Automated Emails

practiceQ gives you the ability to create automated emails around your appointments. Here are some scenarios provided by our customers:

• 30 days after each appointment, send an email reminding the client that it’s time for their follow-up visit.
• Send an email one day after every initial appointment asking the client to leave a review on a Facebook page.
• Send an email one day after each appointment asking the client to fill out a feedback form.
• 2 days before a certain type of exam, send a reminder email containing detailed instructions on how to prepare.
• Send an automated email 6 months after a certain type of appointment, reminding that it’s time to schedule a new one.
• Send the link to a food log form 5 days before each follow-up appointment.

Creating an Automated Email Template

Let’s look at an example where we want to send an automated email 30 days after the Initial Consultation. The goal of this email is to remind the client that it’s time for their follow-up appointment.

Navigate to "Bookings > Booking Settings", and open the "Messages" tab. To create a new automated email, click on "Add Email" under the "Email Templates" section.

Examine the image below and notice that we have chosen to send this email only for a specific appointment type, "Initial Consultation", and that we have scheduled it to be delivered 1 day after each appointment of this type.

Notice that we can click on "Add Field" to insert fields like client name or appointment details into the email body.

Reminding Clients When It's Time to Book Again

While the section above works great for when you want to send one email for each appointment, it's not ideal for reminding clients when it's time to book a new appointment.

Let's say you want to send clients an email saying that it's been 6 months since their last appointment, and that it's time for them to book again. In this case, choose the email type named "Time to Book Again".

The difference between this type of email and the regular scheduled email is that, with this email, IntakeQ will not send anything if the client has booked a new appointment since then.

You are free to create more than one email for this purpose. For example, you may have one email sent when it's been 1 month since their last visit, then another email sent again if it's been 3 months, and another one after 6 months.

Note: clients who have been archived will not receive this email.

Sending Forms with Automated Emails

You can also include forms in your scheduled emails. The following article covers this: Sending Scheduled Forms

Customizing Appointment Notification Emails

This same section allows you to customize all notification emails that goes out to your clients (confirmation, cancellation, decline, reminder). Let’s look at how to customize the appointment confirmation email.

1. With the "Messages" tab open, click on "Add Email" under the "Email Templates" section.
2. Click on "Customize the Appointment Confirmation email template".
3. Give it a friendly name, like "Custom Appointment Confirmation", so you can recognize it later.
4. Choose the services you want to apply this custom confirmation to, or just select "All services".
5. Write the custom email template, making sure the text [AppointmentDetails] is not removed from the template (this text will be replaced by the actual appointment details).
6. Make sure the "Is Active" check box is marked and click on "Save".

That’s it. From this point on, IntakeQ will use this template every time an appointment is confirmed. You can also customize the "appointment declined", "appointment canceled", "package confirmation", "package declined", and "appointment reminder" email templates by selecting it under the "Email Type" field.

Keep in mind that you are not limited to a single custom email. You can have a list of automated emails, one for each situation. All automated emails will only be sent when an appointment is set as "confirmed", appointment requests pending confirmation or cancelled appointments will not be sent automated emails.