How to use Twilio to send appointment notification and reminder SMS in Zoho Bookings

Hit no-shows out of the ballpark by combining Zoho Bookings and SMS providers.

SMS notifications help you remind customers of their appointments and reduce no-shows by reaching out where they are.

In this guide, we'll configure an SMS provider called Twilio.

Prerequisites

A Premium Plan of Zoho Bookings - Pricing Page.

A Twilio Subscription

You need at least one number to send messages from. It can be a short code, your personal number, a local number, or anything else. Twilio charges monthly for phone numbers. Check out Twilio's pricing page for more details.

Since Twilio uses a pay-as-you-go model, there are no monthly commitments (except the sender number). The minimum recharge value is $20, and you can use it until the credits expire - Learn more about Twilio's pricing model here.

Things to Know Before Using Twilio

You can share your Twilio subscription amongst multiple admins (if required).

Twilio is responsible for everything except configuring SMS text (You can configure this inside Zoho Bookings).

Both single and dual way communication is possible with Twilio

Using Twilio, you can send messages across borders.

Case 1: When you send messages from a US number to an Indian number, sender IDs might change. It ensures the deliverability of messages.

However, reply messages from those recipients will not be routed back to your Twilio Number. You can read more about it here.

Case 2: SenderIDs don't change when the sender and the recipient numbers belong to the same country.

Twilio charges for text messages on a segment basis. (1 segment = 160 Characters). For instance, if you send an SMS with 200 characters, you'll be charged for two SMS credits - Learn more about it here.

To find the number of SMS you'll be able to send with your top-up, use this formula:

Number of SMS that can be sent = (Top Up Value - Phone Number Price)/ Message Per SMS

Let's assume you belong to the US and recharge for $20. You've also opted for a long code that costs $1.16 (with carrier fees), the equation would look like

Number of SMS that can be sent* = ($20 - $1.16)/ ($0.0079) = 2200.

You'll be able to send approximately 2200+ SMS with this. (If you don't buy additional phone numbers in the US)

Note - The calculation is only an approximate estimation of the number of messages that you can send. This is because factors like carrier fees, and per-message rate change often and vary widely across different service providers.

Twilio credits are one-off amounts that don't expire until you use them.

Your Twilio account will get suspended once your account balance reaches zero. To avoid this, Twilio sends a notification to your email requesting you to refill your funds when the balance hits $5.

Another way to prevent your account from hitting zero you can set up an auto-recharge trigger for a minimum of $10. When your balance hits $10, you can automatically set it up to top up your account. Check out this page for setting up automatic payment triggers.

A2P 10 DLC Registration (only if you wish to send messages to the US)

Note - This is only necessary if you send messages to the United States. (Regardless of where you send your messages from - inside or outside the US)

If you send messages to the US, you should register for A2P 10 DLC. (Application to Person 10 Digit Long Code messaging protocol)

A2P 10DLC is a secure way to communicate with businesses and ensures that the messages are relevant to the recipients. We highly advise you to register for A2P 10 DLC Protocol as numbers without it will incur higher fees and even service disruptions from June 1, 2023. This is to comply with US messaging regulations. You can learn more about it here.

This registration will cost a one-time fee - Read more about it here.

A2P 10 DLC registration is only possible with a Twilio premium subscription and not for trial accounts.

To do this, navigate to Phone Numbers > Manage > Active Numbers > Click on a Number.

Under Messaging Configuration, click on 'Go to 10DLC registration.'

Depending on whether you have an EIN (Tax ID) or not, you can register for the corresponding option. Check out this page for more details.

Note - You cannot integrate multiple SMS providers to Zoho Bookings simultaneously.

Configuring Twilio with Zoho Bookings

1. Sign in to your Twilio account. (Sign up here if you don't have one)

2. You'll be redirected to the following screen once you've signed up. Check your mail inbox.

3. Your email would look like this. Confirm your account.

4. Twilio asks you to secure your account with a phone number. Enter your number and click on Send verification code/Get code via phone call depending on your choice.

