Tip #3 : Send SMS Reminders for your Subscription Business

Tip #3 : Send SMS Reminders for your Subscription Business

Hello everyone,

As you all know, we are coming up with a tip every week to address specific business scenarios. In continuation to the previous blog, this week we will be seeing how you can use SMS reminders for your Subscription Business.

Using SMS messages for your Subscription Business:

While managing your subscription business, more often than not, you need to keep your customers informed about upcoming renewals, payment reminders and cancellations. By keeping them informed in advance, you can get quicker payments and also retain the customers in the long run. As a business owner, you need to come up with ways to get your message/reminders to the customers in a more quick and efficient way.

Email notifications satisfy such requirements where you could just send out an email to your customers about the necessary upcoming reminders. However, with a contrasting ratio of four mobile devices to one computer, it is evident what our customers are using as their preferred mode of communication. Along with the growing number of smartphone users day by day, you should try to make your business more mobile-friendly. 

Now, wouldn't it be more efficient to keep your customers notified instantly via SMS about their upcoming reminders? Let us see how we can leverage SMS messages to effectively communicate with your customers.

How to set up a Custom SMS workflow for your business?

You can use our Custom Function workflow to integrate with one of the many third party SMS providers to send out your messages. You can choose your SMS provider based on your region or preference.

Since most of the reminders are events triggered, we are going to use event based workflow for this integration. You can choose the event according to your requirement. Few such examples would be new subscription, subscription renewal and subscription cancellation events. As soon as the event occurs, you will have to use the SMS provider's API to send an SMS to the customer with an appropriate message.

Below are few of the third party providers for which we have compiled the custom functions.

1)  Twilio


     Website                    - https://www.twilio.com/

     API Documentation -  https://www.twilio.com/docs/usage/api
     Custom Function      - GitHub Link

2) Text Local


    Website                    - https://www.textlocal.in/

    Custom Function     - GitHub Link


3) SMS Magic


   Website                     - https://www.sms-magic.com/

   Custom Function     - GitHub Link

For this particular blog, I will be explaining how to integrate with Twilio's API.

Obtain Twilio credentials for authentication:

In order to use Twilio's API, a Twilio account is needed. We will follow the simple token-based authentication using Custom variables. All requests to Twilio's REST API requires you to authenticate using the two important authentication parameters namely Account SID and Auth Token. 

Login to https://www.twilio.com/ and get the credentials after signing up. Obtain the Account SID and Auth Token.




Code Explanation:

As previously mentioned, you can refer the code for Twilio integration here. The code is written in Deluge script, which is easily understandable to non-programmers.

1) Initially, we need to paste the Account SID and Auth Token values in the corresponding variables.

2) This snippet of code will be executed after the event which you configure in your custom function. So, construct the SMS message with regards to that context.

3) Once that particular event is triggered, we will be hitting an API request to Twilio with the customer's mobile number and the message.

Getting started with the Custom Functions:  


1. Go to Settings -> Automation -> Custom Functions. 


2. Create a new Custom function. Provide a name for the function. 


3. Choose the module and event according to your need.


4. Copy the code which was given above. Do the necessary changes that are required.


5. Save the Custom function and you are good to go.

Found this useful? Try it out and let us know how it works! If you have questions, do not hesitate to ask!


Cheers,

Sasidaran K,
Zoho Subscriptions.

