How to Write Reminder Emails that Reduce No-Shows [+examples]

Show rates are one of the most important metrics you can measure once a meeting is booked. 

After all, no matter how much ad spend or SDR time it took the book the meeting, you only have something to show for it if they show up.

A proven way to improve show rate — especially in today's world where buyers are multi-tasking several projects and wearing many hats — is through reminders. 

Remind your buyers that they booked the meeting, why they booked the meeting, and what they’ll get for attending the meeting.

Yet many companies rely on manual reminders that may or may not get sent. Or, even worse, automated reminders that are so generic they’ll go straight to the “deleted” inbox.

Chili Piper has a 92% show rate for our demos, and if you look at outbound demos specifically, that meeting attendance rate jumps to 95%. 

To put that into perspective… 

The average outbound SDR books 15 meetings/month, with an 80% show rate. 

In other words, for every 15 meetings an SDR books, 12 of them show up. 

So if you lift your show rate from 80% to 95%, that’s more than 2 held meetings per rep every month. 

To look at it another way… 

If you have a team of 6 BDRS and increase show rate to 95%, you just added the equivalent in meetings of an additional BDR to your team. 

Without needing to increase headcount! 

So if you’re not at a 90%+ show rate — keep reading. 

I’m about to share ALL of Chili Piper’s secret sauce. 

When should you send a reminder email?

Trust me, there is such a thing as sending “too many reminder emails”. 

If you do, your polite reminder very quickly becomes spam.

At Chili Piper, we typically send 3 reminder emails before a prospect meeting: 

• 1 day before
• 1 hour before
• 1 minute before 

‍

Why only typically? Because there are plenty of scenarios where a one-size-fits-all reminder cadence will fail you. Like if your prospect scheduled a demo 24 hours in advance — they probably don’t need that one-day-before reminder. 

So we have our settings to only send the day-before reminder email if someone has booked a meeting 1 day or more before the meeting. 

Similarly, we use settings to send additional reminders if the meeting was booked 2 or more weeks in advance, and schedules may have shifted since the call was initially booked. 

How do you write a polite reminder email?

You might worry that a reminder email comes across as impersonal or pushy. 

First: Don’t worry. 

The biggest mistake you can make when writing reminder emails is not sending them. 

Let me say that again. 

‍The worst thing you can do for your show rates is not send a reminder email. 

But if you’re already sending reminder emails, there are several ways you might improve your process to make them more useful. 

Reminder email best practices 

One more time for those in the back: Send reminder emails. You’re not being rude or pushy — you’re being helpful. 

Here are other best practices: 

Include an agenda in your reminder email 

Or as my team likes to say “No Agenda? No Attenda.”

Don’t send reminder emails that just say something like “Confirming our upcoming meeting.” 

Instead, include a detailed agenda of what they can expect during the call. 

You should customize the agenda for your different meeting types. For example, you could have separate agendas and meeting types for: 

• Discovery Calls
• Inbound Demos
• Follow Up Calls
• Quarterly Business Reviews
• Renewal Discussions
• Etc

Also, use your reminder email as an opportunity to ask them what they hope to cover in the meeting — so you can pull together a meeting hyper-customized to their needs.

Personalize at scale

If you have a tool like Chili Piper, you don’t need to manually write and send personalized reminder emails. 

Instead, you can use dynamic tags like “Prospect First Name” or “Prospect Company” to add a personal touch (without writing personalized emails from scratch every time). 

‍Pro-Tip: Send your email to everyone on the meeting invite, not just the person who booked the meeting. Oftentimes the main decision maker is not the person who booked the meeting.

Let your reminder email be a chance to reschedule

Always, always include a rescheduling option from within your reminder email. Oftentimes, your prospects might want to meet with you, but something comes up for them — and it’s too much of a hassle to reach out and go back and forth to find a time to reschedule. So they just don’t show up. 

If you make it easy to reschedule, I can almost guarantee that your no-show rates will plummet.

With Chili Piper, we have dynamic tags that will populate your rescheduling link in the reminders, so your busy prospect can find a new time that works for you both in 2 easy clicks.

‍Pro tip: Use this dynamic rescheduling tag in the body of the meeting invite too!

Don’t send the same reminders to everyone

Just like how someone who booked with you two weeks in advance might need a different set of reminders than someone who booked yesterday, reminders are not one-size-fits all.

If you’re not customizing, then you’re risking them not showing up or having a bad experience — or both.

Here are some custom reminder examples you can automate:

If someone hasn’t accepted the meeting invite

If someone hasn’t accepted your meeting invite yet, automate a nudge like this one: 

Hi {first name},
‍
Noticed that you didn’t accept the invite, does this time still work for you?
‍
If not, feel free to find a better time here: {RescheduleURL}
‍
Talk soon!
‍
{My name}

‍

If someone books two hours in advance

Skip the “day before” and “hour before” reminder emails. 

