The message to send after a ceramic coating

What should the message say?

Care instructions given at the counter get forgotten, and nothing is recorded. If the car goes through an automatic wash while still curing and the coating is damaged, the client blames the studio and the studio cannot prove it warned them. So send one written message at handover, with four things:

• what was done: the service and the product applied, in one line;
• the date until which the client cannot wash the car, worked out from the cure time on the data sheet of the product you applied;
• what to avoid until then: no washing at all, not even by hand; rain is fine; tree sap and bird droppings come off straight away, with non-abrasive products;
• how to wash it from that date: by hand, in the shade, with a neutral shampoo, and never in an automatic wash with brushes.

How do you send it so it stays on record?

Send it from the booking itself: in the dashboard, open the booking menu and choose Send update (from the Starter plan up). It takes up to 1000 characters and works on completed bookings, even after the client has collected the car. The client gets an email with your studio name, your message and a button that opens the booking; with an account, they also get a notification on the platform. Your text goes out exactly as you wrote it, so write it in the client's language. The message stays on the booking, and anyone on the team can check later what the client was told.

How do you write it so it gets read?

Open with the information and skip the thank-you, write the date out ("until 12 September") and sign with your name. Leave out warranties that are not written down in another document, cure times copied from another brand, and promotions. Keep this template in a shared document so the whole team uses it, and record the product and the date the cure ends in Private Notes on the client's profile, which only the studio sees:

Car's ready: [service] done.
Do not wash the car until [date], not even by hand. Rain is fine; tree sap or bird droppings come off straight away, with non-abrasive products.
From that date: by hand, in the shade, with a neutral shampoo, and never in an automatic wash with brushes.
Any questions, reply to this message.
[name]