    • Sticky Posts

    • Tip #4 : Refer and Earn Workflow system for your Subscription Business

      Hello everyone, We've been coming up with a tip every week to address specific business scenarios which can be implemented for your business. In continuation to the previous post, this week we will be seeing about how you can implement the Refer and Earn Workflow system to acquire more customers. Why are Referrals important? Customer Acquisition is crucial for any business to sustain itself in a constantly evolving market. It involves persuading new consumers to purchase your products. Customers

    • Tip #2 - Cancellation of Offline Subscriptions based on the Expected Payment Date

      Hello everyone, As you all know, we are coming up with a custom function workflow every week to address specific business scenarios. In continuation of this previous blog, this week we will be seeing about Cancellation of Offline Subscriptions based on the Expected Payment Date. Business Scenario: In general, for any business, the customers make payments via online as well as offline. In case of subscription where the automatic collection of charge is enabled (aka online subscription), the customer's

    • Tip #3 : Send SMS Reminders for your Subscription Business

      Hello everyone, As you all know, we are coming up with a tip every week to address specific business scenarios. In continuation to the previous blog, this week we will be seeing how you can use SMS reminders for your Subscription Business. Using SMS messages for your Subscription Business: While managing your subscription business, more often than not, you need to keep your customers informed about upcoming renewals, payment reminders and cancellations. By keeping them informed in advance, you can

    • Tips And Tricks - Announcement

      Hello everyone, Every business is unique and each of them follows a specific workflow. While managing your customers' subscriptions with Zoho, you might have some needs unique to your business. Custom Functions helps you address such needs. This is a start to a series of posts, where we will be coming up with a custom function workflow every week that addresses specific business scenarios. Watch this space for further updates! Also, if you have any specific business scenario which needs to be addressed,

    • Tip #6 : Accessing external URLs from Zoho Subscriptions

      Hello everyone, We have been sharing a tip every week to address specific business scenarios which you can implement for your subscription business. Last week, we shared a tip about implementing the Approval Workflow system. This week, let's look at how you can access external URLs with the help of Custom Link. Business Scenario: Every business functions differently and has its unique requirements. At times, businesses might want to access other websites or applications by appending specific information

    Nederlandse Hulpbronnen


      • Recent Topics

      • PASSWORD

        Hello, I'm Joyce, my client used zoho for password sharing, he did share the canva but once I clicked on it it will not automatically log-in, instead I need to log-in again. My question is my boss log-in first to his gmail and use his gmail to log-in

      • Kaizen #195: Frequently Asked Questions on Bulk Read API and Bulk Write API

        🎊 Nearing 200th Kaizen Post – We want to hear from you! Do you have any questions, suggestions, or topics you would like us to cover in future posts? Your insights and suggestions help us shape future content and make this series better for everyone.

      • admin problem

        i can't to reach for the panel that i will create another mail to our company account i have admin access but i can't reach the panel our Company name Scale point my mail asmaa@dcalepointhub.com please can you help me Thanks

      • 554 5.7.1 : Recipient address rejected: user [username] does not exist

        Hi, I mistakenly altered my shopify email settings (where my domain is managed), but immediately reverted them, however now I have a strange email issue. I can send emails just fine, but cannot receive them. I have tried all troubleshooting steps but

      • Legit email address?

        Hello, I received emails from zohoadmin@biznetvigator.com with a password expiry notice. is that a legitimate email?

      • SMTP Authentication Fails with App Password – “535 Authentication Failed” Error

        Hello, I'm trying to send transactional emails from my WordPress website using the WP Mail SMTP plugin with Zoho Mail (smtp.zoho.com on port 465 with SSL). I've created and used a Zoho Mail app-specific password for SMTP, and verified that: The email

      • Deluge script issue : Mismatch of data type expression. Expected BIGINT but found STRING

        I'm building a Zoho Creator form to take inputs for Email, Bootcamp Name, and Tag. If a record with the same Email + Bootcamp exists in a custom module (bootcampattendence), I want to update it by adding a new tag. If it doesn’t exist, I want to create

      • Survey end date extension

        Hi, Is there any way to extend the end date of my survey? I needed more time in finding respondents that is why I need to extend the end date of my survey. Help. Thanks

      • Problem with signature in a forwarded mail

        Dear All, In my email account I created a signature and I unchecked the 'Place signature above the quoted text for relies and forwards' My question is, when I am trying to forward an email, sometimes I need to insert my signature so I select it from the

      • Out of Office not working

        I have set up out of office on zoho mail, however, it does not reply to every mail sent to it. I have tested it by sending several test messages from multiple different email accounts, I will get a response to some of them, but not all of them this is

      • Error message that says only images and no text

        I filled out a template for a weekly newsletter with text and images throughout but when I click save and next an error message comes up that says "Campaign content has only images and no text" which is not true at all. I have no idea how to fix this issue and don't know where the problem is. 

