Phorest: Client Reconnect and the lapsed-client filter

Phorest is the salon system that took reactivation seriously. Client Reconnect watches each client's booking rhythm, flags the ones who've gone past it, and sends a follow-up automatically if the first message doesn't land. For a hair salon it's close to perfect. For a skin or laser clinic there are two settings that, left on their defaults, mean it quietly skips most of your clients.

Every label below is quoted from support.phorest.com with the article linked and its updated date.

The filter: Visit History

Phorest's campaign filters include a Visit History filter with options along the lines of "They have not visited" or "They have visited" in a window such as "in the last 60 days" or "More than N Days Ago". Phorest's own example of a popular filter is "Clients who have not visited in the last 60 days (Visit History filter)" (campaign filters article, updated 16 April 2026). Two rules from the same page: "a client is considered to have visited if they made any purchase (services or products) within the specified date range", so a product sale resets the clock, and "Filters currently only use the 'AND' operator."

The exact dropdown wording ("They have not visited") appears in a screenshot caption rather than the body text, so treat the label as close, not certain.

The export, and what's missing from it

Marketing → Client Export, apply filters or leave them blank, then click Emails (CSV) (export article, updated 19 August 2025). Phorest's own caveat is the important bit: that export "will only include a list of clients who have opted in for email marketing". The other documented button, Address (CSV), gives "all clients who currently have an address on their client profile".

No help page this build could reach lists a mobile-number column or a last-visit-date column in the export, and none confirms in a sentence that the Visit History filter is applied to the CSV. So on Phorest the honest position is: the filter is verified, the export is partial. Open the file you get and check. The Insights dashboard (Manager → Reports → Insights → Client Retention) offers "identification of specific retained or non-returning clients" and can be downloaded via the three dots, format not stated (Client Retention report).

One more setting to check before you go looking for lapsed clients at all: Manager → Settings → General → Client Setup → Data Retention permanently erases "personal data of any clients who haven't visited your business within the specified data retention period" (auto-remove article). If a previous manager set that to two years, the lapsed base past two years is already gone.

Client Reconnect: how it decides who's overdue

Marketing → Client Reconnect. It "Targets your clients at risk of not returning". A client is overdue when they go "beyond their typical booking interval", and that interval "is automatically calculated by Phorest after the client has had three appointments within the same Service Category" (What is Client Reconnect, updated 19 February 2026). "The initial message is sent manually" with the Contact Overdue Clients button; "The follow-up message is sent automatically, provided the overdue client hasn't already rebooked."

Settings live at Marketing → Client Reconnect → Message Settings: SMS, Email, or "SMS with email fallback"; follow-up default "2 weeks" at "2:00 PM"; clients need a phone number and to be "opted to receive Marketing messages" (settings article). Templates are per service category with tabs for "Initial SMS, Follow Up SMS, Initial Email, and Follow Up Email".

Now the two defaults that matter for a clinic.

Three visits in one category. A client who came once for a consult and once for a treatment never qualifies. Neither does someone who's had three different treatments in three categories. For a cosmetic clinic where the first few visits are often different services, a big share of the book never becomes "overdue" in Phorest's eyes.

Excluded categories. Phorest excludes these from Client Reconnect by default: Electrolysis, Chiropodist, Laser Hair Removal, Laser Rejuvenation, Laser Vein & Pigmentation, Laser (L.H.E), Milia, Red Vein Removal, Skin Tags, Thread Vein, Ear Piercing, Piercing (excluded categories). The logic is that these are permanent treatments. For a laser clinic it means the built-in win-back tool ignores the core of the business unless you change the exclusion.

Client Reconnect is available on every plan; the Australian pricing page lists it under Grow, the entry tier (Phorest AU pricing). SMS rates on that page are "12c per SMS" on Grow and "8.5c per SMS" on the higher plans, with no currency symbol shown.

Sending manually, and the 136-character limit

Marketing → Compose SMS. "Clients will only appear in the list provided they have opted in for SMS Marketing." Marketing texts "will automatically include a link to allow clients to unsubscribe from marketing", and "This 'UNSUB' link uses up 24 of those 160 characters", leaving 136 for your message; go over and "you will be charged at your standard rate for each additional message" (Long SMS article). The templates are written to fit.

There's also a recurring option: Marketing → Compose Email, filter by Visit History, set "Repeat campaign to Yes ... Frequency to Daily Every 1 Day ... Duration to Run continuously", with an optional SMS fallback (recurring campaign article). That's a rolling reactivation for anyone who crosses the line, which is the right shape.

Consent on Phorest

Phorest's compliance article names GDPR and CCPA, not the Australian Spam Act, and says marketing "requires opt-in consent before sending such marketing" (transactional vs marketing). The UNSUB link handles the Spam Act's unsubscribe rule for marketing texts. No reply-STOP handling is documented, so if your template says "Reply STOP", someone has to watch for it.

For a clinic, opt-in is the floor. A message about the treatment a client actually had, at the interval Phorest calculated for them, is the recall lane; a category-wide offer is marketing and needs consent you can point to. The rules, quoted from the regulators.

What to do on Phorest

Check Data Retention first. Then either fix Client Reconnect for your business (un-exclude laser, accept the three-visit rule or don't rely on it) or use the Visit History filter to build the list yourself. Either way, edit the per-category templates so the message comes from the therapist and mentions the service in plain words, and have someone at the desk own the replies. Phorest does more of this automatically than any other system on this list; it still can't answer "yes, Thursday?" for you, which is the whole of the reactivation job.