Watch: How to Set Up Automatic Appointment Reminders (0:50)
Appointment reminders are a high-leverage automation. Shops that turn them on consistently see fewer no-shows — track your own before/after rate over time. Here's the setup.
Step 1 — Confirm your messaging setup is ready
Your shop texts from its own approved number — a new text number or your current business phone number — so make sure your texting setup in Settings → Texting shows as approved; until it is, no texts go out. If you've connected your own Twilio account via Bring Your Own Carrier, confirm your 10DLC campaign is approved with Twilio first; see 10DLC registration. Sending automated SMS on an unapproved BYOC campaign gets rejected by carriers and your reminders silently fail.
Step 2 — Open the reminder template editor
Settings → Notifications → Message Templates. Three of the templates there drive the appointment flow:
- Booking confirmation — sends immediately when a booking is created
- 24-hour reminder — sends ~24 hours before the appointment
- 1-hour reminder — sends ~1 hour before the appointment (off by default — turn it on if you want it)
Each template has:
- A subject (for email only)
- A body
- A toggle (on/off)
- A channel (SMS or email)
One thing to watch on that list: it's split into "Live — sends automatically", "Send manually" (texts you pick from Quick replies in Messages), and "Not used" (older starter texts another feature already covers). The three above are live.
Step 3 — Edit the templates
Click a merge field in the "Available merge fields" card to copy it. That card lists ten: {{first_name}}, {{last_name}}, {{shop_name}}, {{date}}, {{time}}, {{vehicle}}, {{address}}, {{review_link}}, {{quote_url}}, and {{amount}}.
The card is a menu for all templates, not a promise about the one you're editing. Each send only fills in the fields that make sense for it, and a field the send doesn't supply comes out blank — not as literal braces, so it's easy to miss. Nothing warns you and nothing blocks the send. What each of these three actually fills in:
- Booking confirmation — {{first_name}}, {{last_name}}, {{shop_name}}, {{date}}, {{time}}, {{vehicle}}, {{address}}
- 24-hour reminder — {{first_name}}, {{shop_name}}, {{date}}, {{time}}, {{address}}. Note there's no {{vehicle}} on this one, even though the card offers it
- 1-hour reminder — {{first_name}}, {{shop_name}}, {{time}}, {{address}}
Booking confirmation is the only one of the three that can name the customer's car. Test any template you edit against your own number before you trust it.
Recommended templates:
Booking confirmation (SMS): "Hey {{first_name}}, you're booked at {{shop_name}} for your {{vehicle}} on {{date}} at {{time}}. We're at {{address}}. Reply STOP to opt out."
24-hour reminder (SMS): "Hi {{first_name}}, reminder you're booked at {{shop_name}} tomorrow at {{time}}. We're at {{address}}. Need to change it? Just reply."
1-hour reminder (SMS): "{{first_name}}, see you in about an hour at {{shop_name}}. We're at {{address}}. Running late? Reply with your ETA."
Note that the 24-hour and 1-hour reminders only send while their template is toggled on — switch a reminder template off and that reminder doesn't go out at all. (The Follow-up template used for review requests is the one that falls back to default wording when it's off.)
Step 4 — Watch the numbers for a week
Reminders are one of the few changes where you can see the effect quickly. Two places to look:
Messages → Deliverability (the SMS health view) covers the sending side:
- Delivery rate — should stay at or above 95%; a sudden drop usually signals a carrier or 10DLC registration issue
- Failure breakdown — tells you *why* the failures happened rather than just how many
- Opt-outs — watch for a spike. That's your signal the message frequency is too aggressive.
Reports covers the effect you actually care about — your no-show rate, which should drop noticeably within a couple of weeks. Compare it against the same stretch before you turned reminders on.
Common mistakes
- Both 24h AND 1h reminder on a same-day booking. A customer who books at 10am for a 2pm appointment gets the booking confirmation, then the 1-hour reminder — three messages inside four hours if the confirmation and both reminders are all on. Each send is marked so it can't repeat, but for a shop that takes a lot of same-day work, consider running the confirmation plus one reminder rather than all three.
- Reminder timing too early. A 24h reminder that fires at 6am for a noon appointment is annoying. Anchor to "morning of" rather than "exactly 24h prior" for early morning slots.
- Long marketing-style language. This is a reminder, not a campaign. Be brief.