Note Text reminders are an additional $5 a month plus 3 cents per text to your monthly subscription.
Summary
Appointment Reminders are configured to automatically notify the customer of an upcoming appointment and/or can be sent post-service as a follow-up message. Create different reminders based on service type or for specific customers.
Key Points
Creating a new Appointment Reminder
Creating a follow-up 'reminder'
Applying the reminder to a Work Order series
Applying the reminder to a Work Order template
Send Reminders preference in the customer's location page
If you are already using Appointment Reminders your existing reminder is under Default Reminder.
After creating the reminder you'll go into the Work Order, Schedule tab and pick the reminder you want to use for that Work Order.
Creating a new Appointment Reminder
To create a new reminder, go to Settings/Appointment Reminders.
Click the New Reminder button in the upper right.
Give the reminder a name that describes its purpose. General Reminder, Bed Bug Service, Exterior Service, Seasonal Service, or Inspection
Reminder Name
Give the reminder a name that describes its purpose.
Send Reminders
Select how you want the message to go out, email, text or both. The reminder goes to the email address and/or mobile phone number in the customer's location page. Do Not Send has been updated to Inactive.
Date & Time Display
Choose how you want the date and time to appear in the Appointment Reminder.
The week of…: explains that the service will be the week of July 30, for example
Date and Start Time or Arrival Window: includes the date and start time (11AM on July 30) or the arrival window if that is set in the in the Work Order - Schedule tab (Between 10AM and 12PM on July 30)
Day only: includes just the day (July 30)
Do not display date and time: see ya whenever!
Allow customers to confirm appointments
The email will include a link, Confirm Appointment, that takes customers to their service portal where they can click [X] Confirm Appointment.
For more information about confirming an appointment, see Appointment Reminder has no Confirm button
Include technician Bio on appointment reminders
The tech’s biography and photo from the user's profile can be included in the email.
+ ADD
Click the + Add link.
Send Reminders N Day(s) before/after appointment
Pick how many days to send the reminder before/after the appointment. If this is a reminder to an upcoming appointment, select before.
Reminder Time
This is the time of day when reminders are sent.
Email Template, subject line
This is the subject line of the email reminder. If you are not allowing customers to confirm their appointment, change that part of the subject line to appointment reminder, or something like that.
Email Template Text
The email subject line and template are editable for you to create your own style and tone. The Placeholders function the same way as described earlier in Customers.
Click your mouse inside the email template where you want a placeholder to be, then click the placeholder.
A couple of notable placeholders here are:
{confirmation_link} this is the link the customer clicks to get to the confirmation page
{date_time} the date and time of the service
{service_address} the address where the service is going to be performed
{service_location} the location name as it appears in the customer’s Location page
{service_list} services to be performed; comes from the service description in the work order
Click the Preview button to review your email.
Tip Always click a Preview button!
Texting Appointment Reminders
Important When creating a customer's account be sure to select the correct phone type in the Location Page; text appointment reminders only go to a phone number with the type set to Mobile; if Mobile is not selected the customer won't receive text reminders.
Text Template
Notifies the customer of the upcoming appointment. Keep the message short and sweet. Otherwise, they'll ignore it.
Confirmation Text
If you change the wording you must still explain to the customer to reply only with the word Confirm. If you update the text message to ask clients to confirm with another word or character (Yes, OK, Y...), the recipient will receive the auto-response text and the appointment will not be confirmed in their account.
Auto-respond
Text is sent to the customer when the reply is anything but Confirm.
Send a Test Message:
Enter your mobile phone number to view the text responses. Include the prefix country code.
Creating a follow-up 'reminder'
Scroll back to the top of the page and click the + Add button to create another reminder. You can use Appointment Reminders to send a follow-up email asking how things are going, how was the technician, service, etc.
For Service date, select after. You can also change the time this 'reminder' goes out.
Update the wording for the subject line and template text to reflect the Big Ask.
Applying the reminder to a Work Order series
Update the reminder to an existing Work Order or add one to a new Work Order.
Existing Work Order
Click the Edit Series button on the right side of the Work Order, click the Schedule tab and proceed as following:
New Work Order
Create a new Work Order and click the Schedule tab. Near the bottom select the Appointment Reminder to use for this service.
Applying the reminder to a Work Order template
Apply a reminder at the bottom of a Work Order template. The reminder will be applied to newly created series when you load the template in the Work Order.
Send reminders preference in the customer's location page
Do Not Send is now Inactive.
In Summary
Four things need to be set for the reminder to go out:
1. Appointment Reminder needs to be set for email, text or both.
2. In the Customer's Location Page
For email reminders, there needs to be a valid email address.
For text messages, the phone number Type needs to be set to Mobile.
3. Send Reminders... needs to be set for email, text or both.*
* If you select As per account settings, the reminder used in the Work Order will follow that setting in Appointment Reminders.
4. In the Customer's Work Order
New Work Order, click the Schedule tab, select the Appointment Reminder you want to use.
Existing Work Order, edit the Series, click the Schedule tab, select the Appointment Reminder you want to use.
All four of the above need to match. For example, if you want to send a text:
1. The Appointment Reminder needs to be set for a text message
2. The customer's location page needs to have a mobile phone type
3. The location page Send Reminders... needs to be set for a text message
4. The Work Order needs a reminder that has a text message.
Also see: How Placeholders work
This appeared as a Feature Friday article on December 13, 2019