      • Contacts Don't Always Populate

        I've noticed that some contacts can easily be added to an email when I type their name. Other times, a contact doesn't appear even though I KNOW it is in my contact list. It is possible the ones I loaded from a spreadsheet are not an issue and the ones

      • Cannot add zoho email to gmail acc

        I'm trying to set up my zoho mail to connect to my gmail acc but no matter what I try I always get this problem. What should I do now? Password is up-to-date. Authentication failed. Please check your username/password. [Server response: 535 Authentication

      • 553 Relaying disallowed - Invalid Domain

        I have this error "553 Relaying disallowed. Invalid Domain" when sending an email to any email address. But I still receiving email from other emails. I checked MX, DKIM, SPF and it's ok. Could you check and help? Thanks

      • Turn off Organization Contact List

        We need to be able to turn off the Organization Contact list for some of our staff. Once the Organization Contact list is turned off for a user, we would then like to be able to create a list of contacts on per user basis that would not be editable by

      • Unable to send massage Reason 553/ Relaying Disallowed. Invalid Domain

        Cant sed massages from my email. All massages from my domain received the same issue Unable to send massage Reason 553/ Relaying Disallowed. Invalid Domain

      • Kaizen #194 : Trigger Client Script via Custom buttons

        Hello everyone! Welcome back to another interesting and useful Kaizen post. We know that Client Scripts can be triggered with Canvas buttons and we discussed this with a use case in Kaizen#180. Today, let us discuss how to trigger Client Script when a

      • Make record entry more organized with the Sections component in Wizards

        Hello everyone! Wizards in Zoho CRM have always helped you break long record-detail pages or large sets of fields into multiple screens, making data entry smoother and more user-friendly. Now, we’re taking a major step forward with a new Sections component—giving

      • GSTIN Public Search API

        Does zohobooks have an api using which i can search GST numbers and get their details?

      • External @zoho.com mail stopped working today, yesterday no issues

        Hello, Over a sudden mail stopped being delivered to inbox. Domain is standard zoho.com worked no problem yesterday, today nothing in inbox. Sent several test emails from corporate account & from gmail.com, logs show acceptance by zoho mail server, but

      • Suggestion: Smart Purchasing Module for Zoho Inventory and Zoho Books

        Suggestion: Smart Purchasing Module for Zoho Inventory and Zoho Books As an active user of Zoho Inventory and Zoho Books, I’ve noticed that the suite already provides valuable tools for managing inventory, analyzing trends, and processing purchase orders.

      • Adding bank details to the contact through API

        How to add bank-related information to the contact while creating it using API? The account number needs to be encrypted before sending it through API but not sure how to encrypt and get those values. Please guide me in this.

      • average cost display

        Hello there, I'm using the average cost valuation method, and the cost price shown in the Items menu should reflect the latest WAC (Weighted Average Cost). However, it doesn't update automatically. Is there a way to display the current average cost without

      • Apple Mail issues

        Dear Sir or Madam, I am trying to configure my Zoho mail account to Apple Mail. It is not working. It seems to need more information (perhaps a path prefix?) than is shown in your tutorial (<www.zoho.com/mail/help/apple-mac-imap.html>). After plugging

      • Assistance Required for Migrating Data from Odoo Inventory to Zoho Inventory

        Hi Team, I previously used Odoo Inventory to manage my stock and transactions, and I’ve now moved to Zoho Inventory. I’d like to migrate my data from Odoo—including product details, stock, purchase, and vendor information- into Zoho Inventory for continuity

      • I need my entire Zoho Account (mail/organization) deleted!

