# Voice reminders

A voice reminder is an automated telephone call to the client's landline. Diarybook reads out a script you write, and can take a confirmation or a cancellation from the client's keypad.

## Why this matters

Voice reaches the clients text does not. Older clients, clients without a mobile, and clients who never open email all answer a landline — and in services where the Did Not Attend (DNA) rate is concentrated in exactly that group, a call is the reminder that changes the number. Because the client can confirm or cancel on the keypad, the call also returns information rather than just delivering it.

## Before you start

The client record needs a landline number. There is one landline field per client, so a client without one is skipped on this channel.

The Reminder Setting must carry a script. Unlike email, a voice reminder has no default wording — without a script there is nothing for the call to read.

Decide before you write whether clients should be able to respond, because it changes how the script must end.

## What the client hears

When the call is answered the script is read out three times.

At the end of each reading, where feedback is allowed, the client is prompted to press **1** to confirm or **3** to cancel. Pressing a key sets the appointment's confirmation status, and the response is recorded in the appointment log.

Reading the script three times sounds excessive written down, and is deliberate: a client who answers mid-sentence, puts the phone down to fetch a pen, or simply misses a date on the first pass still gets the message. Write the script so it stands up to being heard three times in a row — short, plain, and no "as I said".

## When the call is not answered

| What happens | What Diarybook does |
|--------------|---------------------|
| An answering machine is detected | The script is read once, for the machine |
| Nobody answers | The call is retried twice more, after an interval the calling system decides |
{.table}

If the call is ultimately never answered, is answered but no key is pressed, or reached an answering machine, **no confirmation status is recorded**. Nothing is written against the appointment.

That matters for how you read the appointments list afterwards. An appointment with no confirmation status has not been declined — it means no response was captured, and a client who was never reached looks identical to one who listened to the whole message and simply did not press a key.

## Writing the script

The script is written much like an SMS reminder, and uses the same [merge fields](/docs/reminders/merge-fields/) to pull in the appointment date and time, the client's name and the location.

Merge fields need no special handling. Values such as dates and times are converted into words the text-to-speech engine can speak, so a script written to read naturally on the page reads naturally on the call.

There is currently no limit on the length of a script, which makes restraint your own job. The script is read three times, so a long one is heard three times.

One thing to get right: **only mention the keypad options you have enabled**. If **Can Cancel** is off, a script inviting the client to press 3 leaves them pressing a key that does nothing.

## Steps

1. Go to the **Settings** area and select **Reminder Settings**.
2. Open the Reminder Setting used by the appointments you want to cover.
3. Click **Voice Reminder** to open the voice window, and activate the channel.
4. Enter the script the call will read.
5. Set **Can Confirm** if the client should be able to confirm attendance by pressing 1.
6. Set **Can Cancel** if the client should be able to cancel by pressing 3.
7. Add a schedule item and set the trigger — days before, hours before, or the day the appointment was created.
8. Set **Earliest Time**. This matters more on voice than on any other channel: an automated call at seven in the morning does more harm than the reminder does good.

![Voice Reminders](/img/dbdocs/scr-voice-reminders.png) 
{.db-image}

A Voice schedule can hold several schedule items. The full behaviour of triggers, **Earliest Time**, day-of-week restriction and **Is Flexible** is described in [How reminders work](/docs/reminders/how-reminders-work/).

## What to watch for

**Calls go out at an unsociable hour**

Set **Earliest Time** on every voice schedule item. It is the single setting most worth checking before a voice reminder goes live, because the complaint arrives faster than the benefit does.

**Calls land at the weekend**

The schedule counts calendar days, not working days. Restrict schedule items to particular appointment days and give early-week appointments more notice — [How reminders work](/docs/reminders/how-reminders-work/#restricting-to-particular-appointment-days) works the pattern through with a full example.

**The client presses a key and nothing happens**

The keypad options only work where **Can Confirm** or **Can Cancel** is enabled. Check the script does not invite a response the setting does not accept.

**An appointment shows no confirmation status after the call**

No status means no response was captured, not a refusal. The call may have gone unanswered through all three attempts, reached an answering machine, or been listened to without a key being pressed — none of those are distinguishable on the appointments list. Check the appointment log if you need to know which.

**Clients with no landline are never called**

Voice uses the single landline field on the client record. Mobile-only clients need SMS or email cover — most accounts run voice alongside another channel rather than on its own.

**A confirmed appointment stops receiving calls**

That is the default across all channels, and on voice it is usually what you want: a client who confirmed on Monday does not need calling again on Wednesday. Select **Include Confirmed Appointments** on the schedule item to override it.

## Related

- [How reminders work](/docs/reminders/how-reminders-work/)
- [SMS reminders](/docs/reminders/sms-reminders/)
- [Merge fields](/docs/reminders/merge-fields/)
- [Attendance and DNA](/docs/appointments/attendance-and-dna/)

---
Source: https://diarybook.com/docs/reminders/voice-reminders/