SMS reminders for car service customers in Junto

What SMS reminders help your shop manage

SMS reminders help you keep an upcoming visit visible to the customer without relying on your reception team to call everyone. A forgotten booking leaves a gap in the calendar, while repeated confirmation calls take time away from customers already at the desk. A reminder gives the customer another prompt to remember the visit. Treat it as support for your booking process, not a guarantee that every customer will arrive or that your shop can stop making calls altogether.

The same principle applies once a car reaches your workshop: customers need clear updates, and staff need time to organise the work. Junto connects messaging with bookings, car check-in, work orders, approvals and payments. That gives you a practical way to move routine communication into texts and links while keeping phone conversations for questions that need discussion. For a busy reception desk in Tbilisi, the useful distinction is between an update the customer can read and a conversation your team still needs to have.

When Junto sends the day-before reminder

Junto sends the day-before reminder from 18:00 Tbilisi time: by push to the car owner's Junto app, and by SMS only if the shop switches SMS reminders on (one reminder is at most 2 segments, 0.08 ₾). For your shop, the important setup choice is whether to enable the SMS reminder alongside the app notification. Explain this distinction to reception staff so they do not assume that every customer reminder automatically includes a text, regardless of the shop's settings.

Visits booked after 12:00 the day before get no reminder. Build this cutoff into the way your team handles short-notice bookings rather than assuming the evening reminder covers every appointment on tomorrow's calendar. When you accept a late booking, make the visit details clear during that booking conversation. The reminder schedule uses Tbilisi time, which is the relevant reference for your Georgian shop; do not promise a different sending time or a separate reminder schedule that has not been established.

• Check tomorrow's bookings in the calendar.
• Decide whether your shop will switch SMS reminders on.
• Make short-notice visit details clear when taking the booking.
• Keep phone calls for questions that need a conversation.

Which messages customers receive through the visit

Junto sends texts for booking confirmation, moves and cancellations, car received (with status link), approval requests, car ready (with amount and optional pay link) and review requests. These messages cover different moments in the visit, rather than serving as repeated appointment reminders. Start with the booking and calendar in the staff app, then use car check-in and the work order as the visit progresses. Your team should understand what each message tells the customer before explaining the process at reception.

For the customer, the links make the messages useful beyond the text itself. The car-received message includes a status link, and customers can follow the repair's status on their phone. When you suggest extra work, the SMS approval link lets the customer see each line with its price before work starts. Once the car is ready, the message includes the amount and can include a pay link. This connects communication to decisions and collection, while leaving your staff available to explain anything the customer does not understand.

How Georgian SMS segments affect your cost

SMS costs 0.04 ₾ per segment from a prepaid balance; a Georgian-script segment holds 70 characters (67 when a message is split), Latin 160 (153). A segment is the unit you pay for, so a message and a billed segment are not always the same thing. When a text is split, the lower character limit applies to each segment. This matters when you write Georgian customer messages: wording that looks short on screen can still take more than one segment.

SMS templates exist per language with placeholders; delivery is logged. Review the wording as the customer will receive it, including the information inserted into placeholders, rather than judging length from the template alone. Keep the message clear and remove unnecessary wording, but do not switch a customer's language simply to fit more characters. Junto works in Georgian and English. Use the delivery log when checking a particular message, and distinguish a logged delivery from proof that the customer has read or acted on it.

• Check the language of the customer-facing template.
• Review text with placeholder information filled in.
• Remove repeated wording that does not help the customer.
• Budget by segments, not just by the number of messages.
• Check delivery records when investigating a messaging question.

Who uses messaging and how it fits the workflow

Messaging involves the people handling bookings, customer decisions and vehicle collection, with your manager coordinating the process. Reception staff can explain the visit and reminder timing; the person discussing extra work can explain the approval request; and collection staff can answer questions about the ready message and amount. These are practical responsibilities to assign in your shop, not a claim that every staff role has identical access. Junto includes staff roles, so review your setup rather than assuming everyone should handle every customer communication.

Junto brings the calendar, check-in with photos and a signature, work orders with labour and part lines, and the mechanic's phone view into one app. Messaging supports that broader workflow: an approval request relates to suggested work, while a ready message relates to the customer's next step. Before introducing the process, agree who explains extra work, who handles unanswered questions and who speaks to the customer at collection. Clear responsibilities help you avoid replacing a series of phone calls with confusion about who should respond.

How to set up and test your messaging process

Start by reviewing messaging at app.junto.ge/messages, deciding whether to switch SMS reminders on, and checking your language templates and prepaid balance. Every new shop gets 100 free SMS during the 14-day trial. Use that trial to become familiar with the workflow and segment-based charging, rather than assuming each customer visit produces the same SMS cost. Review how your team explains booking changes, approval links and collection messages, and keep a clear process for customers who need to speak with someone.

Some features are modules; the pricing page shows which plan includes them, and an owner can request a module that is not in the plan from inside the app. Check that information before choosing a plan for your shop instead of assuming a specific messaging feature is included everywhere. During your initial review, pay particular attention to the reminder cutoff, Georgian template length and delivery records. Those checks give you a concrete basis for adjusting your process without promising a particular reduction in missed visits or calls.

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