Messages — writing to a customer, by email or SMS

Messages lets anyone on your team write to a customer from Bookodile, and keeps the whole conversation in one inbox. Bookodile sends it — by email, by SMS, or both — so it reaches a customer even when they keep their email or phone private from you, and your team writes as the business rather than from their own phones.

It is part of every account: Messages is in the menu, with nothing to switch on.

Writing to a customer

A Message button sits in the customer panel beside a booking, and at the top of each customer's page. It opens their conversation in Messages — or a new one if you have never written. There is one conversation per customer per branch.

In Messages itself, New message (or the N key) asks who to write to: search by name, email or phone. Picking someone you have written to before opens that conversation and says so. A customer with no email or phone, or one who has stopped messages from you, is shown greyed out with the reason. The search finds only the customers you can open, and never by a detail they keep private.

Anyone at the branch who can open that customer can write to them. A team member who may only see their own customers sees only those conversations.

A message is up to 4,000 characters. Each person can send 30 messages an hour.

Email, SMS or both

Email is the default whenever the customer has an email address. It comes from your business's name, shows the conversation so far and has a Reply button. Email is free.

SMS goes to the customer's phone. It is offered when the customer has a phone number and your branch sends SMS: the SMS messages add-on is on, its Messages switch is on, and your workspace is on a paid plan (during the trial, with a card on file). Both sends the same message by email and by SMS — for something urgent; the next conversation starts from the default again.

The Email / SMS / Both switch above the box always shows all three; one that cannot be used is greyed out with the reason beside it — no email address, no phone number, SMS switched off for this branch, no paid plan, a failed payment, this billing period's SMS cap reached, or SMS not yet available in your country (Czechia, for now). When a phone is all they have, SMS is the only way.

• The whole message goes in the SMS, starting with your business's name, so it reads without internet. It ends with a short link where they answer.
• Before you send, the box shows what it costs and what the phone will show. A long SMS arrives as one message but is billed in parts: a part holds 160 characters, or 70 once the message contains an accented letter or an emoji — the counter says so when that applies. The link counts too.
• A message longer than six parts cannot go by SMS; send it by email.
• A branch can send 100 SMS from Messages a day.
• SMS need a paid plan; each is billed monthly with it — see SMS messages.

In the conversation, a message is marked SMS or Both.

When the customer keeps their details private

A customer who confirms their email can choose what your business sees (see Customer details a customer controls). Their card then reads Email hidden or Phone hidden instead of looking empty.

Messages still reaches them. Bookodile reads the address or number when it sends and never shows it to you: the composer says you never see their address or their number. The page they answer on tells them you cannot see it.

At a business that sends SMS — the SMS messages add-on is on at one of its branches — a customer can hide their phone as well as their email, and you can still reach them. Elsewhere the phone cannot be hidden, because nothing could reach it.

How the customer answers

Not by replying to the email or the SMS: those do not reach you. The Reply button, or the link in an SMS, opens a page with the whole conversation where they write back. The link in an SMS works for 30 days; after that it opens a page pointing to your booking page instead. The email's Reply button keeps working.

They can send two messages each time you write. That keeps a conversation going, and stops a forwarded link becoming a way to flood your inbox.

Who on your team is told

When a customer answers, Bookodile emails the business owner and every team member who has written in that conversation. Each person switches it off for themselves in Settings → Notifications → Messages. Nobody is told while customer messages are paused (below).

In Messages, conversations are listed newest first, and one with a reply nobody has opened yet is marked unread — in bold, with a dot — and counted beside Messages in the sidebar (a dot on the More button on a phone). Opening a conversation marks it read for the whole team; Mark as unread puts it back. A reply appears as it arrives — in the list, the count and the open conversation — without reloading the page.

Open and Done

Conversations sit in Open until someone marks them Done, the same way Feedback and Reviews work. Done is shared by the team: whoever handles a conversation handles it for everyone, and the next open conversation opens. All shows both. When a customer answers a conversation marked Done, it comes back to Open, unread — a reply never lands where nobody looks. Writing to a customer yourself leaves a conversation where it is.

Stopping messages

Every message email has a link that stops messages from your business, and the reply page has the same link. After that, Messages refuses to send to them — by email or SMS — and says why. They can turn messages back on from the same page.

The master switch that pauses customer messages (see Notifications) stops automatic ones. A message you write yourself in Messages still goes.

Worked example

A barbershop is running fifteen minutes behind. The barber opens the next customer from the calendar and taps Message. The customer booked online and keeps their email private, but shares their phone, and the shop has the SMS messages add-on on, so the barber picks SMS: "Running 15 minutes late, sorry!" — one SMS. The customer answers on the linked page, and the shop's Messages inbox shows the reply to whoever is at the front desk.

A physiotherapy clinic asks a patient to bring their scan to the next session. The patient hides their phone and email; the clinic writes by email, and the patient answers on the page linked from it. Nobody at the clinic ever sees the address.

Limits

• No attachments. Text only.
• No messages to several customers at once. Each conversation is one customer.
• Demo workspaces never send SMS. Trying Messages in a demo sends email only.
• A customer cannot start a conversation. They answer one you started.
• Replies go through Bookodile, never by email or SMS.