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.

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 and sold-on vehicles are skipped. The same customer classification and “sold-on” protections that apply to MOT reminders apply here too. See Automatic MOT reminders for how to classify a customer as Trade or Fleet.
• 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. Fix: Open the vehicle’s Service reminder card. 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