When emails go out about appointments, they go to both the client and to the staff. In navigating your Appointment Templates, you'll notice that you can view either the template categories that are sent to clients or sent to your staff. In this section of our documentation, we're going to go through the different email template categories that are sent to your clients and give you a run down of suggestions on what to include in them.
The categories of appointment templates that are sent to clients include:
- Added to Waitlist Confirmation
- Appointment Cancellation by Client
- Appointment Cancellation by Staff
- Appointment Cancellation Due to Non-Payment
- Appointment Changed or Rescheduled
- Appointment Completed
- Appointment Declined by Staff
- Appointment Reminder
- Appointment Reminder Text Message
- Appointments No Show
- Blank Template for Bulk Messaging
- Course Registration Cancellation
- Course Registration Cancellation Due to Non-Payment
- Invoice Pay Remaining Balance
- New Appointment by Client
- New Appointment by Staff
- New Course Registration
- New Repeating Appointment
- Repeating Appointment Cancellation Sent to Client
- Repeating Appointment Change Sent to Client
- Waitlist New Appointment Times Available
- Waitlist New Appointment Times Available Text Message
For more information about the individual template and tips on what to include in them, click on the corresponding link above.
Some important things to keep in mind on creating email templates to send to your clients include:
- Context: Depending on how appointments were made, clients can have a different expectations when an email hits their inbox. For instance, if they have cancelled their own appointment by logging into your web scheduler, then the cancellation email they receive (from the "Appointment Cancellation by Client" category) acts as more of a confirmation of their activity than a notification. On the other hand, if a staff member has to cancel their appointments for the day because their sick, then the cancellation email that the client receives (from the "Appointment Cancellation by Staff" category) acts more like an alert or notice and should aim to catch the client's attention. So in editing the email templates and getting the language and subject line down, be sure to think about what kind of context the client has around the notification before it is sent to them.
- Lingo: TimeTap's default email template lingo attempts to appeal to a wide array of industries. While we use the word "appointment", in your business it may be referred to as a meeting, reservation, or something else. Think about what makes the most sense to your clients as it relates to your business.
- Specificity: The two biggest ways that TimeTap allows you to get specific with email templates is by creating a custom email template for each one of your appointment reasons and/or by setting a language for each one. As with most things in life, simpler is generally better, so if you don't think a whole new template is needed for each type of appointment reason in each language, then no need to create all that granularity. But if you do have different instructions that are needed for different types of appointments, then you can create templates for that. Consider what type of differentiation needs to be made in emailing different clients. For instance, some doctors that use our application have services that require clients to fast before the appointment. This is a great example of when to create a specific email template for a service. Other business's service some clients who speak English and others who speak Spanish – this is another great use case for when to create email templates that are specific to a clients preferred language.
- How it all fits together: Appointments have more moving parts than it may seem. You'll want to be aware of what options you are providing clients with and how your other settings are configured. For instance, if you allow cancellations or reschedulings up to 48 hours in advance of the appointment but you send the reminder email out to the client 24 hours before the appointment, it wouldn't make sense to include a link in the reminder email to cancel or reschedule. In each of the different template pages linked above, we do our best to make you aware of the different moving parts to consider with each template.