Help/Bookings/Messages and alerts

Messages and alerts

Your customers get emails from Bookings, and you send WhatsApp messages with one tap. You get alerts on your own phone by Telegram, and your appointments can appear in your Google Calendar.

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Emails and WhatsApp wording

You do not have to write any of these. Bookings already has wording for every one.

  1. Go to Messages. Under Emails to your customer are the emails Bookings sends: some go on their own, such as when you confirm, move or cancel an appointment; the rest only when you press something, such as Send invoice. Under WhatsApp messages you send is the wording used when you tap WhatsApp on an appointment.

    Every message, one row each. Tap one to change it.

  2. Tap one to open it. Change the subject, heading or message. Tap a placeholder such as {customer_name} to drop it in; it is filled in for each customer. The right side shows what your customer will see.

    Edit one message at a time and see it as the customer will.

  3. Want help writing it? Press Copy for your AI, paste it into ChatGPT or Claude, then paste the answer back into the boxes. Press Send this one to me to see it in your own inbox.

Nothing goes by WhatsApp on its own. WhatsApp opens with the message ready, and you press send. There are no automatic reminders: use the Remind button on an appointment the day before.

Alerts on Telegram

  1. Go to Alerts and press Connect Telegram. Open the bot on Telegram and send it the code shown. Press Send test message to check it works.

    One connection, and a tick for each thing you want to hear about.

  2. Under What to tell you about, untick anything you do not want. The connection is for your whole account, so the Online Shop uses the same chat.

  3. When someone says they have paid, the message has a Payment received button. Check your bank, then tap it. That confirms the booking, puts the money in your P&L, makes the invoice and emails your customer.

    Confirm a payment from your phone.

Google Calendar

  1. Go to Google Calendar and press Connect Google Calendar. Google asks you to approve two things: making its own calendar, and seeing when you are busy. Only the account owner can connect it.

  2. Every appointment goes into a calendar called SME AI Office Bookings in your Google account, and moves or disappears when the appointment does. Anything you are busy with in Google closes those times on your booking page, within ten minutes, or at once with Sync now.

    Your Google busy times close your booking page.

  3. Being busy in Google only stops new bookings. Anyone already booked in during that time is listed on Google clashes, so you can contact them.

Going on holiday? Google marks an all-day event as free, and a free event never reaches us. Set it back to busy in Google, or safer still, block the dates on your Calendar with Block out time.

Questions

What if an email to a customer fails?

If Telegram is connected, you are told, with a button to WhatsApp them instead. Tick We could not email a customer on Alerts.

Can SME AI Office read my Google appointments?

No. Google tells us only when you are busy, never what the entry says. We only ever write to our own calendar.

How do I go back to the suggested wording?

Open the message and press the button that starts Back to. It then keeps up with any later improvements we make.

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