Text reminders

Emails get lost; a text the day before gets read. With text reminders on, hirers who have said yes are sent:

• a reminder before their hire — “a reminder of your booking of Main Hall tomorrow, 7pm-11pm” — a set number of hours before it starts;
• a reminder when an invoice is overdue, a set number of days after it was due, with a link to pay when the hall takes payments online.

Each booking and each invoice is texted once at most, only between 9am and 8pm, and only to a UK mobile. Invoices more than 60 days overdue are left alone, so switching this on does not text everybody about last year.

Only hirers who said yes. Hirers choose under Your account in their app, and can switch it off there at any time. The committee can tick it on the Hirers screen, having asked them.

Twilio. Texts go through the hall’s own Twilio account, which the hall pays for the texts (a few pence each). Sign up at twilio.com, buy a UK number, or register a sender name such as “VillageHall” (hirers cannot reply to a name), and put the Account SID, auth token and “Send from” on the Text reminders screen. Send yourself a test. The auth token is never shown again once saved.

Every text sent is listed on the screen, with the hirer and the last four digits of the number it went to.

For example: The Brownies meet every Thursday at 6pm. With a 24-hour reminder, their leader gets a text each Wednesday at 6pm. When their termly bill is 3 days overdue, the treasurer’s reminder arrives by text with a link to pay, and it is paid that evening.

Questions people ask

What does it cost?
Twilio charges the hall per text, a few pence in the UK, plus a small monthly charge for a number. A reminder is kept to one text where possible.

A hirer did not get one.
Check they said yes and their phone number is a UK mobile (the Hirers screen warns if not), and look for the text in the Sent list, which shows Twilio’s reason if one failed. A Twilio trial account can only text numbers you have verified with Twilio.