Sign In Scheduling can automatically send booking notification messages as well as reminders and follow-ups to your customers, providing them with relevant information about their appointments, and helping to reduce no-shows.
This guide outlines the different types of notification messages you can send to your customers with Sign In Scheduling, and explains how to set them up.
Note: to edit the content of customer messaging, users must be subscribed to our Pro plan or above. More information on pricing can be found here.
SECTIONS:
Reminders & follow-up messages
Customer messaging settings
To get started, head to 'Manage' > 'Customer messaging'. Here you'll find all of your customer messaging options and settings.
At the top of the page, under 'Booking notification and reminder settings' you can choose whether to apply changes to all of your services, or to some in particular. Click on the drop-down to make your selection.
If you select a specific service from the drop-down, you can choose whether to use the settings applied to the rest of your services, or to configure new settings for that particular service only. All changes are saved automatically.
You also have the option to decide whether you'd like your customers to manually confirm their appointments. When this option is enabled, you'll book appointments on your customers' behalf which will have a 'proposed' status. The customer will be prompted to confirm the appointment before it is marked as such within Sign In Scheduling. Click the switch to toggle this feature on/off.
For booking notifications, you can send both email and SMS messages to your customers. To enable/disable a message type, click on the switch to toggle it on/off. When on, the switch will show as turquoise.
Booking notifications
Sign In Scheduling's booking notifications notify your customers of new, canceled or changed appointments. You'll find each type of notification message listed within both the email and SMS sections. The message types are the same for both formats.
To view or amend a notification message, click on it to expand its details.
If you decide to change the content of a message, a live preview of the message will immediately show your changes to the right of the text editor. All changes are saved automatically.
Sign In Scheduling supports markdown for formatting text. Using markdown, you can edit the format of the content within your email messages.
If you'd like to create headings, bold/italicized text and insert links and images, click here for more information on how to do this.
A brief explanation of each message type is as follows:
- New booking email/SMS - this is sent when your customer books a new appointment
- Changed booking email - this is sent if a customer or staff member changes the appointment
- Cancellation email - this is sent if the appointment is canceled
- Class signup email - this is sent to all attendees of a class booking when they book onto it
Note: customer messages can be sent in multiple languages. For more information, click here.
When changing bookings
When making certain changes to bookings, you can amend your customer messaging settings via the 'Advanced Communications' drop-down menu.
Opening this menu will confirm whether the customers attached to the booking will receive email and SMS messages to notify them of the changes you've made. You can refer to the checkboxes to confirm which messages will be sent in which format.
You'll see the 'Advanced Communications' drop-down menu appear when you initially book the appointment, and when you make changes to:
- the service
- the time
- the date
- the location
- the customer(s) attending the appointment
Both the email and SMS checkboxes will be ticked by default unless the customer's email address/phone number has not been provided.
Reminders & follow-up messages
At the bottom of the customer messaging page, you'll find the 'Reminders & follow-ups' section. Here you can set up appointment reminders to help your customers remember to attend, as well as follow-up messages to be sent after their appointment has taken place.
To add a reminder or follow-up, click the 'Add' button.
You'll then be able to select your preferences using each drop-down. Reminders and follow-ups can be sent via email, SMS and voice (automated phone call). Changes are saved automatically.
To delete a reminder or follow-up, click the red 'Delete' button.
Tags
For each type of message, tags can be used to put certain information into the message content. Click on the links below for more information:
Need more help?
We hope this guide has been helpful! If you have any questions, reach out to our support team who will be happy to assist further.
Visit our blog!
If you'd like to learn more about composing stand-out customer messages, click here!