Customer Email: Appointment Reminder - Tentative
This automated email gets triggered when jobs are tentatively scheduled based on the job's frequency period. You can set it up so a single email is sent or an entire sequence of emails are sent (drip, drip). And you can set up different reminder emails for different types of customers.
So let's start on the email automation screen like we do for all automated emails.
You can also visit the email automation screen by hovering your mouse over the " My Account" tab, scrolling down to "Email Options", and clicking "Email Automation":
The appointment reminder (tentative) email rule is right under the appt reminder for scheduled jobs. So go ahead and check that box to the left of " To Be Scheduled Jobs" under the "Appointment Reminder (Tentative)" heading.
The next thing that you need to do is select the time you want the "tentative" appointment reminder emails to be sent. The default is 7 am. If you want to select a different time, just click the dropdown arrow and make your choice.
Next, select from the dropdown the type of customer you want to send the tentative appt reminder email to. For example, maybe you want only residential customers to receive this particular email. So just click the dropdown and select "All Residential Customers".
Next you can select from 3 choices when you want the email to be sent. This may depend on how busy you are. For example, the default choice is "the day of their tentative appointment". This means that if a customer was scheduled 6 months ago and their frequency period is "semiannually" then they will get the tentative reminder email exactly 6 months later.
However, you may not want to wait until the very day of their tentative appt to send them their reminder email. You may want to remind them 30 days prior to their tentative appt. So in that case you would simply insert "30" into the "days prior to their tentative appt" field. This means that the above customer will receive their tentative appt reminder email 30 days prior (in 5 months instead of 6 months) to their tentative appt.
Please note the "include past customers" checkbox in the above screenshot. This doesn't look like a big thing but it is. What it means is if you're setting up the tentative appt reminder emails today but there are customers who have already had their tentative reminder date pass by then will never receive a reminder email at all.
Example:
Bob Jones had a job done on Feb 1, 2018 and the frequency period for this job is semiannually. So assuming the user has "the day of their tentative appointment" selected then this means the customer would normally receive their 6 month tentative reminder on Aug 1, 2018, right?
But what happens if you're setting up these tentative appt reminder emails on Oct 5, 2018? Aug 1st has already come and gone. The tentative reminder email would typically not get sent since this customer's tentative due date is in the past.
That's where this "include past customers" option comes in. We highly recommend that you check this option. If you do that, then the above Bob Jones customer, along with all other customers who have tentative due dates that have already passed, will get a tentative appt reminder email the very next day!
Ok...so to continue on, you next have to select the email to send. We have a sample of course, so click the "Click here" link as shown:
This email can be used "as is" or edited to better fit your needs.
Please note in the image below, the arrows are pointing to the subject field, the message area, and the "Personalize" dropdowns:
The "Personalize" dropdown above the editor becomes active when your cursor is inserted into the editor and the "Personalize" dropdown to the right of the subject field becomes active when your cursor is in the subject field. This allows you to personalize the emails completely.
When you're done click the "Save & Activate" button at the bottom of the email window.
If you want to send a test email and see the overall look and feel of the email, click the "Send a test" link under the "Tentative Appointment Reminder" email title and in the window that opens you can insert your email address and name. Click the "Send Test" button and it'll arrive right away.
Ok...ready to get excited? We're now going to discuss how to get the most bang for your buck. Sending out a single email to remind customers it's time to get serviced is actually not recommended. Why send out one when you can send out a few? :) So we want to drip emails to customers. We're not talking about hard sells, twisting the arms of your customers, and bombarding them with an endless stream of emails. That doesn't work.
We're talking about low key emails that are properly spaced (enough days between each email that is sent) which are more like gentle reminders just nudging your customer a little bit that it's time for service again.
So check the "Send multiple appointment reminder emails" checkbox:
This opens up a row of text where you can click on the "sample email" as shown above to create email #2. Just like all of our sample emails you can edit it if needed or use "as is".
What makes emails #2 through #7 (we have 7 samples but you can create more if you want to) different from the first email is that you can control how many days it is sent after the previous email:
So in the example above I inserted "4" so this second email will go out 4 days after the previous email. Use spacing that you feel comfortable with. You may feel more comfortable sending out the second email 10 days after the previous email for example. If you look at the email itself though, it's a very low key email just giving the customer another gentle reminder. I really can't see how any customer would feel inundated with emails like this.
Then click "Save & Activate" and create the next email. You certainly don't have to set up all 7 emails but we do recommend it. They will work for you 24/7 with no effort on your part!
Let's fast forward and we now have emails #2 through #7 saved and activated. Check 'em out:
If you add it all up that's 7 emails sent in just over 2 months that you didn't have to lift a finger for. Sweet! Of course it's still good to follow up with a nice phone call on occasion but why not let The Customer Factor do the heavy lifting for you by warming your customers up.
Closing notes:
1) Once you schedule a job for any customer receiving these tentative appt reminder emails then the emails will stop.
2) If a customer calls you for whatever reason such as saying they're interested but to call them in 3 months or maybe they call you and tell you they're not interested, etc, you can open up their callback window and choose to "Stop" the emails. They will be stopped immediately.
Have fun!
Best regards,
