Email a customer from a booking

Write to one customer about their appointment, from a blank page or one of your own templates, with a record kept on the booking.

Sometimes you need to tell one customer something no automatic message covers: their results are back, the clinic is closing early, they should bring their passport. Email customer on a booking lets you write it in Booked, fill it with that booking’s details, check it and send it in your own email design — and it is recorded on the booking, so the whole team can see it went.

Open the window

1. Open the bookingFrom Bookings, click its row; from the Diary, click the appointment and choose Open booking.
2. Choose Email customerIt is under Quick actions, down the right-hand side. The button only appears when the booking has an email address.

• 1Start from — A blank email, or one of your own templates, listed by name. Picking one fills in the subject and the email; if you have typed anything, Booked asks before replacing it.
• 2Subject — it cannot be left empty. Details show as tags; the subject has no menu, so type a code such as {service_name} and it becomes a tag when you click away.
• 3Email — the same editor as every Booked message, with + Add a detail, Show only when… and </>. The tags are filled in from this booking.
• 4For this email only — what you change here does not touch the template. It goes out dressed in your email design, like every other email from Booked.
• 5Use my own email app instead — opens a new message to the customer in your own mail app. Booked does not see or record it.
• 6Preview — the email as the customer will see it, filled in with this booking’s details. Nothing is sent.
• 7Send email — sends it. Greyed out until the subject has something in it.

Write it

A blank email starts with “Hi First name,”, an empty line for your words, and your business name and phone underneath. To start from wording you have saved, pick one of your own templates under Start from. You make those under Messages › Email templates › Your own templates; until you have one, the window points you there. See editing your emails and texts.

If you change Start from after typing, Booked asks “Start again from this? What you have written so far will be replaced.” OK swaps in the template; Cancel keeps your words and the choice you had.

The editor is the one used for every Booked message. Pick a booking detail from + Add a detail — Service, Date, Branch phone — and it shows as a tag, filled in from this booking when the email goes. Conditions work too: select some words and pick A video call under Show only when…, and they only go if this appointment is a video call. The full list of tags is in merge tags.

Check it, then send

Press Preview. The window shows the subject and the email exactly as the customer will see it: every tag filled in from this booking, conditions applied, in your email design. Nothing is sent.

• 1The subject — with its tags filled in: Business name became “Meridian Pharmacy”.
• 2This booking’s details — the Service tag became the service Grace booked; the date and the branch phone are hers too.
• 3Back to editing — returns to the words. Send email works from here as well.

Press Send email. The window confirms “Sent to grace.whitfield@example.com. You will find it under Messages → Sent.”, and Done closes it. Booked refuses to send, and says why, if the subject is empty (Give the email a subject.), if nothing is left once the tags are filled in (The email is empty.), or if the address on the booking is not a real email address (This booking has no email address.). Your words stay in the window, so you can fix it and try again.

Where it is recorded

• On the booking. Messages sent lists it as Email from you, with its subject, and the Activity log adds “Staff emailed the customer” with the subject.
• On the customer. The Messages sent card on their record lists it with everything else they have been sent.
• Under Messages › Sent. With every other email and text, as its own kind: Written by you.

Limits

• One booking at a time. It goes to the email address on that booking — for a group, the person who made it. There is no way to email many customers at once.
• Email only. There is no text version.
• Only bookings you can open. Team members held to some branches, or to their own diary, can only email customers on the bookings they can see. See team access.
• Replies go to the From email under Settings › Emails & texts, like every other Booked email to a customer, so make it a mailbox somebody reads.