communicate the Right Way

You probably have a wide range of patients in your office ranging from the 20-year old college student to patients well into their 90's. Having a patient base that crosses across many generations is probably going to result in different preferred methods of communication. Make sure that you give your patients the option to select how they'd like to be communicated with - phone, email, text, etc. Knowing this imformation and actually putting it into action can help you have the best results with your messaging.

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