Automatic service reminders

Summary

Torqueflow reminds your customers when their next service is due, so they book with you before they drift off to an aggregator. The reminder is worked out from the customer’s last visit and, where you record it, the vehicle’s mileage. You can set the timing for the whole garage, override it for a single vehicle, and edit the wording. This is the loyalty counterpart to the MOT reminder: MOT is the legal hook, service is the relationship hook.

Service reminders target customers you have not seen for about a year. Customers who have never visited, or who lapsed long ago, are handled separately.

Prerequisites

• You have the settings.communication.manage capability (Owner and Manager) to set up the service reminder rules and wording.
• You have the vehicles.manage capability to override the schedule on a single vehicle (Owner, Manager, Service Advisor).
• Your customers have a recorded visit (a completed job) or an imported next-service date. Without one of those, there is nothing to count from.

Steps

Understand how the due date is worked out

1. Torqueflow finds each vehicle’s last visit, which is the most recent completed job on that vehicle.
2. It adds your service interval (the cadence, for example 12 months) to the last visit to get the next service due date.
3. A reminder goes out a set number of days before that date.
4. If you record mileage, a reminder can also fire sooner when the vehicle passes your mileage threshold since its last service. Time is the main trigger; mileage is the “due even sooner” nudge.
5. If a vehicle has an explicit next-service date (for example, imported from your old system), that date is used instead, as long as it is still current.

Configure the service reminder rules

1. Navigate to Settings > Communication > Reminders.
2. Find the Service reminders section.
3. Switch service reminders on with the enable toggle.
4. Set the cadence (how many months between services), the lead time (how many days before the due date to send), and an optional mileage interval.

Target a rule at particular fuel types

1. In the rule dialog, under “Which vehicles does this rule apply to?”, choose All vehicles, regardless of fuel type or Only specific fuel types.
2. For specific fuel types, tick them from the fixed list: Petrol, Diesel, Electric, Hybrid (includes plug-in), Plug-in hybrid, LPG, CNG, Hydrogen and Other. You cannot type your own fuel type.
3. Hybrid (includes plug-in) also matches plug-in hybrids. Tick Plug-in hybrid on its own to reach only plug-in hybrids.
4. A rule set up before the fixed list may carry a fuel type that is not on it. It shows as a tick box tagged legacy. You can untick it, but you cannot add it back.
5. If a rule’s saved fuel types were tidied into the standard list, the dialog reads “The fuel types on this rule were updated to the standard fuel list. Please check them before saving.” Check the ticks, then save.
6. Vehicles with no recorded fuel type never match a fuel-targeted rule. The rules card shows how many vehicles that is. Since late September 2026, every way of booking saves the fuel type from the registration lookup on a new vehicle: the online booking page, the customer portal, the AI receptionist and the scheduler. That means far fewer new vehicles arrive without one. A booking a customer makes online or in the portal only saves a fuel type Torqueflow recognises, and leaves it blank otherwise. Set a missing fuel type on the vehicle page.

Edit the reminder wording

1. Open the reminder message editor on the same page.
2. Use the tabs to switch between the MOT and Service messages. Editing one does not affect the other.
3. Type your message, or click a token chip to insert a placeholder such as the vehicle registration or the due date. Only the tokens valid for service reminders are offered.
4. A live preview shows what the customer receives. The SMS panel shows a segment counter, since longer messages cost more to send.
5. Click Save. To go back to the standard wording, use Reset to default.

All of your service reminder rules share one service message per language. A help line on the service tab says so.

Check or override a single vehicle

1. Open the vehicle’s detail page.
2. Find the Service reminder card. It shows the last visit and where it came from, the next due date and how it was worked out, and the mileage state (current reading, or “mileage unknown”).
3. To override, set a specific next-service date, an interval in months, or an interval in miles for this vehicle.
4. To go back to the garage defaults, clear all three override fields.

There is no “mark service done” button. Completing the next job is the signal, and it re-arms the reminder for the following cycle automatically.

Expected Outcome

• Customers due a service get a timely reminder without staff doing anything.
• You control the cadence, lead time, mileage threshold, and wording for the whole garage.
• You can see and adjust any single vehicle’s service schedule from its detail page.
• A booked appointment or a completed job pauses the reminder, so nobody is chased about work that is already in hand.

Notes

• A reminder fires once per service cycle. After the next completed visit, the clock resets and the reminder re-arms for the following service.
• Trade vehicles are skipped. The same customer classification that applies to MOT reminders applies here too. See Automatic MOT reminders for how to classify a customer as Trade or Fleet. The MOT sold-on window does not apply to service reminders.
• Old and marked vehicles are skipped. A vehicle not seen since your reminder activation date, or marked sold, scrapped, replaced or other, gets no service reminder. When that happens the Service reminder card reads “Held back: this vehicle is off for reminders (see Reminder eligibility).” See Which vehicles get reminders.
• Mileage must be recent to count. A stale mileage reading is ignored for the mileage trigger. The time-based reminder still works.
• The channel is chosen the same way as any reminder. See Choosing how customer reminders are sent.

Troubleshooting

Problem: A customer is not getting a service reminder. Cause: The vehicle has no completed job to count from and no imported next-service date, or it is within a booked appointment window, or the customer is classified Trade, or the vehicle is held back for reminders. Fix: Open the vehicle’s Service reminder card. If it says “Held back”, check the Reminder eligibility card on the same page. Check the last visit and next due date. If there is no anchor, set a next-service date override.

Problem: A vehicle shows “mileage unknown” or a stale mileage note. Cause: No recent mileage reading is on file, so the mileage trigger is disabled for that vehicle. Fix: None needed. The time-based reminder still works. Record mileage on the next visit to enable the mileage trigger.

Problem: I set a next-service date but the card says it is being ignored. Cause: The date you set is now in the past, so it is treated as expired and the last-visit schedule is used instead. Fix: Set a future next-service date, or clear the override to use the garage default cadence.

Permissions

Action	Required capability
Configure service reminder rules and wording	settings.communication.manage
Override the schedule on a single vehicle	vehicles.manage
Edit a customer’s reminder preferences	customers.consent.manage