Sending Automated Birthday Messages

In this article:

• Understanding Automated Birthday Messages
• Setting Up Your Birthday Message Automation
• Customizing Your Birthday Message
• Targeting Specific Client Groups
• Managing and Updating Your Automation
• Important Considerations

Understanding Automated Birthday Messages

Birthday messages are a thoughtful way to celebrate your clients and maintain meaningful connections throughout the year. With Practice Better's automation feature, you can ensure every client receives a personalized birthday greeting without having to track dates manually. This automation works behind the scenes, sending your message on each client's birthday as long as their birth date is recorded in their profile.

Birthday messages are sent at approximately 8:00 AM in your practice's timezone. This timing ensures your greeting arrives early in your client's day, making their celebration feel even more special.

⚠️ Important: Only one automation can be set up for each practice under the account owner.

Setting Up Your Birthday Message Automation

To create an automated birthday message, you'll configure an automation that triggers based on your clients' birthdays.

💡 Tip: Make sure your clients' birth dates are recorded in their profiles for this automation to work. You can add or update this information in each client's profile under their basic details. If a client doesn't have a birthday stored in their profile, they won't receive the automated message.

1. Go to My Practice > Automations.
    
2. Click the Fast Action Button in the bottom-right to Create Automation.
   
    
3. Select Send birthday messages to clients as your automation type.
   
    
4. Enter a name for your automation to help you identify it later.
    
5. Configure client tags to target sending birthday messages to specific groups. Click the check box to enable the option to Restrict to specific clients. Select the applicable tag(s) and choose between using Any of the selected tags or All of the selected tags. 
   
    
6. Choose your delivery method from the dropdown menu:
   
   • Email only
   • Text messages (SMS) and email
   • Text messages (SMS) only (email sent if text cannot be delivered)
      
7. Click Create to save your new your automation. If you are updating an existing automation, you will see Save Changes instead.
   

📍 Note: SMS delivery is only available on the Professional plan or higher. If you're on a different plan, you'll be able to send birthday messages via email.

Customizing Your Birthday Message

Practice Better provides default birthday message templates that are ready to use immediately, but you can personalize them to reflect your practice's unique voice and values. Message customization is available on the Professional plan or higher.

To customize your birthday message:

1. Go to Settings & Preferences > Notification Preferences.
   
    
2. Click the Client Notification tab near the top-left.
   
    
3. Locate the Birthday Messages notification template and click the checkbox to edit the template.
   
    
4. Customize the email subject line and message content to match your preferred tone and style.
    
5. If you have SMS enabled, customize your SMS message as well.
   
    
6. Use placeholder fields to personalize each message with the client's name or other details.
   
    
7. Click Done when you're satisfied with your customization.

Learn more about Customizing Email and SMS Notification Templates →

📍 Note: Your customized message will apply to all clients who receive the automated birthday greeting. Changes you make to the template will automatically apply to all upcoming birthday messages.

Targeting Specific Client Groups

You can send birthday messages to specific segments of your client base by using client tags within your automation setup. This flexibility allows you to create different birthday experiences for various client groups.

To target specific clients:

1. When creating or editing your birthday message automation, locate the Restrict to specific clients section.
    
2. Select the tag(s) you want to include using the checkboxes. You can select multiple tags.
    
3. Choose whether clients must have all selected tags or any of the selected tags.
   
4. Save your automation.

⚠️ Important: Only one automation can be set up for each practice under the account owner.

Managing and Updating Your Automation

Your birthday message automation is designed to be flexible and easy to maintain as your practice evolves.

Team plan considerations: For practices on a Team plan, only one birthday message automation can be set up under the team owner's account. Team members with the appropriate My Practice: Automations permission (with "Create, Modify" access) can create or modify the automation on behalf of the team owner.

Updating your message template: Any changes you make to your birthday message template in Notification Preferences will automatically apply to all upcoming birthdays. There's no need to recreate the automation – simply update the notification template, and future messages will reflect your changes.

Tracking message delivery: You can verify that birthday messages were sent by checking individual client profiles. Each automated birthday message appears in the client's recent activity log, giving you confidence that your greetings reached their intended recipients.

Email sending limits: Automated birthday messages do not count toward any email sending limits or quotas, so you can celebrate every client's special day without concern.

Important Considerations

To ensure your birthday message automation works smoothly, keep these key points in mind:

Timing matters: The automation must be active and enabled on the date of a client's birthday for them to receive a message. Birthday messages are sent at approximately 8:00 AM in the practice better account owner's timezone. This feature does not apply retroactively – if a client's birthday passes before you enable the automation or if the automation is deleted before their birthday, they won't receive a message until their next birthday.

Client notification preferences: If a client has unsubscribed from email notifications, they won't receive the birthday message through email. However, if you've configured SMS delivery and they haven't opted out of text messages, they may still receive the greeting by SMS.

Missing birth dates: If a client doesn't have a birthday stored in their profile, the notification will not be sent to them. It's a good practice to collect birth dates during your intake process to ensure all clients can receive birthday greetings.

Birth date updates: Clients cannot update their own birth date information in Practice Better unless the practitioner has enabled the option to Allow clients to view and request changes to their client profile. If a client needs to add or correct their birthday, they should contact you directly, and you can update this information in their profile.

Need assistance? Our support team is here to help you create meaningful client experiences. If you have questions about setting up birthday message automations or customizing your notifications, don't hesitate to reach out – we're always happy to support you in building stronger client relationships.