5. Once you've confirmed your phone number you can fill in the onboarding form and click on get started with Twilio.

6. You'll be redirected to the Twilio dashboard.

'My first Twilio account' is the account name of your Twilio SMS account. If you have multiple Twilio SMS accounts you can navigate it from here

The Phone numbers tab helps you to

Manage all your Phone numbers
Buy new Numbers
Release a Phone number

When you sign up for a Twilio account, you'll get $15.50. You can get a trial number using this to test their configurations before opting for a premium plan.

7. Let's get a phone number from Twilio. Click on 'Get a Twilio Phone Number.'

8. Twilio will assign you a phone number. Now let's configure Twilio with Zoho Bookings.

Note - To get a premium number, navigate to Phone numbers > Manage > Buy a Number

Choose which country's number you wish to get, SMS (as capability), and click search. You can click on buy to obtain the number.

9. Scroll to the bottom of Twilio's main dashboard. You'll find three fields here, Auth Token, Account SID, and your Phone number. We'll paste all this data to integrate Zoho Bookings and Twilio.'

10. Now log in to your Zoho Bookings Dashboard. Navigate to Integrations > Others > Twilio. Hover over Twilio and click on Configure.

11. Copy and paste the details from Twilio to the corresponding fields in Zoho Bookings. Once you have pasted the details, click 'Configure.'

Note: While pasting the phone number, remove the country calling code. In this case, my phone number was +13203628918. '+1' is the country calling code. Remove it and paste the rest (i.e., 3203628918 without any spaces/symbols in between)

12. Hover over the created Twilio connection and click enable. Reload the page if the connection is still not active. You've successfully integrated Twilio with Zoho Bookings.

Editing Your Twilio Connection

To edit your Twilio connection, hover over the Twilio integration and click on edit. Once you've made the changes, click Configure.

If you wish to remove your Twilio connection, hover over the Twilio integration and click remove.

A pop-up appears asking you to confirm. Click 'Proceed' to delete your Twilio connection.

Note - While Editing or Removing your Twilio connections, if the changes don't reflect immediately, reload the page for the changes to reflect.

Configuring SMS Notifications

To configure SMS notifications for one on one bookings, navigate to services > service notification.

To configure SMS notifications for group/ resource bookings, navigate to settings > workspaces > notifications.

You'll see two tabs here. 'For Staff' and 'For Customers.' Zoho Bookings allows you to send eight different types of SMS under each tab.

You can configure Zoho Bookings to send SMS using Twilio when you change the appointment status to

Booked
Rescheduled
Canceled
Marked As Completed
Marked As No Show

Alternatively, you can set up to three reminders before your appointment time.

Illustration: Let's send SMS notifications to a customer when an appointment(one-on-one) is booked.

Make sure that the checkbox is enabled corresponding to the booked notification in the customer tab. It ensures that the customer receives an SMS notification when an appointment is booked.

2. To customize the messages that will be sent, click on customize. You can change the message and insert dynamic variables like meeting info, customer name, meeting date, and more into your outgoing messages. Click 'Save' once you are done with the changes.

The customer receives the following message when an appointment is made.

Note that the message is from the number '59039000' and not my original phone number. This is because the message is sent from a US number to an Indian Number. So the original long code is replaced with this number to ensure seamless deliverability.

If the sender and recipient belong to the same country, then the SenderID (i.e., your phone number) doesn't change.

There are cases where you might want to block incoming messages. For example, customers might reply to your SMS notifications requesting a reschedule or cancellation. This breaks the flow of Zoho Bookings and introduces unnecessary manual work. If that's the case, check out this document to block all incoming messaging.

SMS Customization Recommendations

Since each message can accommodate only 160 characters, we recommend keeping your message crisp. Include vital info like appointment date, time, and business name.

Avoid using emojis in your sms. As a single emoji consumes a lot of characters.

We recommend you have your entire message length from 160 to 320 characters (i.e., 1 to 2 messages per message) to avoid consuming too many message credits for a single SMS.

Zoho Bookings Plans supporting this feature

Applicable in

Premium

If you want to start a trial of the Zoho Bookings Premium plan, please send an email to support@zohobookings.com including the word 'Twilio' in the subject line.

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