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Everything about: Customer Communication (Email, SMS)

Cancellation email

When a customer cancels their own appointment cancels or an employee deletes the appointment in the calendar, the customer receives a confirmation email. If you would like to provide your own text for this email, you can do so.

The prerequisite for the customer to receive this message when an appointment is deleted by an employee is that the notification option has been activated in the calendar settings. For online cancellations by the customer, cancellation confirmations are always sent.
You can access this area via Settings > Appointment confirmations & reminders > Emails > Cancellation email

Standard cancellation email

Even if the "Appointment cancellation text" field is empty, cancellation confirmations will be sent to your customers!

If you do not provide your own text, the customer receives our standard text. This includes the location and date and time of the cancelled appointment. The cancellation email is embedded in your email design and contains the configured header image.

Create your own cancellation email

If you would like to write your own text, you can do so. Please make sure that you use the necessary placeholders (such as date, time, company name, etc.). A link to rebook an appointment or a reference to current promotions can also serve as motivation for the customer to book a new appointment soon.

Cancellation email example

Reminder Time

Set the timing for email and SMS reminders.

You can access this area via Settings > Appointment Confirmations & Reminders

Normally, a reminder is sent via SMS or email 24 hours before the appointment. However, you can adjust the reminder time yourself.

Changing this value will cause new appointments to be reminded by default at this interval. Existing appointments that have already been entered will retain the reminder time that was set before the change.

Recommendations for reminder period

If you have special cancellation rules, you can adjust this time. Sometimes customers only realize through the reminder that they cannot attend the appointment. If you only allow cancellations within a certain time period (e.g. up to 24 hours before an appointment), it makes sense to set a larger reminder period, e.g. with 48 hours notice.

Attention: If you send reminder SMS, please pay attention to an appropriate reminder period so that the customer does not receive the SMS message at night. We recommend 24 or 48 hours, as the reminder time will then correspond to the time of day of the appointment.

Sending time window

Please note that there is also a 24-hour sending time window. This means that if an appointment is created within the set reminder period, an SMS is sent immediately upon appointment creation.

Example: If you have set a reminder time of 48 hours, SMS messages will be sent immediately for appointments within the next 24 - 48 hours.

Internal Messaging System

Your employees can send each other messages within the Belbo calendar.

You can access this area via Settings > Internal Messaging System
If this function is not activated, it can be activated via "Settings > Add Function".

Prerequisites for internal messages

To use the messaging function, all your employees must have their own PIN.
You can find out how to set up the employee PIN here.

Sending and receiving messages

After activating the function, you can send messages to your colleagues in the calendar.

Send messages
Click on the person in the calendar to whom you want to send a message. Select "Write a message to Name" in the menu that opens. Then enter your own PIN and compose the message.


Read messages
Once you have received a message from a colleague, you can see this by the green symbol next to your name. Click on yourself and select "read my messages" in the menu that opens.


Waiting list entries in the messaging system

Even if customers put themselves on the waiting list online, the employees selected by the customer are notified via internal message.

Customer Messages

You can send your customers messages via email and SMS. These messages include:

  • Appointment confirmations (these are sent immediately after saving the appointment in the calendar or completing the online booking)
  • Appointment reminders (these are sent at the time period you set in the calendar settings)
  • Marketing messages (these include newsletters, birthday greetings or review requests)
You can access this area in every customer file via
Messages > Notifications

Each customer has the option to specify in their own profile which messages they wish to receive. The prerequisite for this is that you have entered an email address in the customer master data. In this area, you can see what preferences the customer has set regarding the receipt of messages.

Please note that you are obligated to respect the customer's wishes. Failure to do so may result in legal consequences related to the General Data Protection Regulation.

Customers who cannot or do not wish to provide an email address can confirm in writing that they agree to the sending of certain marketing messages. You can upload a scan of this document in the upload field on the messages page. A purely verbal agreement cannot be proven at a later date and is therefore insufficient in case of dispute.

SMS-TAN

If you want to ensure that the mobile phone number provided by the customer is correct, you can activate SMS-TAN. Only after entering the TAN can the user register or book appointments. Customers cannot enter an incorrect mobile phone number, either intentionally or unintentionally.

You can access this area via Settings > SMS TAN Procedure
If this function is not activated, it can be activated via "Settings > Add Function".

Please note that the "SMS Sending" module must be active! Otherwise, SMS-TANs cannot be sent and customers may not be able to register or book online.

Example of registration with SMS-TAN:

Enforce an SMS TAN for every appointment booking

Customers can only book appointments definitively after entering the TAN sent to their mobile phone.

Sending SMS-TANs incurs costs depending on your SMS option.

SMS sending

Your calendar can send SMS messages. You can use these for automatic reminders and confirmations, as well as for TANs or broadcast SMS.

You can access this area via Settings > SMS Dispatch
If this function is not activated, it can be activated via "Settings > Add Function".

After you have activated the "SMS Dispatch" function, you can set various properties.

