Reminding clients of hearings and payments by WhatsApp and email

Why remind clients at all?

A client who knows the date of their hearing does not call to ask about it, and a client who remembers a payment before it is due does not put the accountant in the position of chasing it late. Regular reminders give clients the sense that their file is on the office’s mind, even in the weeks when nothing happens in their case. But a message that is unnecessary, unclear or sent at the wrong time robs reminders of their value, which is why they need a policy the office writes down rather than leaving each employee to improvise.

• Fewer calls asking about the dates and places of hearings.
• Fewer payments that are late through forgetfulness rather than refusal.
• Clients who hear what happened at their hearing from their own office before they hear it from anyone else.
• Lawyers who are not caught out by a client missing a hearing they were required to attend.

What should you send, and when?

Not all messages are alike. Some the system sends automatically when their time comes, some an employee sends when a particular event happens, with one click from the file itself, and some are free-form messages a lawyer writes to a particular client. The table below sets out the messages most used in law firms in Qatar, when each one is sent and how, so that every employee knows their part and the same message does not go out twice from two people.

Message templates and their variables

A template is fixed text that the office writes once in its own words, with variable slots that the system fills in each time it sends; the office starts with ready-made texts for every message and edits them as it wishes. Templates are edited in Settings → “Message templates”: a variable is inserted at the cursor by clicking it, and the “Preview” button then shows the text as it will arrive. The variables available include the client’s name, the case number, the case subject, the court or authority, the hearing date and time, the amount and due date, the office’s name and phone number, and the client portal link. Here is an example of a hearing reminder:

Dear Mr/Ms [client name], this is a reminder of the hearing in case no. [case number] before [court / authority] on [hearing date] at [hearing time]. For enquiries: [office phone]. Kind regards, [office name].

• Two or three lines are enough: a reminder is no place to explain the case.
• Put the key information first: the date and time in a hearing reminder, the amount and due date in a payment reminder.
• Avoid the “Case subject” variable in messages that might appear on a locked phone screen and be read by someone else.
• End with the office’s name and phone number, so the client knows who the message is from and where to ask.

Automatic reminders: the setup and the two channels

The system administrator sets up sending in Settings → “Email, WhatsApp and alerts”: the mail server details and the WhatsApp sending method, then a test message to make sure everything works. Messages should preferably go out from an address on the office’s own domain rather than a personal mailbox, so that clients trust them and they do not end up in spam. In the reminders section, the administrator switches on hearing reminders for clients and sets how many days before the hearing they go out, then switches on reminders of payments due and sets how long before the due date they are sent. Each client’s reminder goes out through the preferred notification method recorded in their file. WhatsApp has two methods:

• “WhatsApp link”: needs no setup. The system opens WhatsApp on the employee’s device with the message ready, and they press “Send” themselves. It suits manual messages, but it does not send anything on its own.
• “WhatsApp Cloud API”: automatic sending from the office’s number. It requires a WhatsApp Business account, and templates approved by Meta for messages the office initiates, such as reminders.

So if the office wants hearing and payment reminders to arrive on WhatsApp without anyone stepping in, the Cloud API method is the way to do it, with the name of the approved template entered in “Message templates”. If it stays with “WhatsApp link”, automatic reminders go by email to the clients who chose email, and WhatsApp messages remain manual, sent by the employee with one click from their device — a practical option for an office starting out with a limited number of clients.

After the hearing and after the judgment: the message the client is waiting for

A reminder comes before the date, but the message clients are really waiting for comes after it: what happened at my hearing? When recording a hearing’s decision, the lawyer can choose to notify the client by WhatsApp or email, and the client receives a “What happened at the hearing” message with the decision and the date of the next hearing, if one has been set. The next hearing then becomes the subject of the next reminder, and the circle closes without anyone writing a message from scratch.

• Write the decision in language the client understands: the ready-made phrase “Adjourned for documents to be submitted” sometimes needs an extra line explaining which documents, and who is to submit them.
• When recording a judgment, the client can be notified in the same step, but a judgment that needs explaining, or a decision on whether to appeal, deserves a call from the lawyer before any message.
• With heavy news, make the written message a confirmation of what was said on the call, not a substitute for it.

Quiet hours and suspended clients

Murafe does not send reminders to clients at night, from 10 pm to 7 am Qatar time: anything due during the night goes out after 7 am, and no client is woken by a notification about a hearing that is days away. Nor are reminders sent to a suspended client — one the office has marked as suspended in their details while their files stay as they are — so no automatic messages reach someone whose relationship with the office has ended or been put on hold.

The quiet hours the system applies to automatic messages are a floor, not a ceiling. Manual messages are sent by employees themselves, and good practice is to keep to the same spirit: no messages to clients late at night unless something is urgent and cannot wait, and fewer, shorter messages at weekends and on public holidays. A client who is disturbed too often stops reading messages, including the reminder that really matters to them.

Consent and tone: messages clients welcome

Ask the client when you open their file: do they prefer WhatsApp or email, and on which number or address? Then record their answer in the file, because the preferred notification method is a field in the client’s details that sending relies on. If the client is a company, make sure the phone number and email on record belong to the person who actually follows the case or the payments, so that payment reminders do not go to an employee who has nothing to do with them.

• Address the client by name, formally and politely: a message represents the office just as its printed letters do.
• A payment reminder reminds; it does not threaten. Talking about late payment belongs in a personal call from the accountant or the lawyer.
• If a hearing is adjourned, tell the client what happened once the decision is recorded: to them, that message matters more than the reminder itself.
• If a client asks you to stop messaging them on a channel, change the notification method in their file straight away.

The message log and the team’s alerts

Every message that leaves the system, automatic or manual, stays in the message log with one of three statuses: “Sent”, “Failed” or “Sent manually”. The log helps in three situations: when a client says they were never told about a hearing, when failed messages keep going to a wrong number, and when the managing partner wants to know whether reminders are really working. Make reviewing failed messages a weekly habit for a named employee, who corrects the number or email in the client’s file straight away.

Reminders are not only for clients. Before every hearing, the responsible lawyer and the members of the case team are alerted, and internal alerts reach the team ahead of appeal and grievance deadlines, memorandum deadlines, and the expiry of powers of attorney and ID cards. Each employee turns on “Device notifications” from their menu at the top of the screen, separately for each browser, so alerts and chat messages reach their computer or phone even when the system is closed. On iPhone, notifications work once the system has been installed on the home screen.