Overview
Communicating with your customers has never been easier! Send digital estimates and invoices, inspection sheets, and general updates about the service through text and email.
Send a customer an estimate or invoice
Note: for the purposes of this article, we will be referring solely to estimates. However, invoices can be inserted interchangeably wherever estimates are mentioned since both estimates and invoices will act the same through the following process.
When viewing an estimate that has a customer assigned to it, click the Send button towards the top of the page:
The Send Estimate menu will appear, where estimates can be sent via email, SMS text, or both:
The customer's mobile phone number and email is pulled from the customer on the estimate. It will use their preferred contact method and primary contact info from their customer details. For more information on preferred contacts and primary contact information check out our help article.
Communication can be both standardized and customized using message templates.
Click Manage next to the Template field to create and manage your templates. Message templates save you a ton of time and keep the message personalized for each order, customer and vehicle. You can always edit the text as needed.
Click Customer Estimate Preview to see a digital preview of what the customer will receive when the estimate is sent to them.
Click Send to send the message. Your customer will receive the Email and/or SMS text message shortly, depending on what you select in the Send Estimate menu.
Message toggles
Collect Payment: Allow your customers to pay their invoices by card. This requires setting up Shopmonkey Payments.
Request Authorization: Allow customers to authorize the digital estimate.
Display Messages: Allow customers to communicate directly with the shop and view any current messages related to the estimate.
Display Activity Feed: Allow customers to view the full activity feed on actions taken and updates made to the customer's estimate.
Display Authorization History: Determine if the Authorizations history is included on the printed order.
Smart and simple for your customers
Here is what your customers see when receiving your estimate. In these examples, the customer is both sending a message to the shop and authorizing the estimate:
Email:
SMS:
Still have questions? Feel free to reach out to us through the Chat Icon in the bottom right corner of your screen. Thanks for reading!