Recurring Appointments

Recurring Appointments

Found in Admin > Subscriptions if the Recurring Appointment feature is turned on. Please send in a support ticket to have the feature turned on. Please also make sure Recurring Appointment transactional emails have been set up by whoever helps you with your Campaign Monitor transactional emails before turning this on. Send in a support ticket if you have any questions.

Recurring Appointments allow customers to opt into having a future appointment automatically created after each job. Customers will still be able to confirm each recurring appointment before the day of the job. Pending recurring appointments do not count towards lost sales/cancellations. They are counted as a recurring appointment expired event. Confirmed recurring appointments do count towards cancellations. 

You can have an upcoming recurring appointment for each unique service address.

Customers will receive text notifications for Recurring Appointments. If you would like them to receive email notifications as well, please send in a support ticket or let whoever helps you with your Campaign Monitor transactional emails know you would like those created. They can link them up in Admin > Campaign Monitor.

Article Index

1. High Level Example of a Residential Workflow with Recurring Appointments
2. What do Customers, Techs, CSR's and Dispatch see when Recurring Appointments is turned on in Zr Ware®?
3. How to incentivize customers with Recurring Appointment promo codes
4. How notifications work for Recurring Appointments.
5. Migrating callback subscriptions to Recurring Appointments(Only needed if you were using the callback subscription feature)
6. How to manually create a subscription and recurring appointment as a CSR
7. How to manually confirm a recurring appointment.
8. Common Questions
9. Useful Reports

 

 

High Level Example of a Residential Workflow with Recurring Appointments

This is only one example as there are multiple ways this process could go.

1. Tech finishes work and sends the user invoice link to the customer.
2. While the customer is going through the payment flow, they are asked if they would like to sign up for Recurring Appointments(base may or may not have set up promo incentive that shows up here).
3. Customer chooses to opt in for a 3, 6 or 12 month Recurring Appointment and clicks next to finish payment flow. 
4. An unrouted Recurring Appointment is added to the schedule 3, 6 or 12 months from today on the next available date. It does not affect availability yet.
5. Around 17 days before the appointment date, dispatch receives the first email letting them know this Recurring Appointment needs to be routed.
6. Around 14 days before the appointment date, dispatch gets a second email reminder to go to the schedule and send the first Pending Appointment Reminder notification for the Recurring Appointments. Customer may or may not confirm. If they reply "Cancel", you can cancel the unconfirmed pending appointment and it will log it as "expired", not "cancelled".
   • Note: It is very important that this notification is sent out as we set the expiration date for the recurring appointment based off the date this reminder is sent out. 
   • You must send this notification out 14 days prior (or when you get the systems email reminder). If you wait a day to send these out, the system may not have the option anymore and you will have to reschedule the job so you are 14 days out from the appointment date in order to have the option to send this notification.
7. Around 2 days later, the final Pending Appointment Reminder notification will automatically send out for the Recurring Appointments. Customer may or may not confirm. 
8. Around 1 day later, if the customer has not confirmed the Recurring Appointment, the Recurring Appointment will automatically be removed and will not count towards cancellation reporting. Customer will receive a notification letting them know the Recurring Appointment has expired. 
9. Around 3 days after the Recurring Appointment expires, a CSR will see a callback record in the Dashboard > Callbacks view where they can choose to follow up with the customer one last time. If the customer chooses to move forward with the appointment, the CSR can re-apply the Recurring Appointment to the Client record and proceed to book a job as normal(No incentives included automatically for this normal job. Can be added Manually). 
10. Sometime around a few day(s) before the appointment, if the customer confirmed the appointment and if the base has set up Appointment Reminder Texts, dispatch will send out the confirmation texts/Appointment Reminder texts via the schedule view and the Recurring Appointments will get the Appointment Reminder text.
11. On the appointment day, Techs will show up at job and send the customer the User Invoice Link. Customer will have the option to continue, change or stop the Recurring Appointments in the future.

What do Customers, Techs, CSR's and Dispatch see when Recurring Appointments is turned on in Zr Ware®?

1. What the customer will see from the tech app or user invoice link.
2. What the Tech will see from the Tech App.
3. What the CSR will see from the clients page.
4. What the CSR will see from the clients page > client history.
5. What the CSR will see from the Booking or Edit Booking screen.
6. What Dispatch will see from the Schedule View:

• The ability to send Appointment Reminder Notifications for Recurring Appointments. .                

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• Recurring Appointment arrow icons for the job info.
• Diamond shape pins on the map for recurring appointments.
• Slashed out services that show line items that have been deactivated and need attention.

• Recurring Appointment arrow icons on cards in the card view:
  • Black means it is not taking up space.
  • Blue means it is taking up space and it's not awaiting a first or final confirmation message.
  • Orange means it is awaiting a reminder notification.
  • Green means this Recurring Appointment was converted to a real booking. 
• Orange Info icon to show that there is a service on the job that has been deactivated and needs attention.
  

