How to customise your SMS message templates

Customising your messaging makes your automated communication feel more 'on brand', we're not going to tell you how to talk to your customers, with Timely you're able to say whatever you want to say. 

In Timely, you have a range of automated messages that you can send to customers:

1. Booking reminders.
2. Booking confirmations and notifications.
3. Notifications for customers who do not show up.
4. Follow-up messages.
5. Rebooking reminders.

These are a great way to keep customers in the loop with their appointments, without having to manually contact each customer individually.

Using Placeholder tags

When you create a new automated SMS message, you will be prompted to set the 

SMS template

. 

We will give you a default suggestion, but you can customise those messages to suit your specific business:

This is done using placeholder tags, which you can see on the left-hand side of the screen. When you add a placeholder tag to an SMS template, we will automatically populate the customer's message with the relevant information. Placeholders must be spelt correctly (including the underscores) and they must be in upper case. Feel free to copy and paste the placeholders from the list provided.

Note: Given the dynamic content of placeholders (e.g. Client first names/last names), we have a bit of a buffer in the number of characters used by the FIRST_NAME and LAST_NAME placeholders. You may notice that your message will run over into multiple messages if you use these placeholders - the reason for this is that we look for the longest client names in your account, and make an allowance for those. 

Adjusting the SMS template

Now that you know how to use placeholder tags, you can craft your SMS template. Remember you

only have 160 characters

, so use them wisely!

1. Head to Setup > Customer messages in the main menu.
2. Locate the SMS message in the list and click Edit:  

   

3. Scroll down to the SMS template section. Here you can edit your message, and insert placeholders where relevant: 
   
4. Check the Preview below to see how your message will look to your clients.
5. If you are setting up a reminder message and have two-way confirmation enabled, then you will see two previews.
   
   A Preview for confirmed bookings and a Preview for 2-way confirmation for bookings that are not yet confirmed: 
   
   

   Note: When Two-way confirmations are in place we'll automatically add a "Text Y to confirm" to the end of your message, so you will have less characters available.

6. If you make a mistake, or want to start from scratch you can use the Reset to default button to start again.
7. Click Save when you're ready to apply your changes.