Overview
The Messages section is a two-way inbox built into Bella Booking that handles both SMS and email. Send a client a text or an email, and their replies land back in a single threaded conversation. SMS uses your dedicated business phone number; email needs no number and works in every country.
Messages is part of Messages Plus, an add-on subscription. See Settings — Messaging for setup and pricing.
Key Features
- SMS and email in one inbox — Message a client by text or email and see both in the same conversation
- Dedicated phone number — Your business gets its own local number for sending and receiving SMS (email needs no number)
- Threaded inbox — One conversation per client, with full message history across channels
- Two-way messaging — Clients reply by SMS or email and their responses appear in the thread
- Internal notes — Add private notes to any conversation (visible to your team only, never sent to the client)
- Automated messages in context — Appointment reminders and other automated messages appear in the same thread
- Real-time updates — New messages and delivery status updates appear automatically
- Client profile integration — See client details, upcoming appointments, and consent status alongside conversations
- Campaigns — Send one message to many clients at once, by SMS or email — see Campaigns (SMS and Email)
The Messaging Inbox
The Messages page is a three-panel layout:
- Thread list (left) — All your conversations, with search and filters
- Conversation view (centre) — The selected conversation’s full message history
- Contact info (right, desktop only) — Client details and upcoming appointments
Thread List
The thread list shows all conversations sorted by most recent message. Each thread displays the client name (or phone number for unknown senders), a preview of the last message, and the timestamp. Email conversations carry an Email badge so you can tell them apart from SMS at a glance, and you can filter the list by channel.
Filters:
| Filter | Shows |
|---|
| All | All active conversations |
| Conversations | Threads whose latest message is from a person — you or the client |
| Automated | Threads whose latest message is an automated send (a reminder, confirmation, or receipt) |
| Unread | Conversations with unread messages |
| Unanswered | Conversations where the last message is from the client |
| Starred | Conversations you have starred for follow-up |
| Archived | Conversations you have archived |
Conversation View
Select a thread to see the full message history. Messages are displayed chronologically with date separators between days.
Message types are visually distinct:
- Your messages — Sent by your team, shown on the right in a coloured bubble
- Client messages — Received from the client, shown on the left
- Internal notes — Shown full-width with an amber background, visible to your team only
- Automated messages — Appointment reminders and other system messages, shown with a dashed border and bot icon
Delivery status indicators appear on sent messages:
| Icon | Status |
|---|
| Spinner | Queued — message is being sent |
| Single tick | Sent — delivered to the carrier |
| Double tick | Delivered — reached the client’s phone |
| Red X | Failed — could not be delivered |
- All — Every message in the thread
- Conversations — Only manual messages and internal notes
- Automated — Only automated messages (reminders, confirmations, etc.)
Thread actions in the conversation header:
- Star / Unstar — Flag important conversations for follow-up
- Archive — Move the conversation out of your active inbox
- Mark as read — Clear the unread badge
The right-hand panel shows:
- Client name, phone number, and email
- Communication consent — Whether the client has opted in to announcements and marketing
- Upcoming appointments — The next three scheduled appointments
- Quick links to View Profile and Book Appointment
For messages from unknown phone numbers, you will see an option to create a new client linked to that number.
Sending Messages
Reply to an Existing Conversation
- Select a conversation from the thread list.
- Type your message in the compose box at the bottom.
- Press Enter (or click Send) to send.
Use Shift + Enter to add a new line without sending.
Start a New Conversation
- Click the New Message button at the top of the thread list.
- Search for a client by name, phone number, or email address.
- Choose the channel — SMS or Email (see below).
- Type your message.
- Click Send.
You can also start a new message from a client’s profile — click Send Message in the client details, and the Messages page opens with the client pre-selected.
Send by SMS or Email
When a client can be reached more than one way, pick the channel before sending:
- SMS — sent from your dedicated number; uses SMS credits. Available when the client has a mobile number.
- Email — sent from your business, with the client’s reply threading back into this conversation. Add a subject line. Available when the client has an email address that hasn’t bounced. Email uses no dedicated number and no SMS credits, and works in every country.
If a client only has one contact method, that channel is used automatically and the inbox shows which one a reply will go out on.
Add an Internal Note
Internal notes let you record information about a conversation without sending anything to the client.
- In the compose box, click the Note toggle (switch from Reply to Note).
- Type your note.
- Press Enter to save.
Notes are free — they do not consume SMS credits.
SMS Segments and Character Counting
This section applies to SMS only — email messages have no segments and never use SMS credits.
