You will be able to write and send an automated confirmation that reaches the inbox and answers the obvious next question.
The confirmation email a parent gets after filling in your enquiry form should come from a mailbox a person checks. It should repeat the details the parent gave and tell them what happens next and by when. Before the flow goes live, send yourself test copies built from messy data.
Think of an automated email you got after filling in a form somewhere. It probably came from a no-reply address, opened with "Dear Customer", said your submission had been received and someone would be in touch shortly, and told you nothing you didn't already know. Most people stop reading after the first line. For a tuition centre, the confirmation email is the first thing a parent hears from the centre after reaching out, and it reaches them while their interest is at its highest.
Parents reply to these emails often. They write back to fix a wrong phone number, to ask whether Saturday is possible, or to mention that a younger child needs lessons too. A no-reply address doesn't accept replies, so anything sent back to it bounces or disappears, and the parent assumes nobody at the centre is paying attention.
Use a real mailbox that a staff member checks, such as the centre's enquiries address. If you connected a dedicated address to your flow in lesson 3.3, What a tool can see once you connect your accounts, send from that one. Either way, check that replies end up in an inbox someone opens every day.
A good confirmation does three jobs. It proves the enquiry arrived by quoting details the parent typed in. It answers the question the parent is about to ask. It states the next step and when that step will happen.
Mei Ling works at a maths tuition centre in Tampines. Below is her confirmation for secondary-level enquiries. The words in square brackets are filled in automatically.
Hi [parent name],
Thanks for your enquiry about [level] maths at our Tampines centre. Our [level] classes are held on [class days].
[teacher name], one of our teachers, will ring you on [phone] within two working days. They'll talk through [child's name]'s needs with you and set up a trial lesson.
If any of these details are wrong, or another time to talk would suit you better, reply to this email and let us know.
Mei Ling
Each bracketed placeholder is a mapped field. Its value comes from the form, the sheet or a lookup step, connected the way lesson 2.2, Data mapping: passing fields from one step to the next, explains. Greeting the parent by name and quoting the level and phone number back to them confirms the enquiry got through. If the parent mistyped either detail, they can spot it now, before a teacher calls a wrong number.
Listing the class days answers what most parents want to know next, which is when the classes are. Those days are specific to Mei Ling's centre and are only an example. The call within two working days is also invented for the example. It gives the parent a concrete next step on a timetable the centre is able to meet. The closing line asks them to write back with corrections or a better time to talk.
Mei Ling leaves out any marketing paragraph, any rundown of every programme and any attachments. All of that can wait until after the call, and keeping the email short means parents read it.
Every email account has a daily cap on how many emails it can send. Free personal accounts have these caps, and business accounts have them too, usually set higher. The numbers change and vary between providers, so check your provider's help pages for the current figure before your volume grows.
A centre getting fifteen enquiries a week (an illustrative number) is nowhere near any cap. Volume climbs once the same flow also sends reminders, follow-ups and internal notifications, or when sign-ups spike after an open house, so count everything the account sends. When an account goes over its cap, emails stop going out, and the error is often buried deep in the run history. Lesson 7.1, How automations fail, and why you often do not notice, covers how to find it. For now you only need a rough idea of your limit and how far below it you are.
Business email sent from a free personal address is more likely to look strange to parents and to spam filters. If the centre owns a domain, send from an address on it.
When you first test, you'll probably type neat, complete details yourself. Parents filling in the form on a busy evening won't be that careful. Before turning the flow on, send yourself versions built from awkward inputs:
Leave the name blank, and check that the greeting falls back to something like "Hi there" instead of showing "Hi ,". Enter a name in capitals, or one with an apostrophe or hyphen, and check that it displays properly. Choose a level that doesn't match any option, and see what the email says when the lookup returns nothing.
Open every test on a phone and on a computer, since most parents will read it on their phone. Go through the subject line, the sender name, the line breaks and each mapped field. Then reply to one of the tests and check that the reply turns up in the inbox you intended.
If the blank-name test produces "Hi ,", go to lesson 2.3, Format dates, names and numbers on the way through, and give the name field a default value. That is a fallback the flow uses when the field is empty, such as "Hi there".
Your flow already has a sheet from lesson 4.1, Plan the record that ties form, sheet and email together. Write the confirmation email that flow will send, with mapped fields for the person's name and the details they entered. Then send three test versions to yourself, with awkward inputs in at least one of them.
Write the confirmation email for your flow with mapped fields for name and details, and send three test versions to yourself.
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