BookestoMessages
In buildConfirmations, reminders, and the record of both.
Your customer gets a confirmation email with a calendar file, then reminders the day before and two hours before, with a private link to move or cancel. You get an email when a booking arrives or is cancelled. These emails start when our mail delivery is connected.
Automatic messages are email only for now. WhatsApp messages are not switched on yet.
Why reminders go wrong
Four ways reminders fail
A reminder fires for an appointment that was cancelled yesterday. A customer gets four messages in ten minutes because four different rules all had something to say. A client who asked to stop hearing from you is contacted again after the next import. And somewhere in the middle, a reminder quietly stops sending for a week and nobody finds out until a chair is empty.
This page is about how Bookesto handles these.
Confirmations and reminders
In buildThe message reads the booking at the moment it goes out
When a reminder is due, Bookesto looks at the booking at that moment. A cancelled booking gets no reminder, and a moved booking gets a reminder for the new time.
Confirmations carry a calendar file, so your customer’s own phone knows about the appointment.
Consent
In buildConsent, written down
Before anything is sent, Bookesto checks whether this person agreed to this kind of message on this channel, because agreeing to a booking reminder is not agreeing to a promotion.
Consent is kept as a record that cannot be edited afterwards, including the wording that was agreed and the language it was shown in.
A customer can withdraw without emailing you and waiting. When they do, the record outlives the rest of their data, so importing an old list next year does not start contacting them again.
Quiet hours
In buildPromotions wait for the right hours
Automated marketing outside permitted hours is a regulatory problem in the UAE and a bad idea everywhere. A promotional message whose window is shut is not dropped. It waits for the next open time. Confirmations and cancellations are not held back. Reminders go between 7 AM and 9 PM in your time zone, so one for a very early or late appointment can arrive late or not at all.
The window follows your venue’s time zone, with a regional limit underneath.
Limit
We use your venue’s time zone rather than your customer’s. For a customer who lives in your city, which is most of them, that is right. For a tourist it can be an hour or two out.
Our reading of the UAE marketing window comes from three compliance vendors rather than from the regulator’s own text, which was unreachable when we checked on 18 September 2026. The figure is treated as reported, not verified, and the Saudi equivalent hours are unknown and deliberately absent.
Coming
WaitingWhen WhatsApp arrives, and a message fails
A customer who is not on WhatsApp, or who blocked the sender, should still be reminded. So when WhatsApp messages arrive, a failed message will move on to email, and it will read the booking again rather than send what was true an hour ago.
Limit
There is no SMS, and none is planned yet. The order will be WhatsApp, then email.
WhatsApp, straight
WaitingIn the Gulf, people expect WhatsApp. We will only do it the official way.
WhatsApp messages are not switched on yet, and until they are, Bookesto sends no WhatsApp message to anybody. Not in a trial, not in a demo.
We will never route your messages through an unofficial gateway. Those get business numbers banned, permanently, and the number that gets banned is yours.
Each business will have its own WhatsApp account and its own number, rather than sharing one behind Bookesto. Messages will arrive under your name, and another business’s sending cannot damage your number’s standing.
Telling you
In buildBeing told a booking came in
You should not have to open a dashboard to learn a booking exists. Bookesto emails you when a booking arrives or is cancelled. Five bookings in a minute is one message rather than five. These emails start when our mail delivery is connected.
Owners, admins and managers get it. Other roles do not.
Afterwards
LiveWhat you can see afterwards
A log of each message, with its channel, its template and its status. And a report of what changed in your account and who changed it.
Limit
Writing your own message wording and choosing your own reminder times are not built.
Get early access
We open accounts a few venues at a time, and we talk to each one. Tell us about your venue and we will write to you about access.
No card needed. We set up each new venue with you, and pricing is agreed before anything is charged.