Instead, send a reminder with the agenda that also asks for any questions they hope to have answered on the call:

Hi {first name}, 

I look forward to connecting.

We'll use this time to:

-Go through your current processes
-Understand your interests and needs
-Demo Chili Piper to show how we may be able to improve your existing flow. 

Is there anything in specific you’d like to go over during our call? 

I’ll be at {Me.Conference.Details}

Talk soon!

{My Name}

P.S. If you need to reschedule, feel free to use this link: {Meeting Reschedule URL}

Then send out a reminder email 1-minute before to let them know you’re on the call.

⭐ Bonus points for having the meeting link dynamic tag in this email for easy access.  

Send reminder texts

Another big mistake you can make with reminder emails is assuming your prospects live in their inbox.

Sometimes we’re more likely to see a reminder via SMS — especially for B2C companies. 

Here’s an example template you can borrow for SMS reminders: 

If you do want to go the SMS route, leveraging Chili Piper’s native integration with Twilio will make sending text reminders a breeze. 

Look at the data (and A/B test)

What works for us might not work for you!

I encourage you to try different formats of reminder emails to find the sweet spot that works for you and your prospects. Variables you can change out include: 

• Subject line
• Cadence (e.g. how many emails, how soon before the meeting) 
• Including content 
• SMS vs no SMS

Chili Piper makes it easy to check results (like your show rates for various meeting types) with our out-of-the-box reporting dashboard in Salesforce. 😉

Bonus: Make your emails stand out with HTML

If your reminders can support HTML(Chili Piper’s can), you can up level them by adding things like:

• Email signatures that match the look and feel of your brand
• Survey links that can gather info prior to the call 
• Customer testimonial videos to excite your prospects before the meeting
• Helpful images such as a map to your booth at an upcoming event

7 Reminder Email Examples

I talked a lot about different types of reminder emails in this article and shares lots of examples. 

In this section, I’m going to consolidate all the reminder emails I’ve shared above — with a few bonus examples I haven’t. 

Make sure to bookmark this page so you’ve got these email templates handy!

Reminder Email Example 1: Reminder Email with Agenda

SUBJECT: See you soon!

Hey {Prospect First Name}, 

Looking forward to our follow up call tomorrow! Here is what we’ll cover: 

AGENDA: 

-Confirm tech stack integrations

-Backend demo of the platform

-Review pricing

Anything you’d like to add? 

PS: If this time no longer works, you can reschedule here: {Meeting Reschedule URL}

Talk soon,

{CP Assignee First Name}

Reminder Email Example 2: Personalization at scale

Hi {first name},

Looking forward to our meeting tomorrow. Hope this time still works for you. 

If not and you need to reschedule, please use the link below to find a time that works better: {Meeting Reschedule URL}

Thanks!

{Assignee First Name}

Reminder Email Example 3: If someone hasn’t accepted the invite

Hi {first name},

Noticed that you didn’t accept the invite, does this time still work for you?

If not, feel free to find a better time here: {RescheduleURL}

Talk soon!

{My name}

Reminder Email Example 4: 1 Day Before

SUBJECT: Our meeting tomorrow 🌶️

Hi {Prospect.FirstName},

Looking forward to our meeting tomorrow. Hope that time still works for you.

If not, and you need to reschedule, please use the link below to find a time that works better:

{Meeting.RescheduleURL}

Thanks!

Assignee.FirstName

Reminder Email Example 5: 1 Hour Before

SUBJECT: Our meeting in one hour 🌶️

Hi {Propsect.FirstName}, I look forward to talking with you. 

I’ll be at: {Conference.Details}

Thanks!
{Assignee.FirstName|

Note: If you need to reschedule, please click on the link below: {Meeting.RescheduleURL}

Reminder Email Example 7: 1 Minute Before

SUBJECT; Ready when you are! 🌶️

Hi {Prospect FirstName},

I’m at {Conference Details}

Thanks!

{Assignee FirstName}

For last minute rescheduling, please click on the link below: {Meeting.RescheduleURL}

Bonus: Reminder Text

Hi {CP Guest First Name} this is {CP Me FirstName} from Chili Piper. I am confirming our meeting in a couple of hours. I noticed you haven’t accepted the invite yet. 

Text: 

C to CONFIRM

R to Reschedule

D to Decline

Bottom Line

Reminder emails are incredibly important. But great reminder emails? They’re what can make the difference between getting ghosted or closing a deal.

And a scheduling tool like Chili Piper can help you get there. 

Check our pricing page to see which plan makes sense for you.