Reminders and Confirmations

The messages a booking site sends

One job per message

Each template we write does one transactional job: it confirms, reminds, records a change or records a cancellation. It names your business, gives your contact details and links to the change page, and nothing else competes for attention. That habit also keeps the messages on the right side of Canada's Anti-Spam Legislation, which exempts from its consent requirement messages that solely facilitate, complete or confirm a transaction the recipient already agreed to¹. The legal detail, including sender identification and unsubscribe rules, is in our guide on CASL and appointment reminders. This page is about what we build. None of it is legal advice.

What we set up

• Templates for every message type in the table above, written in your voice and checked on a phone screen.
• Send timings set per service, for example a day ahead for a haircut and two days ahead for a treatment that needs preparation.
• A sender name and reply address your customers will recognize, and a staff copy of each booking where you want one.
• The email records your domain needs (such as SPF and DKIM) so the booking system is authorized to send as you.
• Promotional messages, if you want them, kept in a separate list with its own consent step.

Email, text or both

Email is cheap and holds more detail. Text messages are short, but they are hard to miss on the day. Many booking systems offer both, often with a per-message cost for texts. We help you choose a timing that suits the service: a day before for most appointments, a little longer for anything that needs preparation. We also make sure the sender name, the reply address and the phone number in the message all point back to your business.

Change and cancel links

Every confirmation and reminder should give a clear way to change plans. A customer who can move an appointment in two taps is less likely to simply not turn up. The link leads to a page that applies your policy, for example allowing free changes until a set time before the appointment and then showing your contact details instead. The details live on our rescheduling and cancellations page.

Clinics and sensitive details

For health practices, the content of a reminder needs extra care. A message that names a type of treatment can reveal more than a patient wants a family member to see on a shared phone. In Ontario, the Information and Privacy Commissioner's guidance on email, as summarized by a law firm, says custodians should limit the amount and type of personal health information included in emails². We write clinic reminders with the time, the location and the practice name, and leave clinical details out.

Testing before launch

We send every message type to real inboxes and phones before launch, check how it reads on a small screen, confirm that links open the right page and check that the time shown matches the booking in the recipient's time zone. We also confirm that your domain's email settings allow the booking system to send on your behalf, so confirmations do not land in spam folders.