Text Message Reminders to Clients

Did you know that you can send text message reminders to your clients’ mobile phones prior to their appointments? Text messages are a great way to reach clients while they are on the go or without access to email. Text reminders can help to reduce your no-show rate and ensure more clients are on time for their appointments.  There is no additional charge for this feature — it’s included in your Full Slate subscription.

To set up text message reminders, go to Messages > Automatic Messages, click ‘Add message’ and select ‘Appointment reminder’ and then select the ‘SMS (Text Message)’ template. You can even customize the language in the text message and include placeholders to dynamically change the message.

Here’s an example of what a text message reminder to your client might look like:

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We recommend setting the text message reminder for one day prior to each appointment, and an email reminder two or more days prior.

Unlike email reminders, clients must opt in to receive text message reminders during the booking process.  Alternatively, if they’ve given permission offline, you can check off that you have received written consent in Clients > Details. For additional information on the feature, please take a look at our help article.

This is the first post of a series focused on how you can get the most benefit for your business from Full Slate – more to come!

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Track Appointment Status

You can now track the status of each appointment on your schedule. With our latest release, you can mark that your client has confirmed they’ll attend, as well as indicate when the client has checked in, when the appointment has been completed and when the client has no-showed.Appointment Status

To update the status of an appointment, simply click the appointment on the Schedule tab and click the Confirmed button and/or Checked In, Complete, or No Show button. Marking an appointment as Confirmed will add a checkmark icon to the appointment. And a separate icon will be added to indicate whether the appointment is in the Checked In, Complete or No Show status. That way you can see at a glance the status of each appointment.

 

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Credit Card Capture, Deposits & Payments

Full Slate now integrates with various payment processors so businesses can require clients to place a credit card on file, put down a deposit or pay in full in when scheduling appointments online.

Credit Card Capture

Now you can collect a credit card number from clients to hold an appointment time without actually charging the card at the time of booking. Full Slate integrates with several leading payment processors – including Stripe and Authorize.net – that provide the ability to securely store credit card information for later use. Credit card capture can cut down on no-shows and gives you a way to enforce your cancellation policy by charging a fee for missed appointments.

Deposits

Collecting a credit card number or payment in online schedulerAnother option is requiring a deposit – either flat fee or percentage of the cost of service – at the time of booking. Non-refundable deposits provide a guaranty that the client will show up similar to credit card capture, but are less susceptible to dispute and charge-back than fines applied after the fact. And, since the charge is processed immediately, you don’t necessarily need to have a merchant account that provides for secure storage of full credit card numbers.

Payments

Businesses that wish to require payment in full at the time of booking now have the option of using an existing merchant account and their choice of payment gateways. In addition to PayPal Payments Standard, Full Slate supports PayPal Payments Advanced and Pro with Checkout Express, Payflow, Authorize.net, and Stripe. These offer seamless integration, so clients can pay for appointments right in your scheduling widget or webpage without being handed off to another site.

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