Watch: How to send automatic come-back service reminders in SalesThumb (0:58)
Recurring service reminders bring customers back without manual outreach. Track your own rebook rate in Reports → Retention → Rebook Rate. Here's how to set up recurring reminders for ceramic top-ups, detail packages, tint inspections, and PPF maintenance.
Step 1 — Know which of the two engines you want
SalesThumb has two separate recurring-reminder switches, and they're aimed at different customers. Both live in Settings → Notifications, as their own cards partway down the page.
Service Reminders is the "we haven't seen you in a while" nudge. It's time-based and shop-wide: any customer whose last visit is older than your chosen interval gets one. Best fit for detail, wash, and general maintenance work where the customer won't self-schedule.
Recoat & Inspection Reminders is warranty-based. It watches your registered ceramic and PPF warranties and nudges the customer when an annual inspection or recoat comes due. This is the one for high-ticket coatings, where the reminder is really a warranty-compliance touch that happens to bring in revenue.
Most shops eventually want both. Neither is per-service — you're not picking "Ceramic 5-year package" from a dropdown — so if only part of your book needs a nudge, the warranty-based one is usually the more targeted of the two.
Step 2 — Turn on Service Reminders
In the Service Reminders card, flip Enable automatic service reminders on, then set Send reminder after N days. The field accepts 30 to 365 and defaults to 180 — a sensible starting point for ceramic, detail, and wash work. Once a day, SalesThumb picks up customers whose *last completed job* is older than that interval and sends them one short reminder: a text that names your shop, says roughly how many months it's been, and links to your booking page (customers who can't get marketing texts get the same note by email). The wording is fixed — it isn't a Message Template, so there's nothing to edit in the Message Templates list on Settings → Notifications. It doesn't repeat on a timer: a customer who never comes back gets one reminder, and the next one only goes out after they complete another job and lapse past the interval again.
Shorten the interval and you'll reach more customers more often, but you'll also start catching people who genuinely don't need to come back yet. Starting at the default and adjusting after a couple of cycles beats guessing up front.
Step 3 — Turn on Recoat & Inspection Reminders
In the Recoat & Inspection Reminders card, flip it on and set Remind this many days before due — the lead time ahead of the warranty's due date, defaulting to 30. That head start is deliberate: you want the customer booking before the date, not scrambling after it.
This one fires once per warranty per cycle, then re-arms once you mark that cycle resolved. So a customer who ignores the first nudge doesn't get pestered nightly, but the warranty also doesn't quietly drop off your radar.
Step 4 — Watch the first cycle
Neither card has its own sent/converted scoreboard — these are settings for a background job, not entries on the Automations page, so there's no per-reminder funnel to open. What you can do is watch the effect: reminders land in the customer's normal message thread, so replies come back to your inbox like any other conversation, and rebooked work shows up in your usual appointment and revenue reports.
Give it one full interval before judging it. With the 180-day default, the first wave is customers you genuinely haven't seen in half a year — expect a burst on day one as the backlog clears, then a much thinner steady trickle. That drop-off is normal, not the feature breaking.
Common mistakes
- Expecting a custom message. The Service Reminder wording is fixed and general ("it's been about N months since your last visit"). If you want to name a specific vehicle or service, send a targeted Blast or Drip to that customer group instead.
- Wrong timing. Don't send the reminder ON the anniversary — send before, so the customer can book on the anniversary itself.
- No reply handling. If the customer replies YES, somebody at the shop needs to actually offer times within 1-2 business hours. Set up the inbox notification (SMS notifications).