Bringing customers back with maintenance reminders

In this article, you'll learn how to set up a maintenance reminder that goes out on its own months after a job is done. It brings past customers back for their next service, and you don't have to keep a list of who's due.

Maintenance reminders are automation rules. If you haven't used Automations before, Automate your routine tasks with Automations covers the basics.

Note: Automations isn't part of the free CRM. If you're on the free plan, the menu item isn't there.

To open Automations:

  1. On the web, click Automations in the menu.
  2. On the phone app, tap the bolt at the top of the Home screen.

Start from the maintenance template

The quickest way is the ready-made template. Its card reads "6 months after the job ends, send an email to the client".

  1. Click the Discover tab.
  2. Under Marketing, find the Maintenance / Email card.
  3. Hover over the card and click Use. On a phone, tap Use under the card.

The rule editor opens with the sentence already filled in: when a job is done, send the client an email 180 days after the job's end date.

Starting a maintenance reminder from the template

Change the timing, the message type or who gets it

Every underlined word in the sentence is a control. Click it to change it.

  1. Click 180 days after to change the delay. Pick after, type a number, then choose minutes, hours or days. For a yearly reminder use 365 days, which is the longest delay you can set.
  2. Click end date if you'd rather count from the job's schedule date instead.
  3. Click an email to switch to a text message or a text and email.
  4. Click client to send it to your team instead. That's handy if you'd rather get a nudge to call the customer yourself. Pick who on the team gets it; if you pick nobody, it goes to the account owner.
  5. To give the rule a clearer name, click the name box at the top of the editor and type over it.
Note: The template counts from the job's end date, so the job needs an end time on the calendar. A job without one shows up in the rule's Activity as Skipped with the reason "no date to count from yet".
Tip: You can limit a reminder to certain work. Click Add condition, pick job type, job source, job tag or job status, choose the value, then click ✓ Apply. For example, a rule that only runs when the job type is your tune-up service. See Adding conditions to your automation rules.

Under the sentence, the Automation will be sent box sets the hours the reminder is allowed to go out. It starts at 9:00 AM to 9:00 PM. A reminder that comes due outside those hours waits until they open. More in Setting when automations are allowed to send.

Write the message

The maintenance template starts with an empty message, so don't skip this step.

  1. Click Preview/edit message.
  2. For an email, type a subject line in the Subject box.
  3. Type the message your customer will get.
  4. Click any of the short codes under the message box to add details that fill in for each customer: client_first_name, client_full_name, business_name, job_type, job_date, job_time, full_address, tech_assigned, client_phone_number and client_email_address.
  5. Click ✓ Save and close.
  6. Click Add automation.
Warning: If you leave the message empty, nothing gets sent. The rule's Activity shows the reminder as Skipped with the reason "message is empty".
Writing the reminder message

The short codes are filled in on the day the reminder goes out, so the customer's details are current when it sends. The rule's conditions are checked again on that day too.

Add a second reminder

Want a follow-up later on, say at 12 months? Make a copy with a longer delay.

  1. On the My Automations tab, click ••• on your maintenance rule.
  2. Click Duplicate. The copy shows up with "(copy)" on the end of its name, switched off.
  3. Click ••• on the copy and click Edit. Change the delay and the wording, then click Update automation.
  4. Click ••• again and use Rename to give it a clear name.
  5. Turn the copy on with its toggle.

More in How to duplicate an automation rule.

Turn reminders on or off

Each rule card has a toggle on the right. On means the rule sends; off means it doesn't. A rule you add from a template starts switched on.

Note: A reminder only goes out if its rule is still on when the day comes. If you switch a rule off, any reminders it was waiting on are skipped. If a job is canceled while its reminder is waiting, that reminder is skipped too.

See what your reminders did

  1. On the My Automations tab, find the rule card. The bottom of the card shows how many times the rule has been triggered and how many conditions it has.
  2. Click Activity on the card.

Each entry has a status: Scheduled (waiting, with the date it's due to go), Sent, Skipped (with the reason) or Failed.

Your maintenance rule on the My Automations tab, with its toggle and Activity link
Your maintenance rule on the My Automations tab, with its toggle and Activity link

On the phone app

The phone app has the same Discover templates, rule editor, Preview/edit message button and ••• menu. The one difference is reordering your rules. On the web you drag a card by its handle; on the app you use Move up and Move down in the ••• menu.

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