# Text & Email Session Reminders for Tutoring & Coaching Businesses Reminders that go out by text and email 28 hours and 1 hour before every session, sent from your own business number, with reminder emails converted to each person's timezone automatically. Canonical URL: https://gigpie.com/features/sms-reminders --- An admin who manages two dozen families calls the Monday-morning family every Wednesday evening, because they always forget by then. That system covers exactly one family. Everyone else finds out a session happened, or didn't, when the coach texts asking where the student is. Doing it by hand doesn't scale past a handful of students, and an email sitting in an inbox doesn't reliably reach anyone who isn't checking it right then. A coach who just relocated for the semester adds a second failure mode: even a reminder that goes out exactly on schedule can still arrive already confused about what time it's talking about. ## A Reminder Rule That Runs Without Anyone Maintaining It Every company starts with the same rule already turned on: 28 hours before a session, and again at the one-hour mark, Gigpie reminds everyone booked on it. The student and the parent get a text and an email; the coach gets the email; the phone number attached to a public booking gets the texts too. A group class reminds every enrolled student. Nobody builds this rule or has to remember to run it. It fires off the same event that governs the session itself, and it checks its own timing before sending: a session that's already been cancelled, marked a no-show, or already started doesn't get a reminder nobody needs. That's the default, not a fixed rule. An admin can open Automation Rules in Settings and change the timing, add or remove recipients on either channel (coaches can be added to the texts; they aren't on them by default), or build a different cadence entirely for one pay group or subject. Twenty-eight hours and one hour just happen to be where Gigpie starts everyone off. ## Texts Come From Your Own Business Number Reminder texts send from your company's own business number, the number in your connected phone provider account (Twilio or Telnyx). It's the same number that runs your [CRM](/features/crm-marketing-automation) texting, where a message from an unknown sender becomes a lead and staff reply from the same inbox that holds email and [calls](/features/ai-phone-agent). Each reminder text is logged against the person it went to and the session it was about, so there's a record of what went out and when. That number is the one prerequisite. Reminders text only when a business number is connected; email goes out either way. Until you've synced a number in from your connected provider account, the reminder still goes out by email; the text simply doesn't fire yet. Opting out is per person, not per company. Anyone who sets their preferred contact method to email stops getting the texts and keeps getting the emails, and every reminder text carries reply-STOP language, which your provider honors on its own. ## Each Person Sees Their Own Time, Not Yours A reminder that says "4:00 PM" only works if 4:00 PM means the same thing to whoever reads it. Gigpie doesn't ask anyone to set a timezone by hand. Every time someone's browser opens the app, it records what timezone that browser is in, and the reminder emails render session times in that detected zone, unless the person has set an explicit preference that overrides it. The reminder text carries the same time, without a separate per-recipient conversion. > **Worked example:** A session is booked for 6:00 PM Eastern, the family's local time. The 28-hour rule fires at 2:00 PM Eastern the day before, the exact moment 28 hours out. If the coach is on Pacific time, the identical trigger renders their copy as 11:00 AM Pacific: same instant, same rule, two correctly local times. One hour before the session, a second, separately timed action fires again: 5:00 PM Eastern for the family, 2:00 PM Pacific for the coach. Nobody set either timezone by hand. ## Who This Helps A solo tutor with six students doesn't need a rule for this: they already text every family themselves, because there are only six to keep track of. It starts to matter once a business has enough sessions that no one could realistically remember which family tends to forget, or once coaches and families span more than one timezone and a hand-sent reminder risks carrying the wrong time. Below a handful of coaches, the default 28-and-1 timing is usually fine untouched; past a dozen, that's typically when an admin starts customizing timing or recipients by pay group. ## Frequently Asked Questions ## FAQ **Q:** Do reminders send by text or by email? **A:** Both. The student and the parent get a text and an email 28 hours before the session and again 1 hour before; the coach gets the emails by default and can be added to the texts. Texts require a connected business number; email sends regardless. **Q:** How far ahead do reminders go out? **A:** 28 hours before a session and again 1 hour before, by default. Both are configurable in Automation Rules, company-wide or per pay group. **Q:** What do I need before reminder texts go out? **A:** A business phone number connected through your provider account. Gigpie syncs in the numbers you already own there and sends reminder texts from your primary one. Until a number is connected, the same rule runs on email alone. **Q:** How does Gigpie know what timezone someone is in? **A:** The browser reports it automatically at login. A person can also set an explicit timezone preference, which takes priority over whatever the browser detects. **Q:** Does a cancelled or already-started session still get a reminder? **A:** No. The rule checks the session's status before sending, so a session that's been cancelled, marked a no-show, or already started is skipped automatically. **Q:** Can a parent opt out of reminder texts? **A:** Yes, per person. Setting their preferred contact method to email stops the texts and keeps the emails, and replying STOP to any reminder text does the same automatically through your provider. The emails themselves have no self-serve opt-out; timing and recipients are set company-wide by an admin in Automation Rules. **Q:** What happens if a session gets rescheduled after a reminder already went out? **A:** Rescheduling clears any pending reminder tied to the old time and recalculates against the new one, so reminders stay tied to whenever the session is actually happening now, not when it was first booked. **Q:** Do payment reminders go out by text too? **A:** No. Automated texting covers session reminders. Nothing about billing or payments sends by text. **Stop being the reminder system Free until you collect revenue, then a flat 2% of what you collect. The 28-and-1 reminder rule, texts and emails both, comes standard.** [Get started free](/register) ## Related Resources - [Smart Scheduling](/features/smart-scheduling) - Where the sessions that trigger these reminders get booked, rescheduled, and cancelled - [Parent Portal](/features/parent-portal) - The login that sets a family's detected timezone and where they see the same sessions these reminders reference - [Family Management Hub](/features/family-management) - Who's actually on the other end of the parent and student reminders