SMS messages are billed per segment, not per message. The compose box shows a real-time character count and segment indicator as you type.
| Encoding | Characters per segment | Multi-part segment |
|---|
| Standard (GSM-7) | 160 | 153 per segment |
| Unicode | 70 | 67 per segment |
- Standard encoding is used for basic Latin characters, numbers, and common punctuation
- Unicode activates automatically when you use emoji, accented characters, or non-Latin scripts — a badge appears in the compose box to let you know
Keep messages under 160 characters when possible to use a single segment and conserve credits.
Automated Messages in Threads
Automated messages — appointment reminders, confirmations, cancellation notices, and other notifications — appear inside the relevant client’s conversation thread. This gives you a complete communication history with each client in one place.
Automated messages are marked with a bot icon and labelled with the message type (e.g., “Automated — Reminder”). They count toward your SMS credits just like manual messages.
You can filter the conversation view to show only automated messages using the Automated tab, or hide them to focus on your manual conversations.
Configure your automated messages in Settings — Automated Messages. The Messages inbox shows them alongside your conversations but does not control when or how they are sent.
Communication Consent
Bella Booking tracks two types of communication consent on each client profile:
| Consent type | Default | Purpose |
|---|
| Announcements | Enabled (opt-out) | General business announcements |
| Marketing | Disabled (opt-in) | Promotional messages and offers |
Always respect client consent preferences. Only send marketing messages to clients who have opted in.
Notification Preferences
Each client’s profile includes notification preferences that control how they receive automated messages:
- SMS notifications — Requires a phone number on file
- Email notifications — Requires an email address on file
These preferences apply to automated messages (reminders, confirmations, etc.) and can be managed from the client’s profile.
Unread Badge
The Messages item in the sidebar shows a badge with the number of unread conversations. This updates in real time as new messages arrive.
Auto-handling Client Replies
When a client texts your dedicated number, Bella checks the message against a small set of keywords and may take action automatically. Anything that doesn’t match a keyword is left untouched and shows up in your inbox for you to read and reply to manually.
Keyword auto-handling (confirm/decline/STOP) applies to SMS only. Email replies are not scanned for keywords — they always land in your inbox for you to read and respond to.
Confirmation keywords
If a client replies to an appointment reminder with one of these single-word affirmatives within 48 hours, Bella will:
- Confirm the appointment automatically
- Send a one-line auto-reply: “Your appointment on has been confirmed. See you then!”
- Add a green Confirmed via SMS pill below the original reminder bubble
Confirm keywords (case-insensitive, exact whole-message match):
yes, y, yeah, yep, yup, confirm, confirmed, ok, okay, sure, absolutely, definitely, yea, 👍
Single-word match. A client who texts back “Yes please, see you then!” will not auto-confirm — only a one-word affirmative does. Their message still lands in your inbox; you confirm it manually.
Decline keywords
If the client replies to a reminder with a decline keyword within 48 hours, Bella will:
- Not auto-cancel the appointment (a “No” could mean “I need to reschedule”)
- Send an auto-reply: “We’ve noted your response. will follow up shortly.”
- Add an amber Declined — needs follow-up pill below the reminder bubble
Decline keywords:
no, n, nah, nope, cancel, decline, 👎
You’ll see the pill at a glance and can ring or text the client to figure out the next step.
Consent keywords
These take effect immediately and apply to all automated messaging from your business:
| Keyword | Action |
|---|
STOP, UNSUBSCRIBE, END, QUIT, OPT OUT | Stops all SMS to this client. They will not receive reminders, confirmations, or marketing. |
NO PROMOS, STOP PROMOS, STOP MARKETING | Stops only marketing SMS. Transactional messages (reminders, confirmations) continue. |
START, SUBSCRIBE, OPT IN | Re-subscribes them to all messaging. |
Inviting clients to confirm via SMS
The default reminder template doesn’t tell clients they can reply YES — so unless they happen to text back one of the confirm keywords, the auto-confirm flow won’t fire.
To get more reminders auto-confirmed, edit your reminder template in Settings → Automated Messages and add a prompt like:
Reply YES to confirm.
Keep the prompt concise — adding extra characters may push your reminder over the 160-character single-segment limit and double its credit cost. Most reminders fit comfortably with the YES suffix.
Auto-reply visibility
Auto-replies that Bella sends to the client appear in the conversation thread with a dashed border and a small Auto-reply label, so you always know exactly what the system told the client. Their delivery status (sent, delivered, failed) is shown the same way as any other outbound SMS.
