Disable SMS notifications for appointments

[daniele]

Is there a way to disable all SMS notifications to my clients?

I want to keep my communications email only and this doesn't seem to be an option in communications settings.

Thank you.

[Seamus]

Hey @daniele,

Thanks for reaching out and welcome to the Community!

You can change notification settings and methods via the Communications section of your Appointments Dashboard:

You can set confirmations to email only and turn off SMS reminders 🙂

[daniele]

Thank you Seamus,

These are already turned off, but the clients still get the following SMS:

"Hi Client, Business is reviewing your appointment request for 01/01 at 10:00AM. Look for a confirmation message soon. Thanks."

"Hi Client, you have cancelled your appointment for 01/01 at 10:00AM with Business. Visit link to book again."

"Hi Client, Business has cancelled for Sun 01/01 at 10:00AM. View history at link."

"Hi Client, we apologise but your appointment with Business on 01/01 at 10:00AM has been declined. Please contact us."

I'd like for those SMS notifications to be turned off as well, so they only receive these updates via email.

Is there a way to do that? 

[Seamus]

@daniele in this case it's possible that those messages still being sent are required by Square, and not editable or cancellable.

Is there any reason in particular you're looking to turn these off? My general assumption is that the more communications customers receive the better - some folks are not great at checking their emails in a timely manner, so going for a two pronged approach to comms means that there is less chance notifications may be missed!

Happy to hear your specific use case though, and pass the feedback on to our Appointments team! 

[daniele]

Hi Seamus,

I like to centralise all communications in a single channel (email) to avoid misunderstandings and have a clear history.

I establish with my clients that I don't work with text or social media inbox, so I prefer the notifications to be consistent with that.

Moreover, as other users have pointed out, many clients reply to the SMS unaware that that is not our number and I'd rather avoid that confusion. 

I personally feel a bit annoyed with the notification overload I get on my phone and would like to spare my clients from that noise if I could.

Especially now that I'd be migrating from my existing booking platform, clients would receive a random text about an appointment they booked weeks ago and that is only going ahead in a month or so. 

I understand that the SMS alerts are a great functionality for most businesses, but I'd suggest making these communications optional - especially considering we can't edit/personalise the message being sent.

Thank you!

[Seamus]

Thanks for the detailed description of your situation and use case @daniele!

I can't guarantee any changes will be made here, however I have passed your feedback on to our Appointments team for consideration - I can see why you'd want additional control over messaging channels in the scenario you've described!