A reminder schedule of 7 days, 3 days, and 1 day before the appointment is the best evidence based starting point, plus a confirmation text the day of. In GoHighLevel the Appointment Status trigger and Wait steps build it. The bottom line: the strongest research is on court dates, not consultations, so treat the schedule as a tested starting point and measure your own no show rate.
The evidence
A randomized trial in New York City sent text messages to about 20,000 people with criminal summonses. the Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab reports that any pre court message cut failures to appear by 8 percentage points from a control group mean of 38 percent, a 21 percent reduction, and that the most effective message set cut them by 10 percentage points, a 26 percent reduction. A description in EurekAlert says the messages went out 7 days, 3 days, and 24 hours before the court date. A separate randomized trial with 5,709 public defender clients in Santa Clara County, published in a peer reviewed journal, used the same 7, 3, and 1 day schedule.
Those studies show that many people miss appointments because they forget, and one of the researchers told Science the problem is often forgetting or overlooking the information, not skipping on purpose. A free legal consultation is a different kind of appointment, with no penalty for missing it, so the effect may be smaller. Test it.
The schedule
| When | Message |
|---|---|
| At booking | Confirmation with date, time, address or link, and what to bring |
| 7 days before | Reminder, with a link to reschedule |
| 3 days before | Reminder asking the person to reply C to confirm |
| 1 day before | Reminder with directions or the video link |
| 2 hours before | Short text with the location |
| After a no show | One text offering a new time, then stop |
Build it in GoHighLevel
HighLevel help center pages describe the Appointment Status trigger as firing when an appointment is created or its status changes, with statuses New, Confirmed, Cancelled, Showed Up, No Show, and Invalid, and with filters for calendar, calendar group, tag, user, and who made the change (customer, user, or API). The Update Appointment Status action can set the same statuses from inside a workflow. A third party agency guide adds that Appointment Status is now the main appointment trigger and the older Customer Booked Appointment trigger is being phased out, so use Appointment Status for new builds.
- Build a workflow with the Customer Booked Appointment trigger that sends the confirmation and then Wait steps for the reminders.
- Add an If/Else before each reminder so cancelled or rescheduled appointments do not get it.
- Build a second workflow with the Appointment Status trigger set to Confirmed that tags the contact Confirmed.
- Build a third workflow for No Show that sends one reschedule text and creates a task for intake.
- Use a reschedule link in each reminder so the person can move the appointment without calling.
Worked example
For example, if a firm books 100 free consultations a month with a 30 percent no show rate, that is 30 no shows. A 21 percent reduction, if the court results applied, would save 6 consultations (30 times 0.21), and the firm can check the real number after a month.
Mistakes to avoid
- Sending only one reminder. The studies used three.
- Quoting the court results as a promise. They are not consultation data.
- Reminding cancelled bookings. Use an If/Else check.
- No reschedule link. A hard cancel is worse than a move.
How this was handled before
Firms called the day before and left a voicemail, or sent one email. Court systems ran field experiments with text reminders because failures to appear were costly, and the schedules they tested give firms a better starting point than a single reminder.
What to measure after launch
Track no show rate before and after, confirmations by reply, and reschedules from reminder links. Compare a month before the reminders with a month after, and keep the schedule only if the rate falls.
Check before you switch it on
US text messages sent from a standard 10 digit number need A2P 10DLC registration. The HighLevel support portal says registration is required for texts to US recipients from 10 digit long code numbers and that toll free numbers do not require it. HighLevel's opt in guidelines also say a person cannot be forced to agree to text messages in order to submit a form, so keep the consent box optional. One compliance guide separates informational texts, which need documented consent, from marketing texts, which need prior express written consent. Ask your attorney which category your reminders fall into. Keep reminder texts free of case details, since a text can be read by others. This is general information, not legal advice.
Questions people ask
What reminder schedule did the New York trial use?
Texts 7 days, 3 days, and 24 hours before the court date, according to EurekAlert.
How much did reminders reduce missed court dates?
the Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab reports a 21 percent reduction for any pre court message and 26 percent for the best message set.
Do these results apply to legal consultations?
Not directly. The studies are about court dates, so measure your own results.
Ready to try it yourself? Start a GoHighLevel account here.
You can also see this in action in our GoHighLevel capabilities demo.