Let's say a customer booked an appointment for a class. Then on the day of the class, an SMS will be sent to the customer to remind him of the appointment. At this point, which is the better approach to cater for those in the waitlist:
Ask the customer to confirm attendance (through a reply / click of a link, etc.) within X number of hours else the slot will be freed up for those on the waiting list.
The customer don't need to do anything if he's attending. There's going to be a link for cancellation instead so the customer only needs to take action if he's cancelling.
There are pros and cons to both.
For no. 1, if the person is attending, then there's more motivation for him to "confirm". The call to action is less likely to be ignored. But then, there's this extra step that the customer must do.
For no. 2, if the person is attending then there's no more extra step. The hurdle is if the person is not attending, he may not bother about cancelling (and freeing up the slot) since he's not going anyway. The call to action is more likely to be ignored.
What is the better approach among the two?