While Connect by Vagaro does not require a Text Messaging plan to reply to customer messages or chat with coworkers, we highly recommend purchasing at least the small text plan to utilize all the feature's functionality. This way, you can send direct SMS messages to your customers without relying on them being active on Vagaro.com or the app.
The logic for when a chat will or will not use your plan is the following:
-
Chatting with team members (Free): Chatting with team members at your business is free and does not require a text marketing plan. Note that you can start a chat with a team member only if they have an employee profile created at your business. Multi-location businesses can chat with employees at other locations in their organization as well.
-
Customer receives or sends a message through SMS (Uses text plan): A message will be deducted from your plan for each message you exchange with your customer, including any messages they send you through SMS. All messages initiated by the business will be sent as SMS messages and will use your text plan.
Note
More than one message may be deducted from your text plan, depending on the length of the message sent/received or if any emojis or unsupported languages were used. See here to learn more.
-
Customer starts a chat through Vagaro (Free): Chats initiated by your customers through your booking page will not incur charges or require a Text Marketing plan. Once the customer ends the chat and closes the page, a messaging plan will be required to continue chatting with them.
Important
Your text messaging plan will be used if a customer replies to any Text Marketing campaigns or sends a direct text message to the number provided by Vagaro.
-
Customer receives a message through Vagaro (Free): Any replies or chats to your customer while they are active on the Vagaro website or app will not use your text plan.
Businesses without a text messaging plan will see a popup if a text plan is needed to continue messaging the customer. However, having a Vagaro Text Marketing plan lets you message your customers all the time instead of needing them to be active on Vagaro.com or the Vagaro app.
Comments
9 comments
What happens now when clients reply to the appointment confirmation SMS? Do we receive their reply or is it the same as before where they cannot reply to those texts?
Hi Tristan,
Thanks for this comment; great question. You will not receive customers' replies to automated appointment notifications and messages because the number used for these notifications differs from the number provided with your Text Messaging plan.
If this is a feature you're looking for, I'd be more than happy to forward this comment over to our product team!
Also, note that if you send a customer a Text Campaign and a customer replies to that message, you will receive the response.
Thanks,
Jamie
It would be great if we could get some sort of noise notification when receiving messages so we can get back to the client promptly while they are still on vagaro to utilize the free messages option. Also an indicator of if/when the client is ‘online’ so we know if we should reply or not to prevent using the text plan
Hi Kim,
We appreciate the feedback. I forwarded this comment to our product team.
Thanks,
Jamie
If we send out a mass marketing text and request a reply, will it activate a Vagaro Connect conversation?
Hi Danielle, Yes. If a customer responds to your Vagaro Text Marketing Campaign, you'll receive the reply in Vagaro Connect! Keep in mind that any replies will use your Text Marketing plan.
Thanks, Jamie
Hi Jamie,
Yes that would be a good suggestion, please forward to the product team. Would be nice to have all customer communications come from the same number.
Thanks!
Also, we are noticing that the booking is buffering now because we are using the Connect tab.
Hi Danielle, can you go into a more detail on what's happening on your end?
Thanks, Jamie
Please sign in to leave a comment.