• Pending Recurring Appointment count on the Availability and ETA view.
  • Unrouted pending Recurring Appointments do not affect your overall availability.

• When changing the Recurring Appointment date, if today is after the calculated first Reminder Date that uses the selected date, CSR will see the message in red below. 
  

How to incentivize customers with Recurring Appointment promo codes

You have the option of incentivizing customers to opt into recurring appointments by offering a Recurring Appointment promo code for each interval. To create these promo codes, use the 'Recurring Appointment Incentive Interval in Months' input box from the Add Promo Code screen in Admin > Promotion Codes.
Example: 25% off 3 month intervals, 15% off 6 month intervals and 10% off 12 month intervals.

Customers will see these discounts when deciding to opt in and the discounts will auto apply to the recurring appointments. 

 

To deactivate a recurring appointment promo code, you will need to deselect the Recurring Appointment Incentive Interval before you are allowed to deactivate the promo code.

Once, that has been done, the promo code behaves like a traditional promo code again and can be deactivated again.

 

How notifications work for Recurring Appointments:

Definitions for this section:

First Reminder Date = appointment date minus 14 days + (get closest, first available date looking at full day closures)

Final Reminder Date = First Reminder Date + 2 + (get closest, first available date looking at full day closures)

Expiration Date = Final Reminder Date + 1

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When the system sends the Recurring Appointment Reminder or Final Reminder notifications, it will save the calculated expiration date and then use that expiration date in both the email and the SMS Notifications. That same date is used to expire the appointment if no action was taken by the customer.

Notifications for Zr Ware® Users

Notifications go to users added in Admin > Subscriptions > Recurring Appointments Notifications. Emails are sent at 9:00am Company Timezone.

1. First Notification
   This notification is a reminder for someone to go and actually put the pending, recurring appointment on a route.
   • Email Subject: Upcoming Recurring Appointment(s) Notification Dispatch Required
      
   • Included in Email: All upcoming UNROUTED pending, recurring appointments whose appointment date is on or after the appointment date minus 17 days and the day when the process runs is also on or after the appointment date minus 17 days. 
      
   • Example:
      
2. Second Notification
   This notification is intended to remind them to go to the schedule view and send the first Pending Appointment Reminder notifications (email/text).
   • Email Subject: Upcoming Recurring Appointment(s) Reminder Notification(s) Required
      
   • Included in Email: All upcoming, routed, pending recurring appointments whose appointment date is on or after the First Reminder Date(see definitions above) and if the day when the process runs is on or after the First Reminder Date(see definitions above) and before the Final Reminder Date(see definitions above).
      
3. Third Notification
   This notification let's you know that the system will be automatically sending out final reminders for the customers who have not confirmed yet.
   
    
4. Expired Recurring Appointment Callback

   • Around 3 days after the Recurring Appointment expires, a CSR will see a callback record in the Dashboard > Callbacks view where they can choose to follow up with the customer one last time. If the customer chooses to move forward with the appointment, the CSR can re-apply the Recurring Appointment to the Client record and proceed to book a job as normal(No incentives included automatically for this normal job. Can be added Manually).

     

Notifications for Customers

Admin > Message Center

These notifications go out when Dispatch sends them out from the schedule view.

These 3 below are automatically created and set up when the Recurring Appointment feature is turned on.

• Recurring Appointment Reminder Text (Manually sent) 
  • Asks customer to confirm Recurring Appointment. Confirming recurring appointment turns it into a real booking. 
• Recurring Appointment Final Reminder Text (Automated) 
  • Only goes out if they haven't confirmed yet. Asks customer to confirm Recurring Appointment. Confirming recurring appointment turns it into a real booking. 
• Recurring Appointment Expired Text (Automated)
  • Let's the customer know that the recurring appointment has expired.

Appointment Reminder Text (Optional): If you want to use this one, it may need to be set up in Admin > Message Center. This will go out from the same buttons used to send out the confirmations texts and will only go out if the job has been confirmed. 

Duplicate Prevention:

• If dispatch attempts to send a reminder manually via a bulk action, the system will automatically prevent duplicate notifications from being sent to clients.
• If dispatch tries to send a reminder manually for an individual booking after the system had already sent that notification, the system will display a warning message indicating that the customer has already received the notification.
• If the system tries to send a reminder as scheduled and dispatch had sent it manually before, the system will not attempt to send a duplicate message

State Validation

• If a customer confirms their pending recurring appointment after receiving the first reminder, the system will NOT send the final reminder notifications.
• If a customer cancels their pending recurring appointment after receiving the first reminder, the system will NOT send the final reminder notifications.

