How to Get Past Medspa Patients to Come Back

Quick Summary

Most medspas have hundreds or even thousands of past patients sitting in their booking software who haven't been back in months. The fastest way to fill your schedule isn't running ads or chasing new patients, it's reaching back out to the people who already came in once and trusted you with their treatment. This article walks through how to find those patients in your booking system, what to say when you reach out, what works (calling, texting, emailing), and what to avoid so you don't sound like a sales pitch.

Why Most Medspas Don't Do This

A lot of medspas just leave patient outreach up to their booking software or their EMR. Some don't do anything at all. They're passive when it comes to growth. When the phone rings, they answer. When someone walks in, they take care of them. But there's no system in place for proactively reaching back out to people who came in once and never returned.

The reality is that bringing past patients back takes effort. Whoever's at the front desk needs to be filling the gaps in their day with calls and texts, not just waiting for the phone to ring. The good news is that the people you're reaching out to already know you. They came in, they had a good experience, and most of them just got busy or forgot to rebook. They're not hard sells. They're warm leads sitting in your system.

How to Find Your Past Patients in Your Booking Software

Most booking software has filtering tools that let you pull a list of past patients who haven't returned in a while. We'll walk through how to do this on Boulevard since that's one of the most popular options for medspas, but other booking software follows a similar process.

In Boulevard:

1. Go to Clients and click Add filter.

2. Set the first filter to Last appointment date, change "was exactly on" to "was more than," and pick a timeframe. For example, "more than 4 months ago."

3. Add a second filter for Service category and set it to the type of treatment you want to target. For example, "Injectables."

4. Add a third filter for Appointment status and set it to "is not booked." This makes sure you're not reaching out to people who already have an upcoming appointment.

[INSERT SCREENSHOT HERE: Boulevard filter screenshot]

That gives you a clean list of patients who came in for injectables, haven't been back in over four months, and don't have a future appointment on the books. These are the exact people you want to reach out to first.

You can run the same kind of filter for any service. Past facial patients who haven't been in for three months. Past laser patients overdue for their next session. Past microneedling patients who came in once and never came back. The more specific your filter, the more relevant your outreach can be.

The Three Ways to Reach Out (Ranked by Effectiveness)

1. Phone Calls

Calling is the most effective by far. Hearing a real human voice from the spa builds more trust than any other method, and you can have a real conversation about what they need. The downside is that calls take time, take training, and take a lot of manpower. If your front desk is already drowning in walk-ins and appointment management, adding a call list on top is hard to maintain.

Phone calls convert the highest, but they take the most time and energy out of your staff.

If you go this route, train your front desk on what to say. The tone matters. We get into that more below.

2. Text Messages

Texting is the second most effective method, and it's what we use at Solora because it gives you most of the conversion power of a call without the time commitment. Patients can read it whenever they have a free moment, reply on their own time, and it doesn't put them on the spot the way a phone call can.

The advantage of texting over calling is that it doesn't add weight to staff that's already busy. A patient can text back at 9 PM after they put their kids to bed, and your team can respond the next morning.

3. Email Blasts

Email is the least effective of the three, but it's not useless. Most booking software and EMRs have automated email features built in. The problem is that unless those emails are designed really well, they tend to feel salesy and generic. A lot of people unsubscribe the moment they get them.

That said, email is still good for staying top of mind. Even if your conversion rate per email is low, it keeps your medspa in the back of someone's head so when they're ready to book, you're the first one they think of. Just don't expect it to be your main channel for actually getting bookings.

What to Say When You Reach Out

This is the part most medspas mess up. They sound like a sales pitch. The patient gets a text or a call that feels like an ad, and they ignore it. The right way to do this depends on which platform you're using, since each one calls for a different tone.

