Consultations are vital, helping ensure you have the information you need to deliver the best possible client experience. Sometimes, you need to start this process before your client even sets foot in your business, so at Timely we allow you to send digital consultation forms to your clients to complete before (or even after) their appointment.
Before looking at sending a consultation you may like to check out our guide on how to create your own consultation here: How to create your own consultation. Once you've created your consultation, don't forget to share it with your business so you can send it to clients.
This guide will cover:
Important information: Before sending a consultation, we recommend checking through your duplicate customers.
This guide here runs through how to do that: How to merge duplicate customers. We use your clients' SMS to log them in and connect them to their records. If you have multiple clients with the same SMS number we'll use the details that have the most recent booking made.
Consultations are sent as an ad hoc SMS message and use SMS credits from your monthly allowance.
Sending a consultation to a client
- Firstly, we need to go to the client's profile that we want to send the consultation to. To do this either head to the Customers tab in Timely or click the Send consultation button in the customer sidebar of the calendar.
- If you are using the Customers tab, search for the client and click on their name on the list to open their record.
- Once you've found the client you want to send the consultation to, click the Documents tab on the client's profile.
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In the Documents tab, click the Send consultation button.
- Select how you want to send your form (either by SMS or email) and then search for the consultation form that you want to send your client.
If you're unable to see your consultations here, check that you've shared them with your business. This guide runs through how to do that: How to Share a Consult Form with your Business. If you haven't shared or created your own consultations, you'll be able to send one of our industry-standard consultations.
- Once you've found the consultation you want to send, click Send. If you've selected via SMS, this message uses a credit from your monthly SMS allowance.
- After you've clicked Send, your client will receive an SMS or email message with a link for them to fill in the consultation.
- If you have a second consultation to send to the client, you can click Send another consultation, otherwise, click Done.
- Once you click Done, you'll be able to see the consultation that was sent to the client and whether they've filled it in or not.
How to view a submitted consultation
Before viewing a consultation, your client needs to have submitted the consultation. What this means is, you're not able to view the consultation while they're filling it in, only once they've submitted it.
- To view the consultation, head to the Customers tab in Timely and search for the client you've sent the consultation to.
- Once you've selected the client, click the Documents tab on the client's profile.
- In the Documents tab, you'll be able to see all of the sent consultations. If your client has filled in the consultation, you can click View. If the client hasn't yet filled in the consultation, the View button won't be there and instead, it will say 'This hasn't been filled in yet'.
When your client updates their details in a consultation form, the details get synced and updated in Timely.