Messages
Every message to and from a customer, whether an agent wrote it or Torque sent it on a schedule, sits in one conversation per customer. Click Messages in the booking header to open it in the side panel beside the booking.
Writing to the customer
Section titled “Writing to the customer”The conversation shows the whole history with this customer across all their bookings, newest at the bottom. Below the composer, a Bookings panel lists the customer’s other bookings so you can open one without leaving the conversation.
- Choose Email or Phone. Phone sends an SMS, or a WhatsApp message if that is how the customer last wrote in.
- Pick a template if one fits. It is filled in from the booking and placed in the composer as a draft for you to edit. Nothing is sent until you press send.
- For an email, a Subject starts a new thread. Without one the email answers the customer’s last.
- Attach a file if needed, then send.
Messages go to the booking’s contact first: for a business booking that is the traveller, not the company. Replies from the customer arrive in the same conversation and are flagged for an agent to act on. If your branch’s phone system is connected, incoming and outgoing calls appear here too, with a recording and a transcript.
Automated messages
Section titled “Automated messages”Torque sends a rental’s customer a fixed set of SMS messages on its own. They are listed under Scheduled Messages at the bottom of the conversation, each in the words it would go out with, until it is sent. The times are the branch’s local time.
| Message | When it is sent | Sent while the booking is |
|---|---|---|
| Booking Received | Within the hour after confirmation | CONFIRMED |
| Contact Card | Within the hour after confirmation, once per customer | CONFIRMED |
| Pickup Soon | 14:00, three days before pickup | CONFIRMED |
| Pickup Today | 07:00 on the pickup day | CONFIRMED |
| Post-Handover | Within the hour after check-out | ACTIVE |
| Return Soon | 14:00, two days before return | ACTIVE |
| Return Today | 07:00 on the return day | ACTIVE |
Rules worth knowing:
- The schedule follows the booking. Change the dates or extend the hire and every reminder moves with it. Cancel and nothing more is sent.
- A message is only sent inside its window, never late. A booking confirmed the evening before pickup does not get Pickup Soon.
- A message checks the booking’s status at the moment it goes out. A Return Today for a vehicle already checked in is not sent.
- A follow-on booking after a split (chapter 9) does not send pickup reminders, since the customer already has the car, and the booking it follows does not send return reminders.
To stop one message, open Scheduled Messages and skip it. A skipped message shows as Skipped and can be unskipped until its time has passed. Each message shows Scheduled, Sending, Sent, Skipped or Failed to send. A failed message is not retried: write to the customer yourself.
The wording of each automated message is a template the administrator maintains. Ask them, not the agent on shift, for changes to the text.