To begin using Customer Communications, you'll first need to enable it. Start by clicking on Company Settings and selecting Features & Plugins. Navigate to Customer Communications and select Enable. Now you're ready to begin customizing and automating your communications!

In Customer Communications, you have the option to create email and SMS templates for use with your customers. To create a new email template, select Create New.

Now you'll want to give your template a name. This name won't be seen by customers, but should be used to indicate what the email is about. After naming your template, write your subject line and email body.

Some examples of email messages include:

You can also use Field Values to populate the email with information particular to that customer and job from the details you've already entered into our system.

As you can see, you can enter information like Job Location, Job Start Date, Customer First Name, and so on.

Here's an example email populated with Field Values to personalize it to your customer. Click Save when the email template is complete.

To further customize your customer emails, navigate to Email Settings.

The first setting you can adjust is the Default 'From' Email Address. Choose between a single email address being used to send all customer emails (Designated Email Address) or allow the email sender to change based on who created the email (User's Email Address). Choosing Designated Email Address will prompt you to enter the email address you'd like to use to send all emails.

Note that you can also change the Default 'CC' Email Address with the same options. For example, you may want to CC the front office on all of your customer communications.

Next, you can customize the Default 'From' Name: either select User's Full Name to have the name of the associated user appear on the emails, or use Designated Name to set a specific name to appear on all customer emails. Choosing Designated Name will prompt you to enter the name you'd like to use on all emails.

Lastly, you have the option to display your logo in email communications by toggling this option on. Be sure to press Save after making changes.

In Customer Communications, you have the option to create email and SMS templates for use with your customers. To create a new SMS Template, select SMS Templates. Then, click Create New.

Just like when creating an email template, you'll need to create an internal template name to indicate what this message is about. Next, you can type the SMS body -- the text message that you'd like to be sent to your customers.

Some examples of SMS messages include:

Be sure to press Save after creating your message.

To send emails and/or SMS messages to a customer, navigate to the job or customer record that you want to communicate about, click on the Actions button at top right, and click Send Customer Communication.

Then select an email or SMS template to send to the customer.

You'll see that all of the field values have been populated and your message is ready to go. Once you've checked the details, click Send Email or Send SMS.

Setting up automatic triggers allows you to automate the email and SMS message sending process and ensure a consistent experience for all of your customers. To begin the process, select Automatic Triggers. To set up your first automatic trigger, select Create New.

You will now select when you want a message to be sent to your customer. There are a variety of options, so be sure to scroll through and select the applicable trigger. For this example, we've selected the trigger When job status is changed to 'Completed'.

Next, you can select the Trigger Action - what you'd like to happen once the Trigger selected above occurs.

Your final step will be to select which email or SMS template you'd like to be sent when this trigger event occurs. Be sure to press Save.

If you want to create additional automatic triggers, simply begin the process again by clicking Create New.

SMS using customer arrival window start & end time field values: