Appointment Reminders and Client Follow-Ups
Glade automatically emails and texts your clients about upcoming appointments and outstanding items, so your team doesn't have to chase them manually. This article explains exactly what gets sent, when, and what you can control.
Overview
Glade sends your clients two different kinds of automated message. They are separate systems with separate timing, and it's worth knowing which is which when a client asks about a message they received:
| Appointment reminder | Client follow-up | |
|---|---|---|
| What it's about | One specific upcoming appointment | Outstanding documents, questionnaires, or invoices |
| When it sends | 30 minutes before the appointment | On a repeating schedule you set |
| Channels | Email and text | Email and text |
| Content | Fixed reminder wording | Personalized to what that client still owes you |
| Stops when | The appointment is cancelled | The client has nothing outstanding |
Both are on by default. Neither requires your team to do anything.
Appointment reminders
When a client books an appointment with your firm, Glade schedules a reminder for 30 minutes before the appointment starts.
What the client receives:
- A text message naming your firm, saying the appointment is in 30 minutes, and linking to their client portal. Texts only send if your firm has texting enabled.
- An email with the appointment date and time, your firm's name and branding, and a link to their appointments page.
Key details:
- Times are shown in your client's time zone. If Glade doesn't have a time zone on file for that client, it falls back to your firm's time zone.
- Rescheduling moves the reminder. If you or your client change the appointment, the reminder automatically moves with it and still arrives 30 minutes before the new time.
- Cancelling removes the reminder. Cancelled or skipped appointments won't send a reminder.
Client follow-ups
Follow-ups are about a client's outstanding items — documents they haven't uploaded, a questionnaire they haven't finished, an invoice they haven't paid. Each message is written for that specific client based on what they still owe you, rather than being a generic template.
There are two schedules, and which one applies depends on whether the client has an appointment coming up.
Standard follow-ups
When a client has outstanding items and no upcoming appointment, Glade follows up on a repeating cadence. The default is every 2 days.
You can change this to any interval in minutes, hours, days, or weeks — or turn follow-ups off entirely.
Pre-appointment follow-ups
When a client has outstanding items and an appointment coming up, Glade switches to a different approach: instead of a fixed interval, it spreads the reminders across the time remaining before the appointment, so they arrive more urgently as the date approaches. A final reminder always goes out 2 hours before the appointment.
You control how many messages this produces with a single setting:
| Setting | Messages before the appointment |
|---|---|
| 50% | 2 — one at the halfway point, one 2 hours before |
| 33% (default) | 3 — at one-third, two-thirds, and 2 hours before |
| 25% | 4 — at one-quarter, halfway, three-quarters, and 2 hours before |
Example: a client books an appointment 3 weeks out and still owes you documents. On the default setting they'd hear from Glade at roughly the 1-week mark, the 2-week mark, and again 2 hours before the appointment.
Because the spacing is based on time remaining, a client who books far in advance gets their reminders spread out, while a client who books for next week gets them closer together.
When follow-ups stop
Glade stops following up automatically. A client will not receive a follow-up if:
- They have nothing outstanding. Once a client completes their tasks, follow-ups stop on their own — you don't need to turn anything off.
- Their matter is in a status you've marked as pausing follow-ups. You can flag any custom status this way, which is useful for matters that are on hold or waiting on your team rather than on the client.
- Their appointment was cancelled. Cancelling an appointment also removes the pre-appointment follow-ups tied to it.
- They're a member of your team. Staff never receive client follow-ups, even if they're listed on a matter.
Text message delivery hours
Text follow-ups have an extra protection that email doesn't: they only send between 11:00 AM and 9:00 PM in your client's local time. If a follow-up comes due outside that window, Glade holds it and sends it at 11:00 AM the next morning rather than texting someone overnight.
If Glade doesn't have a time zone for that client, it uses your firm's time zone.
This window applies to follow-up texts. Appointment reminder texts are tied to the appointment itself, so they send 30 minutes beforehand regardless — if you offer a 7:00 AM appointment, the reminder goes out at 6:30 AM.
What you can change
| Setting | What it does | Where it applies |
|---|---|---|
| Follow-up cadence | How often standard follow-ups repeat (default: every 2 days) | Firm-wide, with per-client override |
| Follow-up pacing | How many pre-appointment follow-ups a client gets (default: 33%) | Firm-wide, with per-client override |
| Turn follow-ups off | Stops follow-ups for a client entirely | Per client |
| Status pauses follow-ups | Marks a custom status so matters in it don't generate follow-ups | Per status |
| Texting enabled | Whether your firm sends texts at all | Firm-wide |
Per-client settings always override your firm-wide default, so you can slow things down for one sensitive client without changing anything for everyone else.
FAQ
Q: A client says they got a reminder at the wrong time. What should I check?
A: First check the appointment's current time and the client's time zone in their profile — reminders render in the client's zone, so a client whose profile has no time zone will see your firm's zone instead. If the appointment was rescheduled, confirm the new time is what you expect. If the timing still looks wrong, contact Glade support with the client's name and the appointment date.
Q: Can I stop follow-ups for one client without changing my firm's settings?
A: Yes. Set that client's follow-up cadence to "none". Your firm-wide default is unaffected.
Q: Will a client get a follow-up and an appointment reminder on the same day?
A: They can. The two systems are independent — a client with an appointment tomorrow and an unpaid invoice may get a pre-appointment follow-up about the invoice and, separately, the 30-minute appointment reminder.
Q: Do follow-ups go to both email and text?
A: Yes, where the firm has texting enabled and Glade has a mobile number for the client. Clients who only have an email address on file receive email only.
Q: My client completed everything. Will they still get the scheduled follow-up?
A: No. Glade re-checks what's outstanding at the moment each follow-up is due. If there's nothing left, nothing sends.
Q: Can I see what was sent to a client?
A: Yes — a client's follow-up history is available in Glade, including both emails and texts.
Q: Why did a client get fewer pre-appointment follow-ups than expected?
A: Follow-ups are spread across the time between booking and the appointment. If a client books an appointment for tomorrow, there isn't room for the full sequence, so they'll get whichever ones still fall in the future — typically just the 2-hour reminder.