Phone Calls

Phone calls should be conversational. The whole point of picking up the phone instead of texting is to have an actual human exchange, so don't read off a script. A good call covers things like:

• How their results were from the last visit

• How they enjoyed the experience overall

• Whether the results have started to fade with time

• What they're looking for next or if there's anything new they're dealing with

• If there's anything you can help them with at all (even if it's not what they came in for last time)

When you actually take time to understand where the patient is right now, a few things happen. First, they feel cared for, which is the opposite of how most spa marketing makes people feel. Second, you find out what they actually need. Maybe they came in for injectables last time, but right now they're more interested in a facial because they have a wedding coming up. Maybe their results from filler are starting to fade and they didn't realize it'd been four months. Maybe they're dealing with new skin concerns they didn't have before.

That kind of conversation gets bookings because it leads with the patient's situation, not your service menu.

Text Messages

Text messages should be short and to the point without sounding salesy or robotic. Patients are reading these on their phones in the middle of whatever else they're doing, so a long paragraph gets ignored.

A good reactivation text might look like:

• "Hey [name], it's been about 4 months since your last filler appointment. Just checking in to see how your results are holding up?"

• "Hey [name], hope you've been doing well. We're booking out for the next few weeks and wanted to see if you'd like to come back in for your next session."

• "Hi [name], it's [your name] from [spa name]. Wanted to check in and see if you're still happy with how everything turned out from your last visit."

Notice the tone. None of these are pushing a sale. They sound like a friendly check-in from someone who actually remembers the patient.

Emails

Emails are less about driving an immediate booking and more about staying top of mind. A good reactivation email isn't trying to close the patient. It's giving them a reason to think about your spa again. Stuff that works well in emails:

• New treatments or technology you're offering

• Before-and-after results from recent patients (with their permission)

• Behind-the-scenes content about your team or your space

• Educational content about specific treatments or skin concerns

• Seasonal tips that connect to your services (sun damage in summer, dry skin in winter)

• Soft mentions of any ongoing promotions, but not as the main focus

The email's job is to keep your spa in the back of someone's head so when they're ready to book, you're the first place they think of.

What Doesn't Work

A few things to avoid when you're trying to bring past patients back:

• Generic mass email blasts that say "we miss you, come back!" People can spot these from a mile away and they delete them.

• Steep discounts as your only hook. Discounts can work, but if your only message is "20% off come back," you train patients to wait for a discount before booking. You also attract the patients who care most about price and least about the relationship with your spa.

• Posting on social media and hoping past patients see it. Your Instagram feed is not a recall system. Past patients who've fallen off your radar aren't checking your social posts.

• Texts or calls that sound automated. "This is a reminder from XYZ Medspa to schedule your next appointment." That kind of message gets ignored every time.

Real Results from Practices We've Worked With

We've helped a few medspas build reactivation systems and the results speak for themselves.

Northville Beauty Spa brought back 36 past Botox patients in their first 30 days with us. These were patients who hadn't been in for months, all rebooked from text outreach alone.

SKIN MD Medspa brought in 16 new Botox appointments through their reactivation campaign and saw a 13% increase in booked appointments overall.

Glow That Face Up had 13 past clients rebook in the first month from automated text messages alone, with the staff not having to make a single phone call.

The pattern across all three is the same. The patients were already in the system. They already trusted the spa. They just needed someone to reach out at the right time with the right message.

The DIY Path vs. Hiring Help

If you want to do this yourself, you can. Here's how to start:

1. Filter your booking software for past patients who haven't been back in 3-6 months and don't have an upcoming appointment.

2. Decide whether you'll call, text, or email them.

3. Have someone on your staff (or you, if you're the owner) work through the list and reach out a few times a week.

4. Track who responds and who books.

5. Keep doing it consistently. Most medspas try this once, get a few bookings, and then stop. The practices that win do it every single week.

If your staff is already too busy or you don't have someone you can dedicate to this, that's where a service like Solora's Patient Re-activator comes in. We connect to your booking software, monitor every patient automatically, and send out personalized texts on your behalf so the front desk doesn't have to manage any of it. Patients can reply directly to rebook over text, and your staff just sees the appointments come in.

Either way, the system needs to exist. The medspas that fill their schedules consistently are the ones that have a system for bringing past patients back. The ones that don't are leaving money in their booking software every single month.