Settings

  • Payment Option There are two payment methods to choose from:
    • Package price per month A package consists of 150 SMS. Depending on usage, additional packages are automatically added as needed. Remaining SMS expire at the end of the month.
    • 8 cents/SMS With this payment method, you are not bound to a package price, but only pay for each SMS sent.
  • SMS Limit per Month Please set the SMS limit per month here. When the limit is reached, no further SMS will be charged or sent.
  • Sender Type and Sender ID Set the sender of the SMS that your customers receive from you. You have the following options:
    • Specify Number If you want your customers to see a number they can reply to, please provide a mobile phone number. The associated device should either be present in your business or be managed by a person who regularly handles customer messages.
    • Specify Name If you do not want to provide a reply mobile phone number, you can enter the name of your business. Please note that according to international standards, a maximum of 11 characters is possible. The sender ID will appear instead of the phone number. This way, the customer immediately knows who sent the SMS.

Online Booking

Your customers can decide for themselves whether they want to receive an SMS reminder. You can set whether customers can opt in and out of SMS dispatch during online booking. You can find this in Appointment Confirmations & Reminders under SMS > Settings.
With the second checkbox, an SMS reminder is mandatory.

Notification

You and your staff can be notified if an SMS could not be sent. Your Belbo calendar shows in the message area of each customer record whether and when an SMS was received from the user's device. If you wish, you can receive a message directly in the calendar as soon as a dispatch fails.

Advanced

  • Character Limit If your SMS messages are longer than 160 characters, at least 2 SMS will be sent, which causes higher costs. We therefore recommend that you keep your reminder and confirmation texts appropriately brief.
  • Landline SMS If you wish, your SMS can also be delivered as a voice message to landline phones.
  • Automatic Area Code If you do not enter your customers' mobile phone numbers with country codes, you can specify the area code here, which will be automatically added during dispatch in this case.

Overview

Under the Overview tab, you have a list of all SMS sent or rejected per month.

Tip: If you want SMS messages to be pre-selected when saving an appointment, set this under Settings > Calendar > Appointment Entry > Required Fields > Default.

For more information about your account settings, click here.

Invitation emails

In the file card of every customer who has not yet registered for online booking, there is a prominent link "Invite customer to online booking", as soon as an email address is stored in the customer file card.

Tip: If you want to send an email newsletter with invitations to your entire customer base, use the marketing functions.

You can access this area via Settings > Email Settings

Using invitation emails

Compose invitation email
Enter the subject and text content of the email that should be sent to your customers.
Please note: Salutation with the customer's name and closing greeting are added automatically. You do not need to include these yourself.


Use invitation email
In each customer file card for which an email address is stored, you will find the link "Invite customer to online booking", provided they have not yet registered. When you click on this link, a text input field appears with your text template, which you can edit if desired.


Example of an invitation email in the mailbox
In addition to your text, the customer receives their access email credentials and the link to your online booking in the email:

Sample text for your invitation email

Book your next appointment easily online!

Simply click on the link below in the email and set your password. After that, you can book appointments online anytime and conveniently.

We look forward to seeing you!

All articles on the topic of email and SMS templates can be found here.

Email Settings

Here you can make general email settings.

You can access this area via Settings > Email Settings

Reply Email Address

The email address entered here applies to all locations. So only enter something here if you have a single reply email address for all locations. This makes sense if you are an employee of a chain that has a central office that handles the emails.
If empty: Replies will be sent to your location email address, which you can set in the location settings.

Colors

If you want to change the text or background colors of your emails, you can do so here. Please make sure the text remains legible.

Application example:
If your company color is yellow, it makes sense to adjust the background color to yellow, but not the text color.

Repeat Subject in Email

The email subject can be repeated in the header area of the content.

All articles on email and SMS templates can be found here.

Direct Messages

In every customer file you have the option to send direct messages to individual customers. Here you can create templates for direct messages, so you don't have to write frequently sent messages from scratch every time.

You can access this area via Settings > Email Settings

Tip: If you want to send this message to all your customers after the appointment as a general rule, it's best to use Automated Emails.

Using text templates

Create template
To create a text template, click +Create text template.
Give the template a meaningful name so you can identify it later.
Then enter the desired texts for email and SMS. If you only want to compose one of the two message types, leave the field empty. Please note that SMS will only be sent if you have activated the SMS sending function.

Example of a text template:

There is a character limit of 3000 characters.

Use text template
Open the customer file of the customer to whom you want to send the message. In the Messages section you can click + Send message to send a new message. Your saved text templates are available here.
Please note that you should only make personal additions after loading the text template.

Using text template in the customer file:


All articles on the Email and SMS Templates section can be found here.

Email texts

Set the text that appears in the footer area of your emails.

You can access this area via
Customers > SMS and Text Templates > Design > Texts

Recommendations for the email closing text

The closing text appears in each of your emails. Link your website or Facebook page, your online booking, or your address here.

Set links
To set a link, highlight the desired text and click on the link icon (chain links) in the menu bar of the text field.


Example of an email closing text

All articles on the Email and SMS Templates section can be found here.