Campaigns (SMS and Email)
Campaigns let you send one message to many clients at once — ideal for promotions, announcements, seasonal offers, or re-engagement. Every campaign can be sent as an SMS or an Email: SMS for short, urgent messages; email for branded content with images, formatting, and a booking button.
| SMS campaigns | Email campaigns |
|---|
| Content | Plain text, 160-character segments | Subject line, rich text (bold, italics, lists, links), optional hero image, optional Book now button |
| Cost | Uses SMS credits (per segment, per recipient) | Unlimited within Messages Plus (fair use) — no credits used |
| Requires a dedicated number | Yes | No |
| Reaches clients with | A mobile number | An email address |
| Tracking | Sent, delivered, failed | Sent, delivered, opened, clicked, failed |
Creating a Campaign
- Go to Messaging → Campaigns in the sidebar and click New Campaign
- Recipients — name the campaign, choose the channel (Email or SMS) and the message type (Marketing or Announcement), then build your audience. The picker shows every eligible client and lets you search, filter (last visit, client-since date, total spent, no-shows, birthdays this month or this week), and hand-pick who’s included. Clients who can’t receive the campaign — no email address or mobile number, or no consent for the message type — are excluded automatically, with a count of how many were hidden.
- Compose — for email: write the subject and body, optionally add a hero image and the Book now button (it links to your online booking page), and watch the live preview update in your brand colours. Short on inspiration? Use Generate with AI — describe the email in a sentence or two and Bella drafts a subject and body as a starting point for you to edit and make your own. Personalisation chips insert each client’s first or last name, or your business name. A Show business name header toggle controls the branded header banner at the top of the email — leave it on for a clear business header, or turn it off when your hero image already carries your branding so the email opens straight with the image. For SMS: write the message with the same character counter and segment indicator as regular messages.
- Analyse & continue — before you reach Review, Bella checks your message for issues. For email, it reviews your subject line and body for spam triggers and deliverability problems (clickbait or ALL-CAPS subjects, misleading claims, excessive urgency, image-heavy emails with little text). For SMS, it checks compliance with anti-spam law (in Australia, the Spam Act 2003) — making sure your business name is identified and adding a “Reply STOP to opt out” line to marketing messages. Anything serious (such as misleading content) must be fixed before you can send; softer suggestions are shown as warnings you can choose to act on.
- Review — check the recipient count and the rendered preview, and use Send test to myself to receive the exact email before anyone else does. Then either Send now or Schedule for later.
The content check protects your sending reputation. Email campaigns from every business share one sending stream, so a spammy blast can hurt deliverability for everyone — the check helps your emails land in the inbox rather than the spam folder.
Every campaign email automatically ends with a compact footer carrying your business name and address and an unsubscribe link. This footer is added by Bella Booking and can’t be removed — it’s required by anti-spam law (in Australia, the Spam Act 2003). Appointment reminders and confirmations are not affected by campaign unsubscribes.
Scheduling a Campaign
Both channels support send later: choose Schedule for later on the Review step and pick a date and time in your business’s timezone. Scheduled campaigns show on their detail page with the fire time, where you can cancel the schedule or send now instead. The audience is re-checked at send time, so clients who joined, left, or changed their consent in the meantime are handled correctly.
Consent — Who Receives a Campaign
Campaigns respect each client’s communication consent, per channel and message type:
| Message type | Who’s included |
|---|
| Announcement | Everyone who hasn’t opted out of announcements (opt-out) |
| Marketing | Only clients who have opted in to marketing (opt-in) |
When a Client Unsubscribes from Email
Every campaign email’s unsubscribe link opens a confirmation page on your online booking site. One click opts the client out of that message type — marketing or announcements — and the page offers a Re-subscribe button in case they change their mind. The page also reassures them that appointment reminders and confirmations are unaffected. Clients who use their email app’s built-in unsubscribe button are opted out in exactly the same way, and clients who mark a campaign as spam are opted out of all marketing email automatically. Consent changes appear in the client’s Activities tab.
Campaign History and Results
The Campaigns page lists every campaign with its channel, status, recipients, and date. Open a campaign to see its results:
- Email campaigns — recipients, sent, delivered, opened, clicked, and failed
- SMS campaigns — recipients, sent, delivered, failed, and credits used
Important Notes
- Campaigns require an active Messages Plus subscription and the Manage campaigns permission
- Email campaigns are unlimited within Messages Plus (fair use) and don’t need a dedicated phone number — you can send email campaigns even before provisioning a number
- Each SMS recipient consumes credits per 160-character segment; email consumes nothing
- SMS campaign messages appear in each recipient’s conversation thread in the Messages inbox
Verifying Your Business
Before your dedicated number can be set up, messaging regulations require a one-time verification of your business with our messaging provider — so your number is registered under your business’s identity.
What’s involved:
- Go to Settings → Messaging and select Verify your business
- Confirm your registered business details — in Australia, your ABN is checked against the business register so you can confirm your registered name
- Confirm your business address (a street address — PO boxes can’t be used)
- Upload one business registration document — a single file (such as an ASIC company extract or ABR extract) that shows your registered name, registration number and address together. PDF, JPEG or PNG. If that document doesn’t show your business address, you can add a separate proof of address (utility bill, rates notice, lease or bank statement).