Warning! If the customer replies "Cancel" to any of these texts, the CSR will need to manually go in and cancel the recurring appointment and the recurring subscription in Zr Ware. This is not automated.

Admin > Campaign Monitor

These should be created and set up by your Campaign Monitor representative or whoever helps you with CM transactional emails.

• Recurring Appointment Reminder
  • Asks customer to confirm Recurring Appointment. Confirming recurring appointment turns it into a real booking. 
• Recurring Appointment Final Reminder
  • Only goes out if they haven't confirmed yet. Asks customer to confirm Recurring Appointment. Confirming recurring appointment turns it into a real booking. 
• Recurring Appointment Expired
  • Let's the customer know that the recurring appointment has expired.

 

Migrating callback subscriptions to Recurring Appointments (Only needed if you were using the callback subscription feature previously)

1. Locating Callback subscriptions to Migrate:
   • From the Dashboard > Callbacks View:
     • Callback Subscriptions show up as green in Dashboard > Callbacks. Clicking on any of the names associated with a callback subscription will open a modal where a green Migrate button will be available. This button will take you to the clients page. Continue the migration process using step 2 below. 
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   • From the Client Screen > Callbacks View:
     • Callback subscriptions show up as green in Client Screen > Callbacks. Clicking on the name will open the Callbacks Action Modal where you can click on the green 'Migrate' button. This will take you to the clients page. Continue the migration process using step 2 below.
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2. Migrating Callbacks to Recurring Appointments
   1. Client Screen > Client History. Choose a booking to copy the services from for the Recurring Appointment.
   2.  Actions > Migrate callback subscription using this booking.
      • This will not migrate over any promo codes, tips, accounting adjustment or negatively priced line items.
        
         
   3. Confirm the Appointment Date and click "Yes, create it". 
      The Appointment Date is defaulted to what the next Callback date was on the Callback subscription. Creating the Recurring Appointment here will remove all Callback linked to the Callback Subscription for this client.
      
       
   4. If the selected appointment date is before the calculated First Reminder Date, then the user will see a note in red warning them that this recurring appointment will immediately create a real booking in the system with a booked call record and it will take up space on the schedule. No Recurring Appointment notification will be available for this appointment. 
      The Appointment Date will default to what the next Callback date was on the Callback subscription and all Callbacks linked to the Callback Subscription for this client will be removed.
      
       

How to manually create a subscription and recurring appointment as a CSR.
 

First, navigate to your client in ZrWare, then on the left side there will be a panel for Subscriptions.
Hover your mouse over this panel to have an Edit symbol appear. 

(You may need to scroll down to see this panel.)

Click on the blue edit symbol in the top right and then click the blue +Add button.

You will want to select an interval of either 3, 6, or 12 months. The "Created" date is just the date that their account became subscribed. 

Once you have created the subscription, you can create the first recurring appointment as well (If you don't manually do this, it will automatically create the recurring appointment after the customer has their next cleaning). Refresh your browser tab. Next, you will want to navigate in the client history to the completed booking you would like to base the subscription off of and then go to the Actions menu.

Then, down in the Actions menu, there should be an option for "Create next recurring appointment using this booking". 

Select that and confirm that you want to create a booking. 

After this step, you will be taken to the booking screen to confirm/edit the details before you save the newly created recurring booking.


 

How to manually confirm appointments.

If a customer contacts us directly rather than confirming their recurring appointment normally, a CSR can confirm the booking for them. This is typically done when a customer receives their appointment reminder and then calls us to change the date. The CSR will need to confirm the booking before changing the appointment date. 

To confirm an appointment, you can click on the lock icon shown on the client card:

 
This brings up the following screen where you can confirm the booking:

Common Questions/Troubleshooting

Missing Recurring Appointment
If the customer has opted into recurring appointments but you are not seeing a recurring appointment in the client history. You can click on the Actions drop down for one of the completed bookings in the client history and there should be a button to create a recurring appointment from that booking.

The button will only show up on a completed job for a client that is opted into recurring appointments. It will throw an error if you have an existing recurring appointment booking. 

Who gets credit on the the Call Source/CSR Booking report for Recurring Appointments?

It depends on the workflow. 

1. Customer clicks on the link in the email/sms message:
   • The Headquarters Admin user is credited with the booking
2. CSR has some manual back and forth via text and/or phone call and the CSR changes the confirmation status to Confirmed in the system:
   • The CSR who takes this action is currently getting the credit on the reports.

What happens when I reopen a Recurring Appointment?

• This will remove the systems memory of sending out any recurring appointment notifications. This means a recurring appointment notification can go out the same day.
• Any expiration date on the recurring appointment will be nulled.

Useful Reports

Recurring Appointments Report

Subscriptions by Appointment Date

Client Subscriptions