Messaging

Understanding Messaging in Woofle

Woofle's messaging touches several parts of the app at once — templates, client settings, the calendar, your dashboard and the Message Queue. This guide steps back and explains the whole picture: what kinds of messages there are, how they get from Woofle to your client, and every dial you can turn.

The one rule worth remembering: Woofle never messages a client on its own. There is no background robot quietly sending anything. Woofle writes the message and lines it up in your Message Queue; you send it from your own phone or WhatsApp with a tap. Nothing reaches a client unless you send it.

The kinds of messages

Every message in Woofle falls into one of four groups. Knowing which is which makes the rest of the system much easier to follow.

Appointment updates — offered whenever you book, reschedule, complete, cancel, mark as paid, or record a no-show. For example, completing a groom offers a "payment due" message.
Reminders — a nudge to the client before an upcoming appointment, so they don't forget.
Re-book nudges — a friendly prompt when a pet is overdue for its next groom and has nothing booked in.
One-off messages — a thank-you, an onboarding link to fill in their details, or a free-text message you write yourself.

If you use self-booking: when a client requests an appointment through your portal, approving the request offers the usual booked message, and declining one lets you optionally add a short booking request declined message to let them know — both are the same offer-and-choose kind of message as everything else here. There's a full walkthrough in the self-booking guide.

Sent from your own phone — and why that's good

Every message goes out from your own phone number or WhatsApp, not from an anonymous Woofle number. That brings some real advantages:

Replies come straight back to you. When a client answers "See you then!" or "Can we make it 11?", it lands in your own Messages or WhatsApp, like any other conversation.
Clients recognise who it's from. It's your name in their phone, not a mystery sender.
Unlimited, with nothing extra to pay. There's no per-message charge from Woofle — send as many as you like.
Works wherever you are. Because it's your own phone doing the sending, it works in any country.

The Message Queue

Whenever you choose to send a message — from an appointment window, a reminder, or a client's history — it joins your Message Queue (under Messages → Message Queue). A small badge in the top bar shows how many are waiting, so nothing gets forgotten. The queue is shared across your business, so anyone on your team can work through it.

Each message in the queue shows who it's for, what it is, and the full wording. From there you have three choices:

Text — on your phone, opens your Messages app with the client's number and the message already filled in. Just press send.
WhatsApp — opens WhatsApp the same way. This one works on a computer too: it opens WhatsApp Desktop or WhatsApp Web, so you can clear the queue from your desk.
Discard — changed your mind? Remove it from the queue without sending.

Tip: a great habit is to clear the queue in one go — at the end of a groom, over a cuppa, or first thing in the morning. Tap send, come back to Woofle, tap the next one. A whole day's messages take a minute or two.

Once you've opened a message to send it, Woofle marks it as sent and moves it to Message History (Messages → Message History), where you'll see every message you've sent, latest first. Each client, pet and appointment also keeps its own message list, so you can always see what's been said. There's a step-by-step walkthrough in Sending Messages: the Message Queue & History.

Now vs. later: when messages are offered

The four groups split neatly into two timings.

Right now — as you work

Appointment updates and one-off messages are offered in the moment. When you complete a groom, the "mark complete" window already has the payment message written out and ready. You read it, tweak it if you like, flick the send switch, and save — the message joins your queue. If you don't switch it on, nothing is queued — you've simply marked the appointment complete. Same for booking, cancelling, and the rest.

Later — Woofle keeps an eye out

Reminders and re-book nudges work differently. Woofle watches your calendar and, when one becomes due, surfaces it on your dashboard (and on the Scheduled messages page). Each one shows the pet, the client, and the date, with two buttons:

Send — opens the same compose window, with the reminder or nudge ready to add to your queue.
Dismiss — clears it away if you'd rather not send this one. It won't keep nagging you.

You'll only ever see one of these per pet at a time, and once you've queued or dismissed it, it won't come back for that appointment. On the Scheduled messages page you can also look a week or two ahead to see what's coming — handy for getting ahead on a quiet afternoon.

The dials and knobs

Here's everything you can adjust, from the wording of the messages down to who receives them.

Message templates — the wording

Every message type has a template: the default wording Woofle suggests. You'll find these on the Message Templates page, where you can rewrite any of them in your own voice. Templates use tokens — little placeholders in square brackets that Woofle swaps for the real details when the message is written:

[ClientFirstName] and [ClientName] — who you're messaging
[PetName] — the dog in question
[AppointmentDate], [AppointmentTime], [ServiceName], [Price] — the appointment details
[PortalLink] — the client's personal portal link
[BusinessName] — your salon's name

So "Reminder: [ClientFirstName], [PetName] is booked in on [AppointmentDate]." might arrive as "Reminder: Sarah, Bella is booked in on Monday 1 June." Each message type only offers the tokens that make sense for it, and Woofle warns you if you use one that doesn't fit.

Each template also has a "Send by default" switch. Leave it off (the standard setting) and the send switch starts unticked every time, so sending is always a deliberate choice. Turn it on for a message you almost always send — an appointment confirmation, say — and its switch will start ticked, ready to go, while still letting you untick it for any individual client.

Per-client — who can be messaged

Two things on each client's record decide whether they can be messaged at all:

A mobile number. No mobile, no message — there's nowhere to send it. The compose window will simply tell you a number is missing.
The "Send messages" switch. On by default. Turn it off for a client who'd rather not hear from you this way, and Woofle stops offering messages for them everywhere — including reminders and nudges.

Per-pet — reminder and nudge timing

Reminders and nudges are set up per pet, on the pet's profile, which lets you tune them to each dog's routine:

Reminder: how many days before an appointment the reminder should appear (for example, 2 days before). Leave it blank and that pet gets no reminders.
Re-book nudge: how many weeks after the last groom to prompt a re-book (for example, 6 weeks) — but only if nothing's already booked. Leave it blank for no nudges.

About the demo clients. A brand-new account comes pre-filled with a few example clients, and they arrive with a ready-made message history so your message lists and dashboard look alive from day one. The example clients use placeholder numbers, so their messages can never reach a real phone — in the queue they just offer Mark as sent (demo). When you're ready to start fresh, you can clear all the demo data (history and all) in a single click.

Sending a message, step by step

Wherever a message is offered — an appointment window, a dashboard reminder, or an ad-hoc message from a client's history — it works the same way:

Flick the send switch on

This reveals the message. If "Send by default" is on for that type, it's already switched on for you.
Read it over — edit if you like

The message comes pre-written from your template with the real details filled in. Change anything you want; if you edit it, Woofle pauses the auto-fill so your wording sticks. A Regenerate button puts the template back if you change your mind.
Save — it joins your Message Queue

Finish what you were doing (booking, completing, and so on). The message is now waiting in your queue, and the badge in the top bar goes up by one.
Send it from the queue

Open Messages → Message Queue and tap Text or WhatsApp. Your Messages app or WhatsApp opens with everything filled in — press send, and you're done.

Putting it together

That's the whole system: four kinds of message, two timings, one queue, and a handful of dials — templates for the wording, per-client switches for who, and per-pet settings for when. Set your templates up once, switch on reminders for your regulars, and day to day messaging becomes a quick run through your queue that keeps your diary full and your clients in the loop — with their replies coming straight back to you.

Want to go deeper on any one piece? Each has its own guide on the guides index.