When the caller is not the customer
A surprising share of appointments are made by somebody other than the person attending — a daughter ringing for her father, one partner booking for both, an office manager booking for a colleague. It is completely ordinary and it quietly breaks assumptions that most booking systems are built on.
The detail that causes the trouble
Whose phone number goes on the appointment. Put the caller’s down and the reminder reaches somebody who is not going; put the attendee’s down and you have a number the caller may have misremembered, for a person who does not know they are expected. The fix is unglamorous — capture both, and be explicit about which one you will contact — but it prevents the single most common version of this going wrong.
Say who you will ring
"I will send the confirmation to you and the reminder to him" takes three seconds and removes every later argument. The person booking is usually happy to be the contact; what they cannot do is guess your convention, and they will assume whichever one causes the problem.
What should not be discussed
What a person had done last time is theirs. That it is their spouse asking does not change it.
Particularly where the service itself is personal. When in doubt, say the attendee can ring to discuss it.
Reading back an address to check it is fine. Volunteering one you were not given is not.
Reasonable for a partner and not for a stranger who knows a name. Have a position on this before it happens.
The cases worth planning for
Family members booking for elderly relatives is the common one in most trades and clinics, and it deserves to be easy rather than treated as an exception. Group bookings where one person books for six is another — there the caller genuinely is your customer and the others are attendees, which is a different shape again. Knowing which of those you are in changes what you should ask for.
Frequently asked
Yes, and it is common. The thing to get right is capturing both numbers and being explicit about which one you will contact.
Both, ideally — the caller’s and the attendee’s — with a clear statement of who gets the confirmation and who gets the reminder.
Anything about the attendee they did not supply — past appointments, personal details, or anything sensitive. Confirming details you were given is fine.
Reasonable for a partner, not for a stranger who happens to know a name. Decide your position before it comes up.