Appointment (Reservation) Reminder WhatsApp Template for Restaurants

Personalise it so it reads like your host, not a robot

The template's four variables let one approved message serve every booking while still sounding like a personal note from your restaurant. Fill {{1}} with the guest's first name, {{2}} with the party and table detail ("a table for 4"), {{3}} with a friendly date ("Sat, 12 Jul"), and {{4}} with the exact slot ("8:30 PM"). Keep your restaurant's name and tone consistent with how your team greets people at the door, and consider adding your address or a parking note in a separate approved variation for guests who haven't visited before. The goal is a message that feels 1:1 — a reminder from a place that's expecting them by name — not a broadcast blast.

• {{1}} — guest first name (e.g. Aarav)
• {{2}} — party size / table (e.g. a table for 4)
• {{3}} — reservation date (e.g. Sat, 12 Jul)
• {{4}} — reservation time (e.g. 8:30 PM)

Timing and automation: when to fire the reminder

For dinner reservations, a reminder roughly three to four hours ahead hits the sweet spot — early enough that a guest who can't make it will tap Reschedule while you can still re-sell the slot, but close enough that it isn't forgotten. For lunch or same-day walk-in bookings, a shorter lead of an hour or two works better. With InfiQ you don't send these by hand: connect your booking flow so the approved template fires automatically off each reservation's date and time, and route Confirm and Reschedule replies back to your host desk. Because a guest's reply opens a free 24-hour service window, your team can chat back — change the time, adjust the cover count — without that back-and-forth being templated or re-billed.

Getting it approved (and keeping it compliant)

Submit this as a Utility template — it's transactional and tied to a real booking. The single biggest reason reminders like this get rejected is slipping in promotion: a discount, a "try our new menu" line, or an upsell drags the template into the marketing category and can bounce the review. Keep the reminder strictly informational, provide realistic sample values for every variable when you submit (Meta reviews with those examples), and label your buttons clearly as Confirm and Reschedule. If you later want to edit the wording, re-submit the changed version for approval before sending. InfiQ's template management makes this straightforward — draft, submit, track status, and manage language versions in one place — and as an official Meta Business Partner we help you keep the template on the right side of the category rules.

What it costs to send

Since Meta moved off per-conversation billing on 1 July 2025, WhatsApp charges per delivered message by category — so each delivered reservation reminder is billed at the utility rate, which is the lower tier. The 24-hour window that opens when a guest replies is a free service window for your team to answer, not a billing unit, so a quick two-way chat to adjust a booking doesn't add per-message template charges. InfiQ applies its own transparent ₹ pricing (ex-GST), so you can see exactly what a month of reminders costs against your reservation volume and weigh it against the covers you recover from fewer no-shows.

• Billed per delivered message at the utility rate
• Reply-triggered 24-hour service window is free
• Transparent ₹ pricing, ex-GST

Handy variations of this template

One approved reminder rarely fits every service. Keep the core template lean, then submit a few sibling versions for different situations so each still passes utility review. A shorter version — name plus time only — suits regulars who book constantly and don't need the full detail. A regional-language version (Hindi or your guests' local language) reads far warmer than an auto-translation and should be submitted as its own approved language variant. If you want to run a genuine promotion (a happy-hour nudge, a seasonal menu), build that as a separate marketing template with a clear opt-out line — never bolt an offer onto this utility reminder.

• Shorter: name + time only for frequent guests
• Regional language: a Hindi or local-language version, submitted separately
• Promotional nudges: build as a separate marketing template with an opt-out line