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Collects as they arrive, acts daily

Text clients a booking confirmation and reminders

Clients get an SMS when they book, plus reminders the day before and shortly before, never during quiet hours.

Runs
Collects as they arrive, acts daily
Apps
Twilio
AI
Optional
Access
write

Send this to your assistant

Create a ClickRuntime automation: when my booking tool posts a new appointment to this link, text the client a confirmation, then a reminder 24 hours and 2 hours before, and don't send anything between 9pm and 8am.

Paste it into your assistant. It tells you what it will send or change before it runs live.

First time? Adding ClickRuntime to your assistant takes about two minutes.

Why use it

Why teams use this automation

No-shows cost appointment-based businesses real money. A dentist or barber who has three empty slots a week because clients forgot loses hundreds of dollars a month, and a confirmation email buried in a promotions tab does not help. Texts get read within minutes, but sending them by hand means someone has to remember who booked what, and when to remind them.

As bookings arrive, this stores each one with the phone number and appointment time and sends a confirmation text immediately. Each day it checks which appointments are due for a reminder, sends them and marks them as sent, and it holds messages that would land during your quiet hours so no one is texted at midnight.

An AI step can optionally word the messages in a friendlier way. Clients see the details in their messages.

What you get out of it

  • Fewer empty appointment slots

    A reminder the day before reminds forgetful clients and gives others time to cancel. Both outcomes beat a silent no-show, because a canceled slot can be offered to someone on a waiting list.

  • Confirmation gives clients certainty

    A text straight after booking proves the appointment exists. Clients stop wondering whether the form worked, and you receive fewer calls and messages asking whether they are booked in. Fewer calls from nervous clients too.

  • No double reminders

    Each appointment is marked once its reminder is sent, so a client never gets two texts for one visit. Repeats irritate people and some replies to a pushy sender are opt-outs.

  • Respects the clock

    Messages that would fall in quiet hours are held until morning. Clients are not woken by a reminder, and your business avoids the complaints that come from late-night marketing-style texts.

  • Works with bookings from any source

    Because bookings are passed in when they arrive, the source can be a form, a calendar tool or a script. You do not have to replace your booking system to start sending texts.

How it works

What happens, step by step

  1. When a client books, your booking tool tells ClickRuntime, which saves the booking with their phone number and time.

  2. The client gets a confirmation text straight away.

  3. Every 15 minutes, ClickRuntime sends any reminders that are due: one the day before and one shortly before the appointment. Each reminder is sent only once.

  4. Texts are only sent between 8am and 9pm, never during quiet hours.

Before it runs live

  • Connect Twilio
  • Paste your automation's link into the other app's webhook settings

What you get

RunsCollects as they arrive, acts daily
Text clients a booking confirmation and reminderstoday, 9:00Succeeded
SMS · Client reminderReminder: see you at 14:30 on Tue 21 Oct.

Build your own

Need it to work differently?

This template is a starting point. Copy the prompt and change it, or describe a different automation from scratch, with your own conditions, more apps or an AI step. Your assistant writes it, tests it and runs it on ClickRuntime.
  • Your own rules

    Conditions, thresholds, filters and exceptions, written the way you'd explain them to a colleague.

  • Any number of apps

    One automation can read from one app and update several others. Over 248 apps are ready, and anything with an API works too.

  • AI where it helps

    Summaries, classification, extraction and drafts use ClickRuntime's built-in AI, with no extra key.

  • On a schedule or on each event

    Runs as often as every 5 minutes, or the moment an app sends an event, and keeps track of what it already handled.

Changes you can ask for

  • Act only on the items that match your own rules, and skip the rest
  • Change what the AI looks for, or how it writes the result
  • Add another app, for example also send it to Slack
  • Combine it with other Twilio steps into one automation

Under the hood

The code that runs this automation

This is the Python script that runs each time the automation starts. Your AI assistant writes it for you when you send the prompt, and you allow each step in your assistant. To change how the automation works, describe the change to your assistant and it updates the script for you. For every function it can use, see the script reference.
appointment_confirmations_and_reminders_by_sms.pyexample
from datetime import datetime, timedelta, timezone
from clickruntime import on_event, on_trigger, credentials, http, state

FROM = "+447700900000"
QUIET = range(8, 21)  # only send 08:00–20:59 UTC

def sms(to, body):
    sid = credentials.secret("TWILIO_ACCOUNT_SID")
    http.post(f"https://api.twilio.com/2010-04-01/Accounts/{sid}/Messages.json",
              auth=(sid, credentials.secret("TWILIO_AUTH_TOKEN")), data={"To": to, "From": FROM, "Body": body})

@on_event
def booked(event):
    b = event.json  # {"id", "name", "phone", "start": ISO time}
    bookings = state.get("bookings") or {}
    bookings[b["id"]] = {**b, "sent": []}
    state.set("bookings", bookings)
    sms(b["phone"], f"Hi {b['name']}, you're booked for {b['start'][:16].replace('T', ' ')}. Reply STOP to opt out.")
    return {"stored": b["id"]}

@on_trigger
def reminders(event):
    now = datetime.now(timezone.utc)
    if now.hour not in QUIET:
        return {"skipped": "quiet hours"}
    bookings, sent = state.get("bookings") or {}, 0
    for bid, b in list(bookings.items()):
        start = datetime.fromisoformat(b["start"])
        for label, before in (("day", timedelta(hours=24)), ("soon", timedelta(hours=2))):
            if label not in b["sent"] and now >= start - before and now < start:
                sms(b["phone"], f"Reminder: see you at {start:%H:%M} on {start:%a %d %b}.")
                b["sent"].append(label)
                sent += 1
        if start < now:
            bookings.pop(bid)
    state.set("bookings", bookings)
    return {"sent": sent}

FAQ

Common questions

How far ahead is the reminder sent?
You choose the timing, such as 24 hours before or the morning of the appointment. The flow checks daily, so a reminder goes out on the day you set, outside quiet hours, rather than at an exact minute.
Can clients reply to cancel or confirm?
Replies come in to your Twilio number, and you can have them forwarded to you by email or a channel. Handling them automatically needs a separate flow, so many businesses start by watching replies manually.
Do I need permission to text clients?
In most places you need consent to send text messages, which a booking form with a clear checkbox usually covers. Rules vary by country, so check the requirements that apply to you and keep opt-out handling in place.
What permissions does it need?
write. Nothing else in your accounts is used.
Does it need AI?
No, but you can ask for an AI step (for example a summary). It then uses ClickRuntime's built-in AI allowance.
How many runs does it use?
One run each time it checks. Checks that find nothing new and stop right away aren't counted.
Can I change how it works?
Yes. Describe the change to your AI assistant, for example a different schedule, channel or filter. It updates the automation, tests it and tells you what changed.

Set up “Text clients a booking confirmation and reminders” from your assistant

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