How to make an appointment

in English

One of the mainstays of life is making and keeping

appointments. Many people consider “an appointment”

to mean a doctor’s visit or a job interview or other more

formal. However, it is important to realize that such

activities as meeting a friend for lunch or dinner, going

to a concert with friends, or having work done on your

flat are all appointments.

Setting and handling appointments is a must for those

learning business English and require some basic

organizational skills. The ability to set appointments,

both formal and informal, changing or cancelling

appointments, and confirming appointments efficiently

and clearly will help you efficiently manage your time,

help you be more productive, and help alleviate stress.

In this post, we will give you some tips for setting and

managing your schedule, show you how to make an

appointment in English by phone and email, how to

cancel an appointment, how to change the date or time

of an appointment, apologize for changes and how to

ask for a confirmation.

The Best Practices for Making

Appointments

Use a day planner or digital calendar. These help you

plan and organize your day. Appointments should be

written in your planner as you make them. One of the

advantages of a digital calendar, such as Google

Calendar, is that you have access on any device and

can quickly refer to in when making new appointments.

The first task every morning should be looking at your

calendar so that you can picture and plan your day.

If you have a number of appointments to make at one

time rank them in terms of importance. Make sure you

schedule the most important one first in order to leave

yourself the most flexibility.

Try to schedule appointments that are in the same

general area on the same day. This will save on time

and expense.

Leave yourself a cushion of between 15 and 20 minutes

in travel time to arrive at an appointment. This will help

you deal with traffic or transit delays.

Make a printed phone list each day for your

appointment’s contact. This can come in very handy if

your mobile service is disrupted.

Improve your English grammar, vocabulary and more

with EF English Live. Get started for free

How to make an appointment

You should make an appointment by calling or by email.

Do not try to make appointments by text, unless you

are simply asking a good friend if they would like to

have lunch.
When making an appointment you should give the

person your name and the reason for wanting an

appointment. You should also ask the amount of time

the appointment will take and if you should expect a

wait time prior to the appointment. Be sure to ask

about cancellation policies and procedures, some

businesses impose penalties for cancellations that

occur less than 24 hours before the appointment.

How to make an Appointment by email in

English

In many, if not most, instances email has replaced

phone calls as the preferred method of making an

appointment. This means that the ability to make an

appointment by email is an important skill for those

learning business English.

If you are making a first appointment and writing to

someone you do not know be sure to give your

background information and the reason for requesting

an appointment.
Writing to someone you don’t know

If you don’t know the person, you’ll need to give some

background information about yourself or your

company. Here are some examples that are

typical business English conversations.

I am _________ (followed by company info if appropriate)

and I would like to meet with you to discuss…

My name is _______ and I would like to schedule a

convenient time to meet.

Be sure to request a semi-specific time; “next week”,

“the week of October 1”, etc. This will make it easier

for the person to check their schedule and typically will

get you a response faster.

When writing an email to request an appointment be

sure to think about who will be receiving the email.

Basically your email request will fall into three

categories; formal, neutral, or informal.

Improve your English grammar, vocabulary and more

with EF English Live. Get started for free

Formal email examples:

I would like to arrange a suitable time and place to

meet to discuss….

I would like to arrange an appointment to review…

Neutral email examples:

Could we met on Thursday to review

We should meet in the next few days to discuss….

When is a convenient time for you?

Informal email examples

Can we get together to talk about…

Do you have a few minutes tomorrow to discuss…

Confirming an appointment
Always make sure that you confirm appointments when

you make them. When you make an appointment in

English by phone be sure to confirm the appointment by

repeating the date and time of the meeting back to the

other party and asking if that is correct. This should be

one of the last things you do prior to ending the

conversation.

When using email, you should immediately confirm the

appointment once it is scheduled.

Thank you for your response. I look forward to meeting

with you on Tuesday the first of October at 10 AM.

Thanks see you on Tuesday at 10. (informal)

You should also confirm appointments the day prior to

having them with a short email or call.

Improve your English grammar, vocabulary and more

with EF English Live. Get started for free

Cancelling an appointment
Sometimes circumstances require that we cancel or

change an appointment. Here are some basic steps.

Cancel as soon after you discover there is a problem as

possible.

Try to reschedule the appointment before ending the

call or at the end of the email.

Here are some examples of cancelling an appointment,

rescheduling, and apologizing for the change.

Due to an upcoming business trip, I will be away from

October 3-9. Is it possible to reschedule our meeting for

the following week? Thank you in advance and I

apologize for any inconvenience.

Due to an unexpected situation, I need to cancel our

meeting on Friday.

At first glance, making managing appointments may

seem a bit daunting. However, spending a short amount

of time making the best practices a part of your regular

routine will make you more productive and help you

achieve more in terms of working with other people and

companies.