The two messages, and where to set them

Edit any service and you will find a block titled Messages to your client, between the hero image and the service format. It holds two optional fields, and they are yours: whatever you write is sent to the client exactly as you wrote it, with no heading added around it, no changes and no translation.

After they book (optional). The message the client receives once the booking succeeds. This is the field for a pre-consultation questionnaire link, what to bring, or how to prepare.

After the appointment (optional). A separate message emailed once, the day after the appointment ends. This is the field for a review link, a feedback form, or next steps.

Both are optional. Leave a field empty and nothing is added.

Where each one reaches the client

After they book reaches the client three times. On the confirmation screen shown the moment the booking succeeds, in the confirmation email, and again in the reminder sent the day before the appointment. A client who reads the confirmation quickly and forgets it still meets the message once more, the day before.

After the appointment reaches them once. A single email the day after the appointment ends, sent by a daily sweep.

• It is not sent for a cancelled appointment or a no-show. Thanking somebody for a meeting they did not attend is worse than sending nothing.

• It is sent only once per booking. A client who books you twice receives it twice, once for each appointment.

• A booking that ended more than about a day ago is never caught up. If the sweep misses a day, it resumes with the current day's appointments rather than mailing last week's clients about a meeting they barely remember.

What you can write, and the limits

The editor gives you bold, italic, underline, bulleted and numbered lists, a divider, and links.

• A link must start with https:// or mailto:. Anything else is removed when you save. Links that survive are opened in a new tab.

• Roughly 10,000 characters of finished text per message. Go over and saving tells you how long the message actually is and what the limit is, rather than trimming it silently.

• Formatting pasted in from a word processor is stripped. Only the formatting in the toolbar survives, so a message pasted from Word keeps its words and loses its invisible markup. The length is measured on what is left, not on what you pasted.

Your message is never translated, and that is deliberate. The labels around it are translated for a client reading in another language; your sentences are not. They are your words to your own client, and machine-translating a carefully chosen sentence, or the text of a link, without you ever seeing the result is not something we will do on your behalf. Write the message in the language your clients read.

Which services offer which field

Which fields a service shows depends on what that kind of service can actually deliver.

• A live appointment shows both. There is a booking and there is an appointment that ends.

• A written consultation shows only After they book. There is no appointment, so there is no day after one for the second message to be sent on.

• A Q&A session shows neither. Registering for a Q&A does not create a booking, so there is nothing for either message to attach to.

We would rather not show you a box you can fill in and the product will never deliver. If you change a service's format, the fields that format cannot use are cleared when you save.