Notifications: what the client gets, what you get, and when

Every week someone asks how to stop the booking emails landing in their own inbox, and someone else asks why one client did not get her reminder. Both come down to reading which switch a message follows, and so does the third question, whether the reminder wording can be changed, where the answer depends on Communications Booster.

Read the journey, not a list of switches

Settings, Notifications lays every message on a numbered rail, one card per moment in the booking. This is the first card.

1. Open Notifications.
2. To read a message and the moment it fires, select Preview on its row on the Booking Created card.

Each message sits under the switch that sends it, marked To your customer, To you or To your team so you can see who it reaches. A message that follows a switch on another card sits under Sent while and that switch's name, with its On or Off, which is why both confirmation emails go quiet together. The few that cannot be turned off sit under Always sent, each with its reason.

One service can disagree with the account

Most of those switches are defaults. A service that should behave differently is set on its own Notifications tab, not at the account.

1. Open Services, then Manage on the service and Manage Service.
2. On Notifications, switch Text you: new booking alert off or on for this service.
3. Select Publish Changes, tick the box in Before You Publish, then select Publish Changes.

Text you: new booking alert is the team's copy rather than the client's, and it can be off for one service and on everywhere else. The badge beside each label says which is true: green Following business means the account's switch still reaches this service, amber Own value means it does not.

The timing is yours, the words are not

1. Open Notifications.
2. On Pre-Appointment Reminders, set Reminder Time under First Reminder.
3. Optional: under Second Reminder, switch on Email the customer: reminders (2nd) or Text the customer: reminders (2nd), then set Reminder Time (2nd).
4. Select Publish Changes, tick the box in Before You Publish, then select Publish Changes.

Reminder Time is the lead time, and Second Reminder adds one more send at a different one. The reminder follows a standard template, and the template fills in your own service label and your drop-off and pick-up window. With Communications Booster and an active number you can write your own wording under Your text wording on the same page, for the reminder and the other booking texts. Wording must relate strictly to the appointment and must not contain marketing. To save it, tick the agreement and select Save wording, which saves on its own rather than with Publish Changes. A service can carry its own wording on its Notifications tab. Without an active number the boxes do not show and the standard wording sends.

Two pieces of text are yours to write. Confirmation Message is the Y/N question Confirmation Reply (Y/N) appends to a reminder SMS. A Y reply shows Confirmed by customer on the booking and its cards until the start time moves. Pre-Appointment Message, under Custom Messages behind Advanced options, is a note added to confirmation and reminder emails, and to the texts too with Also add to confirmation and reminder texts. Switch on Only send on a customer's first appointment and it reaches first-timers only, which is where parking instructions and the what-to-bring list belong. Email the customer: Friday reminder sends one email per client on Friday listing next week's bookings, however many they have.

Pet boarding: set Reminder Time in days rather than hours. The nudge worth sending before a stay lands while they are packing, not on the morning they are already driving over. Dog walking: the pick-up and drop-off texts are a separate switch, set per service, and they fire when you mark the stop rather than on a schedule.