Demandforce vs GoReminders: Should You Pick an All-in-One or Dedicated Appointments Platform?

At GoReminders, appointment scheduling and reminders are our specialties. We’re dedicated to helping businesses set up appointments and send automated reminders, so we focus on developing outstanding appointment booking software that does just that.

In contrast, Demandforce is more of a generalist software, marketing itself as an “all-in-one” tool for helping businesses manage their operations. We can’t speak for Demandforce’s non-appointment-related features but if you’re shortlisting appointment scheduling software, then you’ll find our GoReminders platform a much more flexible and powerful option. Here’s why:

Built for Easy Set Up and Use

Setting up GoReminders is smooth and straightforward.

You’re a busy business owner who doesn’t have the time to fiddle with complicated appointment-booking setups. We understand that, which is why we’ve designed the  GoReminders platform to be intuitive to set up and use.

The platform prominently displays our flagship appointment management options to help you hone in on your desired feature without fuss. Adding new appointments is also a breeze: our appointment creation form takes less than 10 seconds to fill out, and your newly created appointment appears in the GoReminders calendar immediately after that.

If you do need help with using GoReminders, however, tap on our in-chat support to get assistance in real time. GoReminders users consistently rate our customer service highly, and we’re confident you’ll feel just as satisfied after getting in touch. Alternatively, if you prefer to search for an answer yourself, we have a help center that contains comprehensive guidance on the platform’s features.

Using Demandforce isn’t as straightforward. If you purely need an appointment reminder solution, you may find the platform’s other features, such as listing management and postcards, to be redundant and even overwhelming. The articles in the platform’s help center are also rather vaguely titled, which can make it difficult to learn how various features work. All this only contributes to a frustrating user experience.

Powerful Appointment Reminder Features for Cutting Out  No-Shows

Sending appointment reminders is key to getting customers to show up for their appointments. With GoReminders, we offer reminder messages—known as Reminder Templates—that give you full control over their contents. After that, specify a Reminder Schedule for when each Reminder Template should be sent—be it 30 days before the appointment, one hour before, or somewhere in between.

Your reminders will then be automatically sent according to their preset Reminder Schedules, saving you the time and hassle of manually sending them yourself. In general, you can send up to three text reminders and/or three email reminders with identical messages for each appointment. Alternatively, you can create a Message Sequence to send up to six reminders with different message contents, and different Reminder Schedules, per appointment.

Demandforce also has appointment-reminder features, but they aren’t as flexible. For one, you’re limited to using one of five preset reminder types, such as “Save the Date” and “Day Of.” In addition, while Demandforce touts voice reminders as one of its selling points, you may not find yourself using them. After all, not all customers enjoy picking up the phone to receive an appointment reminder.

This is why satisfied GoReminders users like Linda B. opt for GoReminders over other platforms, which may provide unnecessary bells and whistles:

“Great product for the cost! Makes life so much easier and customer service is excellent. No more reminder phone calls. Saves on staff time plus customers like receiving a text vs. phone call. We thought it might not customize to (sic) our industry well but it’s very flexible and did just fine. Features to describe the appointment and length are greatly appreciated.”

Effortlessly Mass-Text and Email Your Customers

Send an ad hoc Message Blast in GoReminders to reach multiple customers at once.

Apart from scheduling appointment reminders, you may need to send one-off messages to your customers to announce limited-time promotions, inform them of appointment changes, send feedback survey links, and so on. In this situation, tap on our Message Blasts feature to mass-message your customers.

Write your one-off message as a Message Blast, then choose your message recipients. You can send your Message Blast to a single customer, your entire customer base, or to certain pre-saved groups of customers. Depending on their communication preferences, customers will then receive your message as a text blast or an email blast.

Demandforce has its own one-off text and email messaging feature, but it may be more tedious to use. That’s because you can’t save groups of customers for sending mass messages to. Instead, you’d need to manually set your recipient list every time you want to send a mass message.

Demandforce does suggest a workaround for sending mass emails. However, you’d need to do it every time you intend to mass-email your customers, which isn’t ideal. Neither can the workaround help with the sending of mass texts.

Flexible Message Personalization

Want to address your customers by name in your messages? Or reference specific appointment details when reaching out to your customers? Then our Template Tags are just what you need.

Template Tags are placeholders for populating your reminder messages and Message Blasts with your customers’ names and appointment data. We’ll dynamically replace the Template Tags with the relevant details to personalize the messaging experience when customers hear from you.

We provide standard Template Tags for commonly used information, such as customer first names and appointment dates. Apart from that, you can also create custom Template Tags as you deem fit for your business. For example, if you’re holding a webinar, you can add a custom Template Tag for inserting your webinar link into your messages.

Although Demandforce also provides message placeholder functionality in the form of “custom tags,” you are restricted to using its preset list of custom tags. You won’t be able to create your own custom tags, which hampers your ability to personalize your messages according to your business’ needs.

Facilitate Customer Conversations With Two-Way Messaging

Enable customer replies to your messages with two-way messaging in GoReminders.

With GoReminders’ two-way messaging feature, customers can conveniently reply to your reminder messages or Message Blasts to get in touch. When they reply to your text or email message, you’ll be able to view these incoming messages from the phone number we’ve assigned to you or your email inbox (as relevant).

Your customers’ replies will also be centrally stored in the GoReminders platform in separate customer threads. This makes it easy to keep track of conversations as you address your customers’ needs.

In contrast, Demandforce supports only two-way texts. This means that when customers respond to emails you’ve sent via Demandforce, these replies will be sent to only your inbox. As a result, you’d need to juggle between two different platforms—namely Demandforce and your inbox—to manage your communications with customers.

With such a workflow, however, it’s easy to accidentally overlook customer messages and leave customers wondering why you haven’t responded.

Demandforce vs. GoReminders: The Verdict

Demandforce has made a decent attempt at providing appointment-related features within its practice management platform. However, it’s clear that these features lack the sophistication required to efficiently manage appointments and send reminders that reduce no-shows. If you need an “all-in-one” solution for your business, then Demandforce’s appointment-related features may pass muster.

On the other hand, if you’re solely looking for an appointment booking app, then GoReminders is the perfect platform for you! We’ve got a proven track record of helping businesses cut no-shows to as low as one to two per year, courtesy of our powerful appointment scheduling and reminder features.

Demandforce doesn’t have a free plan or free trial, but we offer a generous 14-day all-access free trial for you to try our advanced appointment booking solution at no cost. Start using GoReminders for free (no credit card required).