5 Meeting Template Tips That Will Increase Your Show Rates

One thing we’ve learned in the process of helping our customers book millions of meetings is that there are a LOT of different reasons to have a conversation – each deserving their own template. 

Why are meeting templates important? 

First and foremost, they help you reduce no shows. But they also help you automate a number of important steps in the meeting process. 

Through trial and error, we’ve learned a number of best practices. Here are five of our favourite meeting template tips to help you increase show rates and automate your meeting flow.

Have one template for every reason to connect

If each meeting you have with a prospect is important (which they are), then they should each have their own meeting template. A great rule of thumb is to have one meeting template per reason to connect. 

So, if you have a demo call and a demo follow-up call, they should each have their own meeting template. 

This allows you to be super contextual in the messaging and explain its importance (which we’ll cover in a later tip). 

It also makes reporting later in Salesforce extremely easy. You can see which types of meetings were held (or missed) during the sales cycle and measure win rates across opps that included (or didn’t include) particular milestone meetings. 

Personalize your meeting template with dynamic fields

Meeting templates are awesome because they automate everything, while still allowing you to personalize each invite. After all, we know that everyone loves seeing their name. 

Make use of Dynamic fields to include your attendees name, company, and other personal details in the titles and body of your invites and reminders. 

Tip: You also don’t need to write invites like a computer. Write conversationally, keep it short and sweet

Use more than one reminder 

Reminder emails are a powerful tool to help you automate the most important part of the meeting process – making sure people show up. So don’t be afraid to use more than one. 

Here are a few of our favorite:

1. One day before – if the invite hasn’t been accepted (this is a rule you can set): This automates part of the reps job of having to follow up with invitees that haven’t accepted the meeting.
2. One hour before: This gives the invitee a chance to get ready for the call. It’s also the best place to include your last minute rescheduling link. Also include the phone or web conference details.
3. Five minutes before: This is that last minute reminder that puts your meeting right at the top of their inbox. It also puts your phone or conference details front and center, making it super easy for your invitee.

Tip: For phone calls, specifically, we suggest something like below:

Hi {!Prospect.FirstName},

Looking forward to our call in 5 minutes. I’ll be calling you at xxx-xxx-xxxx from xxx-xxx-xxx – If there’s a better number to reach you at, you can reply to this email and let me know!

Thanks,

{!Assignee.FirstName}

This email serves two purposes:

• It allows the prospect to give an updated phone number if needed
• It allows the prospect to know which number the call will come from, so they don’t decline a call from a number they don’t recognize

P.S. Check our article on how to write reminder emails for more tips (and examples).

Use your reschedule link (but maybe not too close to the meeting)

Your dynamic rescheduling link is an invaluable tool to help you reduce no shows. Instead of invitees ghosting you when they can’t make a call – give them an easy way to reschedule. 

{!Meeting.RescheduleURL} is a dynamic field you can include on any of your meeting templates. It inserts a link, that when clicked, opens a Concierge-like scheduler where your invitee can pick a new time. 

Once a new time is selected, both your calendars and Salesforce are updated. Meeting saved!

Tip: If you include rescheduling links in your hour before or 5-minute before reminders, approach it like you would any experiment – measure and adjust. If you notice a ton of last minute reschedules, consider only offering the link in your day before reminder. 

Remind your invitee why they booked the meeting

The idea here is to always be “reselling” your invitee on why they should attend the call. Remind them why they took the call in the first place.  

This includes a quick summary of what value they’ll get out of the call. It’s important to position it around the things your invitee stands to gain from the call – not you. 

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[Bonus] Use workspaces to separate meeting templates 

From a workflow perspective, we suggest creating different workspaces to separate each team’s meeting templates.

For example, have one workspace for marketing templates, like inbound demo requests or CTAs in a marketing email. Have another for sales templates, like outbound demos and follow-ups. And have another for success team templates, like implementation calls or quarterly business reviews.

This will help you keep things organized and easier to report on, but also avoid any misuse or confusion around templates. 

That concludes our 5 (actually 6) meeting template tips that will help you reduce no show rates. 

I hope you’re able to take some of these tips and start putting them into practice in your own meetings. 

Have any feedback, or tips of your own to share? Send me (Jason) an email and let me know!