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How to set up SMS notifications

Updated

Automated notifications streamline your communication with clients about upcoming appointments, ensuring they're well-informed and engaged. 

The use of SMS and email reminders significantly reduces the rate of no-shows by keeping your clients in the loop. They are not only beneficial for your clients but also provide essential reminders for you and your team members. This guide will walk you through the process of purchasing and setting up SMS notifications for your bookers, yourself, or your team members.

This feature is available on Individual, Professional, and Team plans.

 

In this article:

Purchasing SMS credits in your YCBM dashboard

1. To use SMS notifications, navigate to your Account Settings first to purchase SMS credits. 

  • 1 SMS credit includes 160 characters.
  • Cost per SMS credit: 7¢ (US) / €0.07 (EUR) / £0.05 (GBP)
  • Purchasing 200 credits or more will qualify for a volume discount.

2. Select from the dropdown how many you'd like to purchase, the minimum is 20 credits. 

Purchase SMS credits

 

Automating your SMS booking reminders

Navigate to your Notification Settings on a booking page to set up or modify your booking-related emails and SMS reminders. 

YouCanBookMe offers the following SMS notification options: 

  • After a new booking is confirmed.

  • If the booking is rescheduled.

  • If the booking is canceled.

  • Reminders before the booking takes place.

  • Follow-ups after a booking.

  • If the booking is marked as a no-show.

notifications workflow

Set up a phone number field to collect mobile phone numbers on a booking form. 

Head over to your booking page settings, then Additional Options ➜ Booking Form to add a phone number field to the booking form.

  1. Add a new question ➜ Phone number
  2. Make sure the Mobile phone option is checked ✔ - without this enabled you won't be able to send SMS to your bookers!

Booking form

 

Send an SMS booking reminder to yourself

To send yourself an SMS reminder: 

  1. Add your mobile number to your account settings 
  2. Enter your mobile number in an international format. Start with "+" and your country code. Drop any leading zero from your area code and any spaces/dashes. Save your changes by hitting Update preferences.
  3. Navigate to Notification workflows to set up your SMS reminders. 
  4. Decide when the SMS should be sent.
  5. The sender number is either your number {ACCOUNT-MOBILE} or the booker's (Phone numbers from your booking form), or you enter a custom phone number.
    The SMS message can be sent to multiple recipients. Select Enter a custom phone number, and enter multiple shorthand codes from your booking page or multiple phone numbers, separated by a comma. 
  6. Personalize the SMS message or add shortcodes to automate your SMS message. 
  7. Shorthand codes may expand to longer text, resulting in more than 1 credit being used in a single message. Make sure to verify the SMS characters total so you know how many credits your text will use.

Pro tip: After you set up all your SMS notifications, make a test booking to check your messages are being sent correctly and look the way you want!

 

View sent SMS messages and replies

1. Head over to your account settings and click View Messages, or click this link for direct access

2. The SMS notifications history will show all the messages ever sent from your account, with the title, to whom it was sent, the sent date and the status.

3. If the SMS shows as failed, check the following things:

How SMS messages are routed

When a booker replies to an SMS message they receive, that reply is turned into an email. 

All SMS replies will be sent from notifications@youcanbook.me in your inbox. Clicking Reply on the email will send the response to the booker's email address. 

They are routed to an email address as follows:

  • On a team booking page
    The SMS reply will go to the team member's email that received the booking
  • With Gmail integrated
    The SMS reply will go to the Gmail address integrated with YouCanBook.me
  • If a Contributor, Editor or Administrator received a booking
    The SMS reply will go to the account email address of the Contributor, Editor or Administrator
  • Any other replies
    All other SMS replies will go to the Account Owner email address

Opt-in SMS:

If you want to get your bookers' consent before sending SMS reminders about their bookings, you can include a check box on the booking form for SMS communications. 

Opt-out of SMS:

Bookers can opt out of your SMS messages by replying to the SMS with any of these words: 
STOP, STOPALL, UNSUBSCRIBE, CANCEL, END, or QUIT

 

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

1. I cannot purchase SMS credits, what should I do?

  • If you receive a warning in your account that you cannot purchase SMS credits, get in touch with our support team. 

2. Can I purchase more than 10,000 credits?

  • For a custom bulk purchase for SMS, please contact us directly. 

3. Why did my SMS take more than 1 credit?

  • The number of credits per SMS depends on the message length – an SMS of 160 characters or less is 1 credit. A longer message will take 2 or more credits. Check the amount of links and shorthand codes you are using in your messages. Additionally, you might have unicode characters (for example é, â, ä) that use more characters per credit. Review your message via this link to make sure there is no unicode in your SMS. 

4. Can I personalize the number that sends the SMS?

  • It is not possible to personalize or customize the number that sends the SMS to your bookers. YCBM offers region-specific numbers, based on the location of your booker. If no region-specific number is available for a specific country, the sending number defaults to a US number.

5. What happens when a booker replies to the SMS message?

  • When the booker/your customer replies to an SMS message, that reply is turned into an email. Where the email is sent depends on the factors listed above. 

6. How can I reply to my client via SMS?

  • To respond to the client via SMS, you would need to copy their mobile number into your personal mobile device and send a reply via text.

7. The SMS status is marked as succeeded, but my booker didn't receive anything - what can I do?

  • Some mobile carriers have started filtering out unknown numbers to help cut down on spam SMS. Unfortunately, YouCanBookMe doesn't have control over the regulations set by each mobile phone company. If you'd like to find out what happened to your SMS message, please reach out to our support team. Be sure to include the booking reference number, the SMS notification that wasn't sent, and the date and time.

8. Can I purchase SMS on a free plan?

  • SMS is available on all of our plans, including our Free plan.

 

For further questions, contact our team at support@youcanbook.me.

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