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Customer Messages

Most shops can't say off the top of their head what a customer receives after booking. There's a confirmation, a receipt, something about a waiver, a reminder — set up once, a while ago, on four different screens.

This page puts the whole sequence in one place, in the order it actually happens, and lets you change any of it from there.

Where it lives​

Settings → Customer messages.

Wording still lives on Settings → Email templates — that page is what a message says, this one is when it goes out, who gets it, and the whole sequence. Every card here links across to its wording, and every template over there links back to its card.

The Customer messages page: a switch per kind of thing you sell, then the timeline of everything a customer receives

Reading the timeline​

It reads top to bottom, the way a booking actually goes, with a marker at each turn: Starts — they book, Then — they come in, Ends — the booking finishes.

At the bottom sits Only if — something changes: the booking-changed and booking-cancelled emails. They're not part of a normal booking, so they don't clutter the sequence that is.

Cards marked ALWAYS SENT are the ones EquipDash sends for you. Reword them, retime them, switch them off — but you can't delete them; they're part of how a booking works. Your own messages sit anywhere in between.

You only see cards that apply to your shop. A cooking school doesn't see "Late return"; a bike shop with no experiences doesn't see "They did not turn up".

Changing when something goes out​

The timing is on the card itself. No hunting.

  • Arrival details — how many hours before they come in, plus your directions and parking notes.
  • Reminder — how far ahead of the booking it goes.
  • Overdue emails — how long to wait past the due time before chasing. That one setting covers all the overdue emails, because it's one rule, not three.
  • Waiver chasing — the cadence lives on Settings → Consent reminders, and the card tells you what it's currently doing with a link straight there.

The waiver and review cards only appear where they're real: a waiver card shows on an item that has a waiver attached (and names it), and the review request shows only when a survey is attached.

Adding your own message​

Add a message here sits between every pair of cards. Press the one where you want it.

Pick Email or Text, name it (only you see the name), and set three things on the card: when it goes out, who gets it, and which it is. Then write it — an email opens in the same editor as your other emails, with your logo and colors; a text is a plain box with a phone preview and a live credit count.

Send yourself a test before you finish. It goes to the email address on your login with the details filled in, so what lands in your inbox is what your customers get.

tip

Move a message's timing and the card moves with it. The timeline always shows the real order, not the order you added things in.

A different flow for rentals, experiences or bundles​

A rental is "collect it, bring it back". An experience is "turn up at a time and place". They often want different messages.

At the top of All bookings there's one switch per kind of thing your shop sells:

Different messages for one kind of booking? Custom flow for all rentals · Custom flow for all experiences · Custom flow for all bundles

Turn one on and you get a copy of your all-bookings messages to edit from — never a blank page — and a tab appears for it along the top. Turn it back off and it goes back to using your all-bookings messages (you're warned first), and its tab goes with it.

You only see a switch for what you actually sell. A shop with no experiences doesn't see one for experiences.

One item on its own​

Any single product, experience or bundle can do the same thing from its own Communications tab.

It opens on Default flow and prints the chain so you can see exactly which set is in force:

All bookings in use → Rentals (not set) → This item (not set)

The Default | Custom switch there gives that one item its own messages.

Which one wins​

The most specific one, always:

Program → this item → its line of business → all bookings.

A booking with more than one thing on it resolves each line separately — and if two of them would send the same message, the customer still only gets it once.

What actually went out​

Open any booking and go to Messages. Every email and text it sent, when, and who it reached — including anyone it couldn't, and why.

That's the screen to open when a customer says they never got something.

note

The addresses shown are the ones each message actually went to, saved at the moment it was sent. If a customer changes their email later, the record of where their message landed stays as it was.

Things worth knowing​

Texts use your SMS credits. The editor shows the cost before you commit. A text with an emoji or an accent costs more per message than plain text — the counter accounts for that.

Messages go out when you said, including overnight. If you time something for 24 hours before a 10pm booking, it goes at 10pm the night before — holding it until morning would send it after the thing it was warning about.

Turning a message off stops it for everything on that flow. Anything already sent stays in the customer's history.