An appointment reminder text tells a customer you are coming tomorrow, and lets them confirm or ask to move it with one letter. It cuts down on locked gates and “I didn’t know you were coming” calls. It is a texting feature, so it needs a plan that includes customer texting (Growing and up).
1 Turn it on
Reminder texts are a setting for your whole company, not for one customer. Go to your Subscription page and find Text Notifications. Switch on Appointment reminder texts.
Check the switch even if you think it is already on. Do not assume it is set the way you want it for your company. Switching it off stops the reminders for everyone.
2 What your customer gets
The evening before a visit, between 5 and 9 PM in your company’s time zone, the customer gets a text. It goes out for visits one to three days ahead, and the customer gets one text per day. If they have more than one visit that day, the single text lists all of them.
The customer can reply:
- C to confirm the visit.
- R to reschedule it.
Each reminder text counts against your plan’s monthly texts, the same as any other text you send. A customer who has opted out of texts does not get them.
3 When a customer replies R
A Reply R takes the visit off the schedule. That is on purpose: if the customer said do not come, nobody should drive out.
Three things happen:
- The visit goes to Needs Review.
- The visit drops off your crew’s route for that day. If someone tries to start it anyway, the app won’t let them.
- The visit stays that way until you move it.
Open Needs Review from the left menu, find the visit, and click Rebook. Pick a new date and save. The visit goes back on the schedule and your crew sees it again. More on the queue in how to clear the needs-review queue.
Check Needs Review the same evening the reminders go out. A customer who replied R expects to hear from you about a new day, and the crew is already planning around the visit being gone.
4 If you would rather not use it
Switch Appointment reminder texts off under Text Notifications. Your other texts, like invoice and quote texts, have their own switches there and are not affected.