The reminder that works is short, arrives about a day before, goes only to the people who are expected, and makes it easy to say “I can’t come after all.” Reminding everybody about everything trains people to ignore you. Here is how to set up reminders that get read, and how to stop sending them by hand.
Who to remind
- People who said they are going.
- Volunteers with an assignment at that event, with what their assignment is.
- Not the people who said no, and not the whole list for every event.
When to send it
A day before suits most weekly events: early enough to rearrange, late enough to be remembered. For a big event, add one a week ahead. For an early-morning practice, an hour before is too late to change plans, so stick to the day before.
What to put in it
- The event name, the day, the time and the place, with a map link.
- For volunteers: the job, and a way to say yes or no.
- A link to change their answer, so a cancellation reaches you instead of a no-show.
- Nothing else. A reminder is not a newsletter.
Send it from an address people recognize
Reminders from your organization’s own email address get opened and replied to. Always include an unsubscribe link and respect it.
Doing this in Kanbei
First, connect your own email account in Connectors — Kanbei doesn’t send from its own account, so without one no reminder goes out, and the event screen tells you so. Then, when you create an event, tick “Email a reminder” and pick when. Kanbei sends one reminder to everyone going and to every volunteer on that event’s schedule, through the email account you connected, with the time, the place, a map link and a link to change their reply; volunteers who have not answered get an accept or decline link. Nobody gets it twice, and anyone who unsubscribed is skipped. With an email or text account connected, announcements can also be scheduled to go out later, and with an email account connected, welcome, birthday and renewal emails can run on their own once you switch them on.
Let people ask questions on the announcement itself
Every announcement has a comment thread underneath it, so a question gets asked and answered right there instead of in a separate chat. An announcement can just be a question to everybody — post it, and members reply in the thread. Only signed-in members can comment; each comment shows who wrote it and when. Owners and admins can turn comments off for the whole organization in Settings, under “Announcement comments” — they are on by default, and turning them off hides the thread from every announcement.