Visit Reminders and Preparation Messages

A reminder has two jobs. It tells the customer when you're coming, and it tells them what to do beforehand. Skip the second job and your technician spends the visit moving furniture.

What a prep message should say

• Date, time window and address. Put them first.
• Who is coming. A first name and the firm's name, if your policy allows it.
• Access. Does someone need to be home? Where should the technician go?
• Areas to clear. For example, space under the sink or along skirting boards. Name the rooms that matter for this visit.
• Pets. Ask the customer to keep pets in a set place. Say where pets may need to stay and for how long, but only as your product label and technician advise.
• Food and dishes. Whether anything should be covered or put away.
• People who need to know. Housemates, tenants, neighbours, a strata manager.
• How to reschedule. A number or reply address, and how much notice you need.

Keep the safety details from the source

Re-entry times, covering food, and pet and child instructions depend on the product used. They come from the product label and your regulator, not from an AI draft. The US EPA tells readers to always read the pesticide label.¹ Elsewhere, follow your own country's label rules.

Practical ways to handle this:

• Keep a short approved list of prep lines for each treatment type, written by your technician.
• Paste only those lines into the AI and ask it to make them friendlier and clearer.
• Tell it, "Don't add any safety advice of your own."
• Have the technician read the final text once.

Using AI to draft

Give it the facts and a tone. Keep personal details out. Australia's OAIC advises against typing personal details into public AI tools.² Use placeholders for the name, address and time.

Useful requests:

• "Write a text message under a short length for a recurring visit."
• "Rewrite this checklist at a plain reading level."
• "Make a polite version for a tenant, and another for the owner."
• "Turn this into an email with a short subject line."

Drafts may include invented details. That's a hallucination: false or misleading content presented as fact.³ Compare every date, time and instruction with your booking.

Sample prep message (edit before use)

Hi [first name], this is a reminder that [firm name] is booked to visit [address] on [date] between [time window].

Before we arrive, please:

• Clear the areas listed on your booking.
• Keep pets in the place your technician advised.
• Make sure someone can let us in, or tell us where to find access.

Need to change the time? Reply here or call [number].

Short, specific and easy to scan on a phone.

Text, email or both

Ask each customer how they'd like to hear from you, and record the answer.

Reminders and marketing rules

Australia's spam rules cover marketing messages. The ACMA says you need the recipient's consent before sending marketing messages.⁴ It also says to keep a record of express consent.⁴

Keep reminders about the visit only. If you want to add an offer or a promotion, read the ACMA page first. Other countries have their own rules, such as the FTC in the US and the ICO in the UK. This page doesn't give legal advice.

Before sending

• Dates and times match the booking.
• The right customer name and address.
• Prep lines match the technician's approved list.
• No promises about results.
• A clear way to reach a person.

For the wider rule on who checks what, see what AI can and can't do in the office.