A reminder the day before is the single most effective way to cut no-shows. This article explains what HueChat does for you today and how to run reminders on WhatsApp.
- When a booking is created or changed, HueChat notifies your team (in-app, and by email or push if enabled), so the front desk always knows.
- The AI agent confirms the booking in the chat where it was made and can answer "when is my appointment?" from the calendar.
- The calendar tracks Confirmed, Completed, Cancelled and No show, and the appointment report shows completed, cancelled and no-show counts by service.
HueChat does not yet schedule customer reminder messages directly from the Appointments page. Use the approach below.
WhatsApp only allows a business to start a conversation with an approved template. Prepare two utility templates on the Templates page and submit them to Meta:
- Confirmation: "Your {{1}} appointment is booked for {{2}} at {{3}}. Reply RESCHEDULE if you need another time."
- Reminder: "Reminder: {{1}} tomorrow at {{2}}. Reply CONFIRM or RESCHEDULE."
Give each template a quick-reply button for rescheduling. A button reply lands in the Team Inbox as a normal conversation, where your AI agent or a team member can offer a new time.
Then send them:
- From the conversation: open the customer's conversation and use Send template. Fill the variables and send. This is the simplest option for a small number of daily appointments.
- As a broadcast: label tomorrow's customers (for example "reminder-tomorrow") and send the reminder template as a broadcast to that label. Broadcasts honour opt-outs and Meta's rules automatically; utility templates are not affected by marketing frequency caps.
- From your own system: read appointments through the public API (Developer Hub, developers.huechat.ai) and trigger template sends from your workflow or a connected automation.
Exact options may differ by plan.
Screenshot: the Send template dialog in a conversation with the reminder template selected
- Confirmation mode: with Manual confirmation your team confirms each booking after a quick check, which also gives you a natural moment to send the confirmation template.
- Minimum notice (minutes): last-minute bookings are more likely to be missed. Sixty minutes or more is a sensible floor.
- Cancellation notice (minutes): the AI refuses very late cancellations politely and offers to reschedule instead.
- Buffers: a short buffer after each service absorbs late arrivals without pushing the whole day.
- Deposit rule in knowledge: if you take deposits, add the rule as a Policy-authority text source so the AI states it consistently.
¶ Track and learn
- When a customer does not arrive, open the appointment and choose Mark no-show.
- Open Reports in Appointments to see no-shows by service and period.
- Reschedule requests arrive in the inbox; make sure an agent or AI agent answers them quickly, because an unanswered reschedule becomes a no-show.