Edit your automatic messages

Packyard can text and email customers when something happens to their appointment. You choose whether each message goes by text, email, or both, and you can rewrite the wording in your own voice.

There are two kinds of customer messages:

• Messages when something happens, like a booking or a cancellation. They’re in Settings → Reminders → Auto, and this page covers them.
• Reminders before an appointment, like the one at 6 PM the evening before. They’re in Settings → Reminders → Custom. See Add your own appointment reminder.

For the appointment messages, Packyard asks Notify Customer? after each action. Nothing is sent unless you click Notify. Click Skip to send nothing.

1. Click the gear icon at the top right to open Settings.
2. Under Reminders, click Auto.
3. Click the message you want to change.
4. Under Notification Channels, turn Email and SMS on or off. This saves right away.
5. To change the text, edit the SMS Message, then click Save SMS Template.
6. To change the email, edit the Subject Line and Email Body Content, then click Save Email Template.
7. Click Preview to see the message with sample details.

Use the Insert: buttons to add details that change for each appointment, like Pet Name, Date, or Time. They appear in the message as placeholders, like {{pet_name}}, and are filled in when the message is sent. In the Subject Line, type placeholders yourself, for example {{pet_name}}.

Packyard’s standard emails have colors, buttons, and spacing. To keep that layout, they open as HTML code instead of the visual editor.

• Change only the words between the tags, and leave the rest as it is.
• Type placeholders yourself, for example {{ pet_name }}. The Insert: buttons only appear in the visual editor.
• To write a plain email instead, click Use visual editor. Packyard asks first, because the visual editor removes the layout.
• Click Edit HTML to go back to the code view.

On the Auto Reminders list, switch the message to Off.

Packyard can ask customers for a new vaccination record before the old one expires.

1. Open Settings → Reminders → Auto.
2. At the bottom, find Ask for updated vaccination records.
3. Pick 14 days before, 30 days before, or 60 days before. Pick Off to stop.

The customer gets the Vaccination Record Request message, with a link to upload the new record. Each record is asked about once. The pet’s current record stays valid until it expires. Records that expired in the last 7 days are asked about too. See Add vaccination records.

• Keep texts short. An SMS can be up to 320 characters. Under the message, Packyard shows roughly how long the text will be once names and dates are filled in, and how many SMS segments it takes.
• Reset to Default puts back Packyard’s original wording. The email and the text each have their own button, so resetting one doesn’t change the other. The button only shows when you’ve changed that message.
• Texts only go to customers who’ve agreed to get texts. On a customer’s contact, this is the Opt-in to receive SMS appointment reminders checkbox. Customers who reply STOP are opted out.
• Messages go to the customer’s primary contact. When you click Notify, you can pick other contacts too.
• New to Packyard? No texts or emails go to customers until Packyard sets up your business’s texting number. Until then, the reminder settings show “Texting isn’t set up for your business yet.” To check on it, email support@packyard.app.
• Only owners and staff can change these settings. Groomers can’t see them.

• Add your own appointment reminder
• Text your customers
• Add vaccination records
• Send an agreement for signature