SMS Appointment Reminders with Replies

• Last Updated: 6/10/2020
• Pricing Tier: All
• Appointment Version: All

True SMS Reminders allow you to fully customize the data included in each message by adding any Appointment level field, and many Customer level fields from within your account. This plugin feature is available at the account and any Location for which the plugin is enabled will consume message credits from the same bank.

What we'll cover:

• How to Enable SMS Appointment Reminders
• Managing SMS Credits
• Customizing the SMS Template
• Review or Update Additional Settings
• Disabling the SMS Appointment Reminders Plugin

Enabling SMS Appointment Reminders

To enable SMS reminders, you'll need to visit the Marketplace from Site Admin.

1. Click Appointments.
2. Locate the plugin and click Enable.
3. From the next step, choose applicable Locations from the drop-down menu
4. Click Enable to finish the activation.

SMS Appointment Reminder Credits

Once you have the plugin enabled, you'll need to manage SMS credits. Credits are purchased from DaySmart Appointments, and are used to send SMS reminders. Each message (160 characters, including spaces or line breaks) will use 1 SMS credit. If a message exceeds 160 total characters, it will be sent in multiple parts and consume a credit for each message part sent.

Headquarters Administrator users, by default, will see an SMS Appointment Reminder balance when on the Appointment tab. You can identify other users (individually or access type) who should also view this balance information on the Manage Credits tab.

The SMS Appointment Reminders tab within the plugin provides a basic breakdown of the packages available.

Managing Credits and Bank Balance Alerts

One-Time Purchase of Credits

To add SMS credits to your account, click the Manage Credits tab within the plugin options.

Here, you can choose to add more credits manually by clicking Add More. You'll see the package options and can Buy & Send right away. You can also choose to send any pending reminders for Appointments in the near future (3 hours). This is useful if your SMS credits run out and want to make sure today's Customers get the reminder message.

NOTE: This requires a valid payment method associated with your account. If you pay via credit card, your card will be charged at this time. If the credit card associated with your account is expired, you will not be able to purchase credits and your Customers will not receive their reminders.

Credit Balance Information and Alerts

In addition to being able to purchase SMS message credits, you may also choose to allow other users in your account or business to receive information related to the SMS credit balance. The Manage Credits tab provides you additional permission settings to determine who should see the balance information on the Appointments tab, as well as who should receive email alert notifications when your account reaches a low balance (not used if you are on an auto-renew subscription).

Viewing Remaining SMS Credits

Within this section of the Bank Balance Settings area, you can choose users by the following options:

• By Access Type
• Include Individual Users
• Exclude Individual Users

You may find that you have a mix of users within your account that need to see the balance information. Maybe you need all Headquarters Administrators and only some of your Location Administrators. You can configure the system to display this to all users of the two access types and then select individual users that should be excluded from viewing this information. The tiered permissions provide you with the most customization for these settings. When you have completed your selections here, make sure to Update Settings.

Receive Low Balance Email

If you are not on an auto-renew subscription, you can choose to have a low balance alert sent to either specific users in your system or external email addresses (separated by a comma). When you have completed your selections here, make sure to Update Settings.

Auto-Renew Credit Subscription

Your business may rely on Customers receiving reminders. To make sure that your account never reaches a zero (0) balance, you can subscribe to auto-renew credits. The same package options offered for one-time purchase are also available for auto-renew selection. When your account is subscribed for this offer, the bank will be replenished when it reaches a low balance threshold. This way, your account is never empty!

It is recommended that you subscribe to this offer to ensure you never miss out on sending reminder messages to your Customers.

Once you have completed your selections on this tab, make sure to review the SMS Template and update additional Settings.

Customizing the SMS Template

The SMS Appointment Reminders plugin offers a default message template when you first activate this feature. While this template includes some standard Appointment information, you may wish to customize the phrasing of your message or add/remove data. To review the default message, click SMS Template.

On this tab, you'll see the initial default message in the text entry field. You may add or delete text from the message template box as needed for your account. You may also need to insert additional information from the Appointment, Customer or Location based on your business needs. Click the dropdown for Insert Additional Info to review available fields and click on the field you desire. The new field will be added to the end of existing template. You can then copy and paste the new data wherever you need it in your message.

Here are a couple of customized message examples:

1. Just a reminder that your appointment is scheduled on {{Date}} at {{Time}} with {{Employee.displayName}}. We look forward to seeing you!
2. Your appointment is coming up! Visit our office at {{Location.address1}} at {{Time}} on {{Date}}.

NOTE: The SMS message will include an option for the Customer to opt out of future SMS reminders. This reply content, Reply X to opt out, cannot be disabled and will also count towards the message character count.

When you are done customizing your message, you can preview it to see an example of what your Customers will receive. If you are happy with your updated message, Update to save the message template before you leave this page.

