Appointment reminders: what you can do today

What 4appointments does and does not do today

When a customer books through the public page, the booking stays pending and holds the slot until your team confirms or rejects it. Confirming or rejecting sends the customer nothing, and neither do cancellations or changes made by your team. Some plans come with SMS and WhatsApp quotas from 4notify, but the booking flow does not use them. So do not assume the customer gets anything automatically: if you want them to remember the appointment, contact them yourself.

• A booking request arrives as pending and holds the slot until you confirm it
• Confirming, rejecting or cancelling a booking sends the customer no message
• The manage link appears only on the customer's confirmation screen and is not emailed
• Pending requests nobody resolves are cancelled automatically, without notice, about an hour after the requested time ends

Give the customer the essentials when they book

The best time to prevent a missed appointment is the booking itself. Tell the customer, in person or on your website, when and how you will be in touch. A few details are worth knowing:

• For bookings your team creates, the customer never sees the confirmation screen, so copy the manage link and send it yourself
• The phone number typed into the public form is not stored, so ask for the customer's preferred contact when you confirm
• Ask customers to save the manage link from their confirmation screen, because it is not sent by email
• Repeat the service, date, time and place in your message, so the customer does not have to look them up

A manual routine for the day before, and for your team

A short routine done at the same time each day works better than an occasional effort. Open tomorrow's bookings in the panel, or export the list to PDF and print it, then message each customer on the channel they gave you: a phone call, a WhatsApp message or an email from your own account. Ask for a short reply to confirm attendance, and cancel any booking in the panel that is called off, so the slot is free again. Each provider also has an ICS link that can be added to a phone calendar, which reminds the provider, not the customer, of the day's bookings. How often that calendar refreshes depends on the calendar app. Keep service messages to what the customer needs, such as the service, date, time and how to cancel. Before you use your customer list for offers or news, check the rules on electronic communications and data protection that apply where you are. General information, not legal advice.

Common questions