How ReturnNudge Gets You Set Up in Under 10 Minutes

Built for Business Owners, Not Marketers

Most email tools assume you have time to learn a new platform. They greet you with empty dashboards, blank templates, and documentation that reads like a textbook. For a local business owner juggling customers, staff, and operations, that’s a non-starter.

ReturnNudge takes a different approach. The onboarding process is designed to get you from sign-up to sending automated reminders in under 10 minutes. No marketing experience needed. No technical skills required. Just a few straightforward steps and you’re running.

Here’s exactly how it works.

Step 1: Pick Your Business Template

When you create your account, the first thing you’ll do is select your business type. ReturnNudge offers pre-built templates for common local businesses:

• Bike shops
• Auto mechanics
• Dental offices
• Barber shops
• And more

Each template comes loaded with services that are typical for that industry. A bike shop template includes services like annual tune-ups, chain replacements, and brake checks. A dental office template includes cleanings, exams, and X-rays.

Why this matters: Instead of building everything from scratch, you start with a foundation that already makes sense for your business. You can customize it later, but most owners find the defaults work right out of the box.

Step 2: Review Your Services and Reminder Intervals

After selecting a template, you’ll see your pre-configured services with default reminder intervals. Each service has a name, a description, and a time interval that determines when customers receive their reminder.

For example, a bike shop might see:

• Annual Tune-Up - Reminder at 11 months
• Chain Replacement - Reminder at 18 months
• Brake Pad Check - Reminder at 6 months

You can adjust any interval to match how your business actually operates. If your customers typically need an oil change every 4 months instead of 3, change it with a single click. Add new services or remove ones that don’t apply.

This step usually takes about 2 minutes. Most business owners review the defaults, make a minor tweak or two, and move on.

Step 3: Add Your Customers

Now it’s time to bring in your customer list. You have two options:

• Add customers one at a time through a simple form (name, email, and optionally a birthday)
• Import a batch from a spreadsheet or CSV file

For businesses just getting started, adding a handful of key customers manually is the fastest path. You can always import a larger list later.

Each customer record is straightforward. ReturnNudge doesn’t ask for dozens of fields or require complex profiles. Name, email, and birthday. That’s enough to power both service reminders and birthday emails.

Step 4: Record Visits and Activate Reminders

When you record a customer visit, you select the service they received and the date. ReturnNudge calculates the next reminder date automatically based on your configured interval.

That’s it. From that moment forward, the customer will receive an automated email reminder when their next service is due. No further action needed from you.

As customers come in for visits throughout the week, you log each one. The reminder pipeline builds itself naturally as part of your normal workflow.

Step 5: Set Up Birthday Emails (Optional)

If you collected customer birthdays, ReturnNudge can automatically send birthday emails with a special offer. You configure the offer once, something like “20% off your next visit” or “Free basic service on your birthday,” and every customer with a birthday on file receives it automatically each year.

This step is optional but highly recommended. Birthday emails consistently drive some of the highest engagement of any automated message.

The Whole Process: Under 10 Minutes

Let’s add it up:

1. Pick a template - 1 minute
2. Review services - 2 minutes
3. Add a few customers - 3 minutes
4. Record recent visits - 2 minutes
5. Set up birthday emails - 1 minute

Total: about 9 minutes. And that’s being generous with the estimates.

Compare that to setting up Mailchimp, Constant Contact, or HubSpot, where you’d spend the first 10 minutes just figuring out which plan to choose and what half the features do. With ReturnNudge, you’re already sending reminders before you’d even finish onboarding with those platforms.

Designed for Your Daily Workflow

After the initial setup, using ReturnNudge fits seamlessly into your day. When a customer leaves, you spend 30 seconds logging the visit. The system handles everything else.

No email templates to write. No campaigns to schedule. No analytics to interpret. Just a steady stream of well-timed reminders that bring your customers back, automatically.

See How Simple It Is

The best way to understand how ReturnNudge works is to try it yourself. The setup is fast, the learning curve is flat, and the results start from your very first reminder.

Get started today. See our plans and pricing.