Everything customers receive from your store (Settings → Customer messages): who it comes from, the email sender and signature, appointment confirmations and reminders, system texts, and who we never contact. Per dealership.
Settings → Customer messages (under How customers reach you) holds everything customers receive from your store, top to bottom: Who messages come from, Email signature, Reminders and confirmations, System texts, then the two block-lists, Blocked numbers and Suppressed email addresses. Everything is per dealership, except the suppressed email list, which covers the whole group. Pick the store in the store row first.
Sending automated messages from the rep or from the dealership
1
Open Who messages come from
It is the first section of Settings → Customer messages.
2
Flip the switch
Personalize automated messages with the assigned rep's name on: confirmations and reminders carry the assigned rep's name. Off: every automated text and email comes from the dealership. A customer with no rep assigned always hears from the dealership.
3
Check the preview and save
The two previews show the same confirmation both ways. Press Save.
Emails a rep sends or approves always go out as that rep.
Letting AutoBook Agent write in each rep's own voice
Under the rep-name switch in Who messages come from is Write in each rep's own voice. It is off by default: AutoBook Agent writes every message in the dealership's voice. Turn it on and press Save, and AutoBook Agent writes each rep's customers' texts and emails the way that rep writes, learned from messages the rep typed themselves. It copies how they write (how they greet, how long they write, how they ask for the next step), never what they said. Two previews show the same customer text answered both ways.
- A rep's voice starts once they've typed 10 texts (or 10 emails) themselves. Until then, the dealership voice is used. Texts and emails are learned separately.
- Customers with no assigned rep, the service desk and phone calls stay in the dealership's voice. Website chat uses the rep's texting voice.
- Each rep can turn it off for themselves on their Profile, under Your writing voice. Only that rep sees what was learned; managers don't.
- It is set per dealership. Changing it needs the Configure AutoBook Agent permission (administrators by default).
Changing the email sender name and signature
In Who messages come from, Custom "From" name is the name customers see on your emails. Leave it blank to use the dealership name. The row below shows Your dealership email address, which you can give to customers.
In Email signature, turn on Enable signature, write a Sign-off, pick What the signature includes (the signature image defaults to your logo), and add a Custom line or a Legal / disclosure line if you need one. Press Save. Every appointment email and AutoBook Agent email is signed with it.
Turning appointment reminders on or off
Go to Settings → Customer messages → Reminders and confirmations. Each row is one step of the booking journey. Confirmations, reschedule and cancellation notices always send. The two reminders have their own on/off switches per channel. Press Save after changing one. The wording and email subject lines are fixed; tap Preview on a row to read exactly what the customer gets. AutoBook sets the reminder timing, and the line under the table says when they go.
| Message | When | Channels |
|---|
Booking confirmation | The moment they book | Text + email (always) |
24-hour reminder | The day before | Email (switchable) |
1-hour reminder | About an hour before | Text, with email as the fallback (each switchable) |
Reschedule notice | When an appointment is moved | Text + email (always) |
Cancellation | When an appointment is cancelled | Text + email (always) |
Lead acknowledgement | A new sales lead, if AutoBook Agent hasn't already replied | Email |
Service request | A new service request, if AutoBook Agent hasn't already replied | Email |
What the previews show
Each Preview is drawn for an in-person appointment with a rep assigned, with sample names and dates. A remote appointment, or one with nobody assigned, drops the rep lines. Follow-up emails reply on the confirmation email's thread, so the customer sees one conversation. The text is short and conversational; the email is fuller and signed with your Email signature.
System texts: missed call, dropped call, after a call, opt-out
System texts, below the reminders on Settings → Customer messages, lists the fixed texts sent outside booking. Tap Preview to read each one.
- Missed call: a call nobody picked up. Always on. Held back if someone is already texting with them, and a late-night call waits until morning.
- Dropped call: a call to a person that died before it connected. Always on.
- Post-call follow-up: after a call where nothing was booked. Once per customer, ever, and only while the store is open. Its one switch is Text after a phone call on Settings → Follow-ups.
- Opt-out confirmation: when someone asks to stop in their own words. Always sent; a carrier STOP gets the carrier's reply instead.
Courtesy texts like the missed-call text, the post-call text and lead receipts don't fire blindly. AutoBook Agent makes one decision per customer: send one text, skip it, or wait, so a customer never gets three automated texts at once. Each decision shows as a line in the customer's conversation.
Which number and language customer messages use
Every message goes out from the desk it is about. Sales messages come from your main line. Service messages (service tickets, service visits, service follow-ups) come from your service line once it is active and its carrier registration is done; until then they come from the main line and still belong to the Service desk. The first text from your service line opens with your store's name and Service (for example "It's Lakeside Motors Service.") so the customer knows who it is. Codes and opt-out confirmations go from the number the customer is using.
- Courtesy texts never merge across desks. A sales receipt and a service missed-call text are two texts, one from each number.
- A conversation stays with its desk. When a customer raises the other desk's topic, AutoBook Agent handles it in place, hands it to the other desk, and tells the customer once which number will follow up. It does this on website chat, text and email alike. It names no number when the service line isn't ready to text yet, or when a text couldn't reach them.
Messages go out in the customer's language. English and French are hand-written; other languages are translated automatically when the customer has clearly been writing in that language, with English as the fallback. Opt-out lines, legal lines and verification codes are never machine-translated.
The opt-out line (reply STOP) is on the customer's first text from each of your numbers, not on every text.
Where escalation, the chat greeting and the voice settings live
- Who takes new customers, and where waiting work moves: the Sales desk and Service desk sections of Settings → Routing. AutoBook sets the wait times; the page shows them. A customer's own rep keeps their customers' work, even when off; if the rep hasn't answered in time, AutoBook Agent answers the customer with its best complete reply. Only a new lead, a customer with no rep, and service-desk work move to whoever is working that desk. See the Desks help article and When AutoBook Agent asks you a question.
- The chat greeting: Settings → Website, in Launcher and greeting. Type {time_based_greeting} to insert Good morning / afternoon / evening in the customer's local time.
- How AutoBook Agent sounds on the phone: Settings → Phone & texting, in How it sounds. Call transfers are the Phone calls section of Settings → Routing.
- The full list of every message a customer can receive: the help article What AutoBook sends.
Do these settings apply to every dealership in my group?
No. Each dealership sets its own. Pick the store in the store row at the top of the left menu before you edit. The suppressed email list is the one exception: it covers the whole group.
Can I reword the confirmation or reminder messages?
No. The wording and subject lines are fixed so they read like a person and the compliance lines are always right. You control which reminders send, the sender name and the email signature.
Can I change when reminders go out?
No. AutoBook sets the timing; the line under the Reminders and confirmations table says when each reminder goes.
Where did the Email and Do not contact settings go?
Both are on Settings → Customer messages now. The sender name is in Who messages come from, the signature has its own section, and the two block-lists close the page. The old AI Behavior page is gone; escalation is on Settings → Routing. Old links still work.
What happened to Promotions and Vehicle Models?
They were retired. AutoBook Agent answers from your live inventory and Knowledge Base instead.
Need a hand?
Contact AutoBook support at support@auto-book.ca or 647-786-0989.