Sending text messages

Text messages are great for reminding your customers about an upcoming session or appointment, or sending a quick message right from within Light Blue, such as telling them that their order is ready for collection. The first time you send a text message you’ll go through a short setup step to set the name or number from which you want the messages to be sent. We offer various bundles of text message credits, from 7p per message.

How to send a text message

To send a single text message to someone, go to a Shoot record for someone who’s got a mobile number, click on the “Linked Records” panel, then click on the “Text Message” button.

Alternatively, click on the smaller text message icon which appears next to the contact’s details when you hover your mouse over them.

Then you can send a text message, just typing in what you want to say. 

It’s also possible to send a text message from within a contact record by clicking on the small text message icon which appears next to the contact’s phone number when your mouse hovers over it.

Generally it’s recommended to be sending text messages from a shoot record, since the message is likely to be relevant to that shoot.

Using text message templates

Using text message templates is faster than typing out a commonly used message every time you want to send it. You can set up these templates in the “Preferences” window. You can also include mail-merge tags to include information about the person it’s going to, or the event you’re reminding them about. You can use text message templates from the same places you can create a blank text message: go to a Shoot record and click the “Text Message” button, then select the “Create Text Message From Template” option.

Sending text messages in bulk

A great use of text messages is to remind customers that they’ve got a session or appointment with you. Sending lots of messages singly would be boring, so we’ve got a way of sending reminders in bulk. Go to the “File” menu, then” Send Text Messages”, “Upcoming Events”, and choose your settings. For example, to send messages for upcoming events in the next seven days, starting from tomorrow. The messages are then created, and you can review them and check the number or credits being used before you send them. 

Special characters in text messages

Text messaging uses SMS, which uses a basic set of letters, numbers and characters to send messages. If you add special characters like emoji or some accented letters then the message will cost more credits to send – we’ll warn you about this at the bottom of the “Text Message Templates” preferences and wherever you’re composing your message.