Setting up SMS job reminders

Set up SMS reminders so your customers are notified the day prior to their upcoming job. Reminders are sent at 9am in your business's time zone the day before your customer's scheduled job.

Navigate to your job settings page in Housecall by clicking into the gray Settings wheel icon in the top right corner of your homepage or dashboard. This icon is located to the left of your profile picture.
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On the left-hand side of your screen, you will see the Settings menu. Scroll down and click into Jobs, followed by Job reminders from the drop-down options. This will open up the job reminder settings page.

You will see a toggle on that page under the heading Set SMS reminders. SMS job reminders will be toggled off by default. To activate the reminders, click on the toggle. It will turn blue when enabled.

Customizing the SMS message in the job reminder allows Pros to tailor the information in the SMS job reminder according to which aspects of the upcoming job they wish to show or hide. The default message format will display the following: "Hi Customer First Name, Technician Name from Company Name is scheduled to arrive Job Date at Job Time."

Customize your SMS job reminders by clicking on the blue pencil icon to the right of the SMS Preview section within the Job Reminders settings.

A pop-out will appear on the right side of your screen with a heading titled Edit SMS. Here you will see your default message settings with pre-formatted variables in white oval bubbles, which you can either keep or remove from the message. For example, if you do not want to display your technician's last name in your SMS job reminders, locate the oval bubble containing "Tech last name" and click on the blue X inside that bubble.
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To add variables, such as "Invoice number", click on the blue ADD VARIABLE drop-down in the pop-out window and select the variables you wish to include in your job reminder.

You also have the option to edit the text surrounding the variables. For example, you may wish to start the message with "Hello", instead of "Hi". To do this, simply delete the text you want to remove and type in the text you would like to be displayed in your SMS job reminders. When you have proofread your job reminder message and you are happy with how it will look, click on the blue, oval Save button.
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​Note: SMS job reminders have a maximum allowance of 160 characters, including the content of the optional variables. We encourage you to consider this when crafting your desired job reminder message.

To the left of the SMS job reminder toggle located in the block under the heading Set SMS reminders, you will see an option in blue to Preview your enabled job reminder. This SMS Job reminder preview will pop-up in a central window on your screen. Click on the blue, rectangular Close button to close out the pop-up preview.

1. Are these reminders sent for estimates as well?

No, the SMS job reminders are currently only sent for jobs at this time.

2. What happens when 'Send to customers with notifications off' is toggled on?

Even if specific customers have turned off their notifications, when the toggle is on, this will override that setting and the SMS job reminder will still go out. Learn more about turning customer notifications off here.

3. I am not currently approved to send SMS. What does that mean?

Each organization must have a custom number in order to send SMS messages to customers. This includes SMS job reminders. Additionally, there is a registration process that all organizations must go through before choosing a custom SMS number. Instructions for setting that up may be found here.

4. Can I customize the time and frequency of these messages?

No, the time and frequency of SMS job reminders cannot be customized at this time. All messages will go out at 9am in your local time zone, the day prior to the job.

5. I have all the settings turned on and my customer is still not receiving their reminders.

Customers have the option to opt out of SMS communications, so if a customer is not receiving job reminders and your SMS job reminder setting is toggled on, the customer may have opted out of SMS communications. They can always respond to the original message with START to be able to receive messages from you again.

6. How do I send email reminders?

Email reminders can be set up through the email automation app in Housecall. Click here to learn more.