Setting up an automation: triggers, waits and sending messages

Automations is the module that sends messages automatically when an event happens in your business. The difference from campaigns: a campaign is a one-off bulk send, while an automation runs continuously, event by event.

Setting up an automation

1. 1

   Name and trigger

   You give the automation a name and choose the trigger. You can limit it to specific services if you want; leave that empty and it runs for all services.

2. 2

   Add the steps

   You add steps to the flow in order: wait, condition and action. Steps run from top to bottom.

3. 3

   Activate it

   You save the automation and set it to active from the list.

Triggers

• Appointment: created, approved, completed, cancelled, no-show, postponed, approaching.

• Group event: approaching, participant added/cancelled, event cancelled.

• Class: session approaching or cancelled; enrolment created, cancelled, frozen.

• Customer: new customer registration.

• Package: sold, session used, remaining credit dropped to the threshold, expiry approaching, expired.

• Receivable: created, collected, due date approaching, overdue.

For "approaching" triggers you set how many hours beforehand it runs; for the package threshold you set how many sessions must be left.

Step types

• Wait: adds a delay in minutes, hours or days.

• Condition: lets the flow continue if the customer did or did not visit within the given number of days, or did or did not leave a review.

• Action: sends an SMS, a WhatsApp message or a mobile notification. The recipient can be the customer, the business owner or the staff member who delivers the service.

Message content

In messages you can use variables that change with the trigger (customer name, appointment date, remaining sessions, business name and so on). The appointment completed trigger also adds a review link variable — the most practical way to send customers an automatic invitation to review you.

Example: setting up an appointment reminder

Sending customers an automatic reminder before their appointment is the most commonly created automation:

1. 1

   Choose the trigger

   Create a new automation, tick appointment approaching as the trigger and enter how many hours before the appointment it should run (24 hours, for example).

2. 2

   Add the message action

   Add an SMS or WhatsApp message as the action, set the recipient to the customer and write the message text; you can use the customer name and appointment time variables.

3. 3

   Activate it

   Save the automation and set it to active from the list. From then on the reminder goes out automatically for every eligible appointment.