Message received!
We understand that communication is the key to any healthy relationship and the relationship you have with your customers is no different. So we've made some changes in Timely to give you greater control over conversations with your customers.
Using reminders and notifications is a great way to open the lines of communication, keep your customers in the loop with their appointments and reduce those pesky no-shows that hurt your bottom-line.
Low cost and easy to use, email and SMS are both great ways to reach out to customers. Nowadays everyone has access to one or the other and most have both!
As digital discussions they’re easy to keep a track of: no more handwritten letters, searching for stamps in the bottom of the drawer or worrying if the recipient even got your message. Now, even if they didn’t get it you can just send another copy to them with the click of a few buttons.
With this in mind, we decided to add some additional bells and whistles to help strengthen those lines of communication.
So, what exactly have we changed?
These additions are based on a bunch of awesome requests you’ve made through the feedback forum:
- Delete customer SMS messages
- Manually stop a notification or reminder from being sent
- Resend a confirmation or reminder message
- Mark a received message as unread/read
With these awesome new additions you can now select one, some or all of your messages at once and apply an action to them.
Sent messages
In the Sent messages tab, you can now:
- Delete any message(s) to remove them from your list
- Re-send any SMS/email reminder or notification
- Refresh your messages
- Stop all pending messages
A great option for those who love the clean and uncluttered minimal life (Inbox/outbox zero!) OR if a reminder or notification message is lost along the way and you need a quick way to resend it.
Received messages
If you pop over to the Received messages tab you can now:
- Delete all or some of your messages
- Mark all or some of your messages as being read
- Mark all or some of your messages as being unread
- Refresh your messages
This is fantastic for businesses who have multiple staff that need to check and/or respond to messages.
Selecting messages
To select a single message or just a couple of messages, click the checkbox next to the message(s) that you want in the list. Then choose an action to apply to it.
If you want to select all of the messages in your list, click the box at the top left of the page and select All of the messages. To remove your selection or unselect all of your messages, click the box and the top of the page and select None. This applies to all of your existing messages in that tab, not just the ones you can see.
In the Received messages tab you can all select all Unread or Read messages using this same checkbox and then mark all as read/unread.
What’s next?
This is just the beginning for the Messages tab as we’ve got some great things to look forward to as part of Version 2!
Here’s a hint at what’s to come:
- Live updating of the message counter
- Messages loading dynamically
- Staff messages
- Total message count
Phew! Managing your messages has just gotten that much easier, to see those changes in action make sure to head on over to the Messages tab and have a play!
Russell Smith
Looks great but I would love to be able to change the wording on my automatic E-Mail notifications (the same as SMS notifications)
Hey Russell, thanks so much for your feedback!
We totally agree and you'll be happy to hear that the ability to create and edit email templates (for reminders and notification etc) is something we are planning on adding.
We've got a couple of features we've got to knock out of the park before we get those email templates but they're definitely on the list :-D
Jeana
This is awesome! I would also like th ability to send out text messages to my entire group with special announcements. This way when we have a cancellation we can send a message letting everyone knwo that we have an unexpected opening and can see someone at a special discounted price, if they can fit that slot. I would also like to be able to send a "Thank You" text after their appontment and offer them the option to leave a review of their treatment. This will help us keep our performance top notch!
Hi Jeana, glad you like the changes to messaging. We have marketing SMS operating in NZ and Australia right now. Very soon this will be available elsewhere too. Stay tuned!
House Cleaning Oakland
Another suggestion - messages tab within customer's view. So we can see recent communication for that customer right from there not have to click on message and search by their name :)
Great idea and it's coming!
Yasir Dhia
Excellent new features. Still waiting on the ability to send an automated follow-up email after an appointment. Ex. Provide a re-booking link, provide a testimonial form or a surveymonkey link, etc. If this exists already or if there is a suggested workaround please let me know!
Hi Yasir, glad you love the new messaging features. We'll be looking at a follow up message sometime over the next few months. In the meantime, you can use MailChimp to send out emails to customers based on their last booking date. This might be helpful.
Shaun
Would love to see an option where client SMS replies can be sent to my e-mail inbox.
Hi Shaun, thanks for the feedback! We have been discussing this enhancement recently and it could be happening :)
In the meantime, make sure to vote on the feature request to give it a nudge. Add your particular requirements too to ensure they are captured.