You've created a series of health and wellness programs designed to teach your patients how to stay healthy. Your wellness events cover a broad range of topics, everything from heart health seminars to parenting classes to medication adherence. You've even implemented an easy to use registration process that utilizes your health call center, website registrations, and mobile application. In short, you've become a master at teaching patients about their health and recruiting them to register for your health classes, events, and webinars.

So why aren't more of your registrants actually showing up?

Getting consumers to register for an event isn't enough. People are busy, schedules change, and the chaos of day-to-day life can make people forget all about your health seminar (no matter how great it is). In order to get them to attend, you'll need to remind them. 

1. Agent Reminder Calls - Conducting an outbound reminder call before the event is the tried-and-true method for improving participation rates. These 2-3 minute outreach calls can be automatically scheduled by your health contact center whenever a consumer registers for an event -- whether it be by telephone or your website. In addition to offering a friendly reminder of an upcoming event, these calls offer your participants the option to adjust their registration, ask additional questions, and receive driving directions or log-on instructions to the event. 
   
   
2. Automated Notifications - Similar to the reminder message delivered by your health service representatives, these automated calls utilize sophisticated interactive voice technology to provide registrants with information about their upcoming event. At anytime during the message, users can be immediately routed to your health call center for additional help.
   
   
3. Email Reminders - If you are capturing email addresses during the registration process, email reminders can be a very effective way to keep your events top-of-mind. Just like your reminder calls, your health contact center can automatically email reminders to your registrants.

Use a combination of these methods to improve your attendance rate.

The best way to ensure your registrants will actually show up is to use a combination of these tactics. For example, immediately after someone has registered for an event (say for a hospital-sponsored diabetes management class) they should receive a "thank you for registering" email from the hospital, which provides a summary of the class and a reminder to add it to their calendar. This should be followed by another email 5 days before the class, a reminder call the day before, and if they are attending a virtual class, another email 1-hour before the event takes place. 

By incorporating reminders into your registration strategy, you greatly increase the likelihood your patients will show up. But even with all of these reminders, not all of your registrants will attend. For those who don't make it, a follow up call with dates/times of repeat classes will help get them in door.   

What other tactics have you used to improve your participation rates?