        Hey! I used zoho for my email aaron@aaronglass.me with domain forwarding/mx all that. I got rid of the mx info on my godaddy account and still Google won't let me sign up with my aaron@aaronglass.me email. (I'm moving to Google for business) SO! I was

      • Error: "Invalid Element warehouse_id" when sending order to Zoho

        i'm getting the error "Invalid Element warehouse_id" when trying to send an order to Zoho via API. Has anyone faced this issue before? How can I fix it?

      • No way to sell individual and case units smoothly in Zoho

        Currently, Zoho Inventory handles inventory primarily at the case level, which can be challenging for businesses that frequently need to break down cases into individual units for retail sales or smaller shipments. Although Zoho Inventory currently supports

      • How to handle multiple languages (Resume parser, Job opening, job board, career site) ?

        We are looking to bring Zoho Recruit to a market that needs to support 2 languages. The first thing we need to make sure is that the Candidate be flag with the language they speak. This is easy enough make a custom field that as the desire languages.

      • Shipping Labels

        Hi, Can we generate Packing Labels for manual shipping same as the format as Airway Bill in zoho books or inventory?

      • Unit Measurement Sign,

        Dear Zoho Support Team, I hope you are doing well. We recently purchased Zoho Inventory based on recommendations of your team that “it would be a great fit for our Shopify operations”. However, we are currently facing several urgent issues that require

      • Leadchain into a custom module

        Hello ZOHO Community ! is it possible to put the leads collected by leadchain into a custom module instaed of leads module ? Best wishes Niels

      • Urgent: How to Bulk Upload Images in Zoho Inventory? Any Workarounds?

        We are currently onboarding 5,000+ items from Shopify into Zoho Inventory, but we’re struggling with the lack of a bulk image upload feature. Right now, we have to manually upload and assign images one by one, which is extremely time-consuming and inefficient.

      • Can I automatically update COGS and Inventory account when creating an item?

        I have been trying to get Zoho to update the other two fields when I update one (Sales Account, COGS account, and Inventory Account). I know this seems like not a huge time saver, but I am all about efficiency and being an independent taproom, I create

      • I'm looking for a Microsoft List alternative in Zoho One to manage large lists of repetitive tasks

        I've used Microsoft Lists to manage lots of tasks that need to be completed several times for different users. We started with a large spreadsheet and then discovered lists, which worked pretty well. I was wondering if there is a similar products in Zoho,

      • Zoholics Europe and UK Awards 2025: Honouring our loyal customers!

        We're excited to announce that at this year's Zoholics events across Europe, we're holding customer awards for the first time ever! This is your chance to shout about the amazing things you've created, connected, or achieved with Bigin! And if you win,

      • Fillable template with dynamic tables?

        Is there a way to build a fillable template so that users can add rows to a table? To describe what I'm trying to accomplish the table has 3 sections; a header row, some number of rows with custom information, and a summary row with totals. I can't figure

      • How to store API keys in zoho?

        Hi everyone, I'm currently building an integration using Zoho Flow and I need to securely store several API keys that will be used to make external service calls from my flows. I would not like to hardcode the values in the code of custom function. What's

      • Zoho RPA is now available in your Zoho One bundle!

        Hello All! Of late, it's been quite a stint of new app integrations in Zoho One. This announcement pertains to the addition of another Zoho application, the most sought-after Zoho RPA - Robotic Process Automation, to the bundle. What is Zoho RPA? Zoho

      • is there an easy way to embed a zoho analytics report into a widget (or inside the "account" page) of Zoho CRM

        Hi, I have built a report that is specific to an account in Zoho CRM but I would like this to be built into the Zoho CRM front-end. I have looked at the widget concept but it seems quite complicated (see attached screenshot but I need to filter this view

      • Next Page