Saving Message Templates with Multiple Locations

If your account has multiple Locations, you can customize the message template for each Location or use the same template for all Locations. When you have completed customizing your message, click either Update All Locations or Update This Location based on your needs.

If you choose to have different templates for specific Locations, you can access and modify all Locations from this same tab, without having to leave this page. Simply choose the desired Location from the dropdown field at the top of the tab to easily switch to see the other Location's reminder template.

Please note that the From Number is always shared across all Locations, regardless of the sharing setting on individual sub-Locations.

Review or Update Additional Settings

In order to make sure your Customers have the best experience with your reminders, you should review the additional settings available for reminder messages. The Settings tab offers you control over initial settings for Customer opt-in, determines the time period at which to send the reminder and more. Let's review each of the available settings.

Customer Opt-In Default

For Customer profiles, you can determine the default selection of the opt-in field for receiving SMS Appointment Reminders. This will initially set the checkbox for new Customers regardless if they create their own profile through the Customer View application or if Staff Members create the profiles directly through the administrative application.

Note: Customers wishing to receive SMS reminders will need to enter a minimum of 10 digits (including the country code) and no more than 15 digits. The field will also only accept numeric characters.

Reminder Send Time

Set how far in advance of each Appointment's start time the Customer's Appointment Reminder should be sent. You can choose from 1, 2, 4 or up to 72 hours for the reminder to be sent.

Reminder Replies

You may wish to offer your Customers the option to reply to a reminder message. You can set either confirm or cancel, or both, to be on for SMS reminders. Your Customers' reply will then change the status of their next future Appointment with your business.

NOTE: If your account is configured to send the confirmation or cancelation email to your Customers following those status changes to an Appointment, the system will send those email messages. You may choose to not enable the success response via SMS to limit consuming additional SMS credits.

Let's review the options you can enable for replies.

Confirming an Appointment

The Customer will reply with 1 if they wish to confirm their Appointment. Once the system saves the status change, you can also optionally let them know that it was successful by adding a success response. This additional response will consume a credit, so you can leave this text field blank to not send any response.

Canceling an Appointment

The Customer will reply with 0 if they wish to cancel their Appointment. Once the system saves the status change, you can also optionally let them know that the Appointment was canceled by sending a response. This additional response will consume a credit, so you can leave this text field blank to not send any response.

Success response messages for either confirm or cancel action will be logged and included in SMS reports, in order to see total credit usage.

Cancelation Settings and SMS

The scheduling system offers some additional settings to control who and when a cancelation can occur. With the addition of a cancel option to a SMS reminder, the system will support the additional cancelation settings in the following ways:

• It is recommended not to enable the cancel reply option if you disallow Customers from canceling at any time or within a specified number of hours before the Appointment's start time. However, if it is enabled, the system will adhere to the cancel setting for Customers and not process any replies received. Instead, the Customer will receive a message that their cancelation request was denied.
• The reply system does not currently support the preference to require a cancel reason. Therefore, if you require this for your business, it is recommended that you do not allow your Customers to cancel from an SMS reminder.

Updating Settings with Multiple Locations

If your account has multiple Locations and those Locations are not sharing the configuration settings from your Headquarters Account, you can update the plugin’s settings for each Location or use the same settings for all Locations. When you have updated your settings, click either Update All Locations or Update This Location based on your needs.

When you have multiple Locations in your account, you may choose to have different settings for specific Locations, you can access and modify all Locations from this same tab, without having to leave this page. Simply choose the desired Location from the dropdown field at the top of the tab to easily switch to see the other Location's reminder settings.

Note: Should you need to temporarily disable the SMS Appointment Reminders feature, visit the Marketplace, click SMS Appointment Reminders from the active plugin list and click the Location drop-down field. You can remove from one or many Locations. When you have completed your changes, click Update to save the new settings. When the plugin is removed from a Location, any message that was queued for future sending will be deleted from the queue and not sent.

Disabling the SMS Appointment Reminders Plugin

If you decide that you no longer want to send reminder messages via SMS to your Customers, you can return to the Marketplace and remove the plugin from any or all Locations.

1. Click Marketplace.
2. In the left-hand column, find and click SMS Appointment Reminders.
3. On the plugin’s first tab, click the Locations drop-down field.
4. Uncheck individual Locations or click None.
5. Click Update.

Upon this update, the application will:

• Remove any queued reminders for future Appointments.
• Cancel the from number for your account.

If in the future, you wish to reenable the plugin, your account will receive a new from number and determine if any reminders should be queued for future Appointments. This check would be based on any current Customers having previously opted in to receive SMS messages.

Frequently Asked Questions

You may have questions about this feature. We've prepared a separate Frequently Asked Questions article that you can review. If you still have further questions, please open a ticket with our Support team.