Here are all posts by the author Frank Cort: Page 7 of 7

Entries by Frank Cort

7 Vital Personal Characteristics of a Successful Entrepreneur

Being an entrepreneur is not just about starting a company. It’s about building value for yourself, your employees, and your customer. This generally takes years of hard work, perseverance, and failure before it pays off. It’s no coincidence that many estimates show that 80 percent of new business ventures fail within the first 18 months. Starting a business is difficult. So, what do you need to make it work? Obviously, you don’t need certain skills or knowledge; those vary from company to company and industry to industry. In order to succeed at some businesses, you need to be a technology expert with the necessary programming experience. For other companies, maybe you just need to be savvy at talking to people. But what does remain in each case are inherent personality characteristics that define successful entrepreneurs. Their temperament and mental fortitude are what set them apart from those who fail and the even bigger group of people who never try to start their own business. Whether you’re starting a medical practice, a yoga studio, or a tech startup, all successful entrepreneurs share a few key personal characteristics. Here are seven of the […]

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The Anatomy of a Successful Appointment Cancellation Policy

If you run a business that relies on appointments, then you’re all too familiar with the frustration of no-shows and late arrivals. It can create huge strain on your business (not to mention stress levels). There have been many studies and prescriptions for how to minimize appointment cancellations. In some cases, the prescription is clear: financially discipline people for missing their appointment and they will be less likely to do it. But many times, these policies are overly punitive; charging hefty fees for customers or patients that create rifts in the relationships that aren’t easily repairable. You may be recouping some of your costs, but ultimately, this method may be hurting your business. It’s a delicate balance to strike, and many businesses struggle with how to do it well. So, how can you tackle the problem without creating new issues? What does an effective policy look like in practice? Let’s take a look at some of the key aspects and how they work together. Key aspects of an effective cancellation policy When outlining your appointment cancellation policy, there are a few main points that must be considered and addressed: Timeframe for cancellation How cancellations need to […]

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The Simple Tool for Reducing Missed Therapy Appointments

As a therapist, you’ve dedicated your professional life to supporting others. You know your education and skills will likely benefit them greatly, but it’s not always an easy or short road. It may take months or years of work to help them reach the place of peace and resolution they’re seeking. After each appointment, you know you’ve made progress — you’ve started to see changes — even if they haven’t noticed yet. You stress that it’s in their best interest to stay consistent with their scheduled appointments. If they don’t show up, they may lose some of the important progress they’ve made. But once they leave your office, it’s ultimately up to them to make the decision to come back. This creates a double-edged sword. For any appointment-based business, missed appointments are bad news. But for therapists, these relatively minor lapses can also lead to huge setbacks in patient treatment and recovery. This is why it’s crucial for therapists to make use of an automated  and HIPAA-compliant appointment reminder and booking platform, such as Apptoto. It keeps an open dialogue between you and your patients, removing the underlying “gray areas” that often […]

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Getting the time right (dealing with multiple time zones)

It goes without saying that appointment reminders should say the right time or else you risk hurting your business as opposed to helping.  Sometimes getting the time right can actually be tricky.  This typically applies if you hold appointments with clients in multiple time zones. This blog post will outline the steps you should take if your business holds appointments with clients in different time zones. Step 1) Include the time zone in your messages The first step is to add the time zone to your messages.  This ensures that even if the time that is announced to your client is not in their time zone, they might notice the time zone is different and respond appropriately. You can do this by including the {{ event.time_zone }} field in your Apptoto messages.  We recommend you add the time zone immediately after the time in the body of the SMS and the call messages.  In Apptoto you can do this by clicking on the “Auto Messages” tab and then editing your SMS and call messages.  Here is how the message should look after you’ve added the time zone field. For automatic email […]

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How-To: Schedule Appointment Reminders using Apptoto

There are multiple ways to schedule appointment reminders using Apptoto once you’ve connected your calendar. Approach #1) Manually Apptoto allows you to schedule reminders manually through the Apptoto appointments interface.  You can find it on the “Calendars” tab in Apptoto.  Also, if you enable our daily report email feature, you’ll find a link that takes you directly to tomorrow’s appointments in the email, making it easy to manage the reminders each day. Here is a screenshot of the new Apptoto appointment interface:  (Please note that the old interface is still available if you’re an existing user and prefer it over the new one) You can add participants to each appointment: And then choose which messages to send or schedule to be sent for the participants: When you click on a message type, it lets you add the message to the participant.  Here you can choose when the message should be sent and what it should say: When a message is scheduled to be sent, Apptoto will show the appointment in bold and tell you the number of messages scheduled: Apptoto also makes it easy to schedule (or unschedule) reminders for […]

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