Set up automatic no-show recovery and rebooking

The outcome of this guide is a system that turns a missed appointment into a rebooked one, automatically. When a customer does not show, SMS365 sends a same-day recovery text within a few hours, offers two real openings, and lets the AI assistant book whichever the customer picks. By the end you will have reminders reducing the no-shows in the first place and a recovery flow catching the ones that still slip through.

Appointments, reminders, and contacts work on every plan. The AI assistant that reads "Thursday works" and books the slot is a Premium feature.

What you need first

• An SMS365 workspace with your appointments being created in it, either by hand or through the API. The reminder countdown and the recovery flow both key off these appointments.
• A dedicated number under Add-ons, about $10 per month, so the recovery text and the customer's reply form one continuous thread rather than a broadcast with nowhere to land.
• Prepaid credit topped up under Billing.
• A short list of the openings you typically have to offer, so the recovery message names real times.

Step by step setup

1. Get appointments into SMS365. Create your appointments in the platform or push them in through the API. Each appointment carries the customer, the time, and the mobile number. This is what everything else hangs off.
2. Set the reminder countdown. Reminders fan out on a countdown before the appointment. A common pattern is one the day before and one on the morning of. Reminders cut no-shows before you ever need the recovery flow, and if an appointment is cancelled the reminder that was never sent is refunded, so you are not paying for messages that do not go out.
3. Add the dedicated number. Buy one under Add-ons so replies come back two-way. Send yourself a test from Compose and confirm the reply lands in your workspace.
4. Write the reminder message. Keep it short and make replying easy, because a "can we move it" reply is a no-show avoided.

   Hi James, reminder of your appointment tomorrow, Thu 3 Oct at 9:30am with Kingsway Dental. Reply here to change or cancel. See you then.

5. Write the recovery message. This is the one that fires after a missed slot. Lead with the rebooking, assume good faith, and offer two specific times rather than asking the customer to do the work.

   Hi James, we missed you at 10am today, no worries at all. Want me to rebook you? I have Thursday 3 Oct at 9:30am or Friday 4 Oct at 2pm. Reply with one and it is done. Marco, Kingsway Dental.

6. Turn on the AI assistant. Go to Settings then AI assistant. Start in Suggest replies so you can see how it handles rebooking, then move to Reply automatically. Add a business context and a knowledge base covering your hours, your cancellation policy, and any no-show fee. In auto mode it reads the reply, offers the slot, and records the rebooking without a person stepping in.
7. Handle the fee cleanly if you charge one. If you charge a no-show or late-cancellation fee, put it in the knowledge base and mention it plainly once, after the rebooking, never as a threat. The assistant can look up an invoice and record a promise to pay if a fee is outstanding.

What the customer sees

The customer who misses their 10am gets a text early that afternoon while it is still on their conscience. It does not tell them off. It offers Thursday or Friday and makes replying a single tap. They reply "Thursday please", and the assistant books it and confirms:

Great, you are booked for Thursday 3 Oct at 9:30am. We will send a reminder the day before. See you then.

The reminder for that new appointment is already scheduled on the countdown, so the recovered booking is protected the same way the original was. If the customer replies with a day that suits neither slot, the assistant can offer alternatives from your openings rather than dead-ending on "call us".

Why speed beats wording

A no-show recovered the same afternoon feels like a reschedule. The same customer contacted a week later feels lapsed, and the message reads as chasing. Because the recovery text fires automatically, it goes out in the window that matters even when your front desk is busy with the people who did turn up. That is the whole point of automating it rather than leaving it to whoever remembers.

Test it before you rely on it

Create a test appointment with your own mobile number and a time in the near past, or mark a real dummy appointment as missed. Confirm the recovery text arrives on your phone with two real times in it. Reply with one and check the assistant books it and sends a confirmation, and that a reminder for the new slot appears on the countdown. Then reply with an awkward "neither works, got anything Monday?" and confirm the assistant offers an alternative rather than stalling.

How this fits together

Recovery works best sitting on top of good reminders, so the number of no-shows to recover stays small. The reminder side is covered in reducing clinic no-shows with SMS reminders, and for the exact wording at each stage there is a set of appointment reminder text templates. The recovery message itself, the tone and the timing, is broken down in rebooking a missed appointment by text. See where appointments and reminders sit alongside the platform's other jobs on the use cases page.

An honest word on delivery

SMS365 marks a message "sent" when it has been handed to the carrier, and "delivered" only when a genuine delivery receipt returns. For a two-way recovery flow this rarely matters, because the customer's reply is your proof the message arrived. What matters more is that the recovery text goes out fast and offers real times, and both of those are now handled without anyone watching the clock.

Once this is running, the missed slots that used to be lost revenue become rebooked appointments the same day, and the work of chasing them moves from your front desk to a flow that runs itself.