- Submit — approval usually lands within 1–3 business days, and we’ll email you either way
What’s required depends on your country: Australian businesses upload one registration document, while some countries (such as Sweden) require nothing and are verified instantly. Your progress saves as you go, so you can finish later. If anything can’t be verified, we’ll show you exactly what to fix — everything else you entered is kept.
Documents are passed directly to our messaging provider for review — Bella doesn’t keep copies.
If you already have a dedicated number, it keeps working as normal — you’ll just see a reminder to complete verification so your number is registered under your own business details.
Permissions
Access to messaging is controlled by team permissions:
| Permission | Allows |
|---|
| View messages | See the inbox and read conversations |
| Send messages | Send replies, compose new messages, add internal notes |
| Manage campaigns | Create, edit, send, schedule, and cancel SMS and email campaigns |
| Manage messaging settings | Provision phone numbers, manage subscription, purchase credits |
FAQs
Q: Do I need a Messages Plus subscription to see automated messages in threads?
A: No. Automated appointment messages (reminders, confirmations, etc.) are sent through your plan’s included SMS allowance regardless of Messages Plus. The Messages Plus subscription adds the two-way inbox, dedicated phone number, and the ability to send manual messages.
Q: What happens when a client replies to an automated message?
A: Their reply appears in the conversation thread. If the message matches one of Bella’s auto-handled keywords (YES/STOP/NO PROMOS/etc.) the appropriate action runs automatically — see Auto-handling Client Replies. Anything else lands in your inbox for you to read and reply to. Receiving replies needs an active Messages Plus subscription: SMS replies require a dedicated phone number, while email replies do not — they thread back into the inbox without one.
Q: A client replied “Yes please” to a reminder — why didn’t the appointment auto-confirm?
A: The auto-confirm classifier requires a single-word affirmative like Yes or Y on its own. Yes please, Yes thanks, or any longer message lands in your inbox for manual confirmation. If you’d like a wider range of replies to auto-confirm, raise a request — we may relax the classifier in a future update.
Q: Can I message clients who are not in my client list?
A: You can only compose new messages to existing clients. However, if an unknown number sends you an SMS, their messages appear in your inbox and you can reply — you will also see an option to create a new client record for them.
Q: Can I send a client an email from the inbox?
A: Yes. With Messages Plus active, choose the Email channel when composing or replying (available when the client has an email address that hasn’t bounced). Add a subject, send, and the client’s reply threads back into the same conversation. Email needs no dedicated phone number and uses no SMS credits, and it works in every country. See Email Messaging.
Q: Do I need a dedicated phone number to email a client?
A: No. Emailing a client from the inbox needs only an active Messages Plus subscription. A dedicated number is required for SMS only.
Q: Are internal notes visible to clients?
A: No. Internal notes are only visible to your team members who have messaging permissions. They are never sent to the client.
Q: What does “Unanswered” mean in the thread filters?
A: A conversation is unanswered when the most recent message is from the client (inbound). Once you send a reply, it moves out of the unanswered filter.
Q: How quickly do client replies appear?
A: Replies appear within seconds. The inbox updates in real time using live notifications, with a fallback refresh every 15 seconds.
Q: Does archiving a conversation delete it?
A: No. Archiving moves the conversation to the Archived filter. You can unarchive it at any time to bring it back to your active inbox. All messages are preserved.
Q: Do automated messages consume my SMS credits?
A: Yes. Every SMS sent — whether manual or automated — consumes credits from your monthly allowance. See Settings — Messaging for credit details.
Q: Do email campaigns use SMS credits?
A: No. Email campaigns are unlimited within Messages Plus (fair use) and never touch your SMS credits. Only SMS — manual, automated, or campaign — consumes credits.
Q: Do I need a dedicated phone number to send email campaigns?
A: No. Email campaigns only need an active Messages Plus subscription. The dedicated number is required for SMS — sending and receiving texts — not for email.
Q: What happens when a client unsubscribes from a campaign email?
A: The unsubscribe link opens a confirmation page where one click opts them out of that message type (marketing or announcements) — with a Re-subscribe button if they change their mind. They’re then excluded from future campaign audiences automatically. Appointment reminders and confirmations are unaffected, and the consent change is recorded in the client’s Activities tab.
Q: Can Bella write my campaign email for me?
A: Bella can give you a starting point. On the Compose step, Generate with AI turns a short brief — a sentence or two about what you want to say — into a draft subject and body. It’s a first draft, not the finished email: review and edit it so it sounds like your business before you send. You’ll need an active Messages Plus subscription to use it.
