Dealer service reminder tools, and where a calendar fits

The short answer

Xtime, myKaarma, Dealer-FX and CDK all send service reminders and follow-ups by text and email, built from the service history and repair orders in your systems. Their schedulers send confirmations and notices for booked appointments, and myKaarma's confirmation emails let customers add the appointment to their own calendar. A calendar fits the weeks before anything is booked, as a reminder that sits on the customer's calendar when their car comes due and links to your scheduler. We make TheyCal, which handles that one part and leaves booking and declined-service follow-up to the tools you already run.

What do the main service reminder tools do?

Each description below comes from the company's own product or help pages as of October 2026. Ask the vendor what your package includes before you count on a feature.

Xtime

Xtime is part of Cox Automotive, and its marketing product is Xtime Invite. Xtime calls Invite “a multichannel service marketing tool” that sends “personalized service reminders and targeted offers to customers, based on previous visits, scheduled maintenance, and declined services.” The dealer picks “the message, timing, and delivery channel (text, email, or both).” Booking runs through Xtime Schedule, which sends “automated text and email reminders” for appointments and connects to dealer management systems, Dealertrack DMS among them.

myKaarma

myKaarma's help center lists automations for “welcome messages, appointment reminders, service-status updates, no-show outreach, and follow-ups for declined services.” Dealers set up ServiceConnect rules to “send texts or emails automatically, or to create tasks for your staff”. Follow-up tasks can come from carmakers too: “Some OEMs, such as Mercedes-Benz, upload service reminders directly into the platform as tasks for your team to act on.”

myKaarma has a calendar feature for booked appointments too. Its confirmation emails “allow your customers to populate the appointment directly into their Google calendar, Outlook calendar, Yahoo calendar, or iCal.”

Dealer-FX

Service CRM is a Dealer-FX add-on that runs “Due-for-service, declined-service, missed-appointment and thank-you campaigns by email, text and BDC call list”, targeted by vehicle and service history. Text campaigns come with the Service CRM+ tier. Dealers who'd rather hand the work off can buy Total Service Marketing, “Fully managed by a dedicated marketing consultant.” On the booking side, Dealer-FX Scheduling sends “Appointment confirmations and reminders by text and email” and writes every appointment to your DMS as it's made.

CDK Global

CDK's Service Marketing for Fixed Operations sits inside CDK Service and “pulls directly from customer, vehicle and RO data.” Your own staff build the campaigns “via email and SMS text”, and they can go out as targeted sends or run off automatic triggers “like previously declined repairs, customer re-engagement and recalls.” CDK's scheduling software covers “automatic service notifications, confirmations and missed appointment notifications through text and email.”

How do they compare?

Tool	Reminders and follow-ups	Sent by	Calendar features on the pages we read
Xtime Invite and Schedule	Service reminders and offers from previous visits, scheduled maintenance and declined services; appointment reminders	Text and email	None mentioned
myKaarma	Appointment reminders, no-show outreach, declined-service follow-ups, OEM service reminders as staff tasks	Text and email	Confirmation emails let customers add a booked appointment to Google, Outlook, Yahoo or iCal
Dealer-FX Service CRM and Scheduling	Due-for-service, declined-service, missed-appointment and thank-you campaigns; appointment confirmations and reminders	Email, BDC call lists, and text with Service CRM+	None mentioned
CDK Service Marketing and Scheduling	Triggered and targeted campaigns, declined repairs and recalls among them; confirmations and missed-appointment notices	Email and text	None mentioned
TheyCal	A due-for-service reminder for each car and one follow-up	Events in the customer's own calendar	Every reminder is a calendar event

Where does a calendar fit?

Look at when each message lands. A due-for-service text or email arrives the day the campaign goes out, then sits in a thread or an inbox with everything else that came that week. Once the customer books, the scheduler takes over with confirmations and appointment reminders.

Before that booking, the customer's calendar holds nothing about the car. A calendar reminder puts an event there for the week it comes due, with the car's name in the title and your booking link in the description, so booking still happens in Xtime, myKaarma, Dealer-FX, CDK or whatever scheduler you use.

We have no data comparing how many cars calendar reminders bring in against texts or email. Our comparison of event reminders by calendar, email and text goes through each channel, and the page on whether reminders reduce no-shows covers the research.

Where does TheyCal overlap with these tools?

We make TheyCal. It overlaps with them on the due-for-service reminder timed from a car's last visit. Everything else in the table above stays with your current tools, booking included, and TheyCal has no connection to a DMS or a scheduler.

Each car gets its own schedule. The Service reminders setup makes a car due six months after its last service, and you can change that or set a different interval by vehicle type. A week before the due date an all-day event such as “2019 Toyota Camry is due for service” goes on the owner's calendar, with an alert at 9 AM the day before. A second event follows two weeks after the due date.
Your customer list comes from a spreadsheet. Export customers and their vehicles from your DMS and upload the file. A newer upload can only move a service date forward.
A visit restarts the clock. Tapping “Serviced today” on the customer's page, or uploading a newer list, moves that car's reminders to the new date. TheyCal can't see bookings in your scheduler, so a reminder stays where it is until the service date changes.
Reminders stop on their own. By default a car's reminders end after three due dates pass with no new service date. Customers can mark a car sold from their own TheyCal page, and its reminders come off their calendar.

TheyCal's Service reminders setup, with the repeat interval, the last-visit option and two reminder events — The Service reminders starting point in TheyCal: due again every six months, timed from each car's last service.

Customers have to follow your dealership before any of this reaches them, from an invitation email or a QR code at the service desk, so plan on asking each one. Google and Outlook users connect their calendar, and TheyCal creates the reminders in it directly. Everyone else gets a private calendar link for Apple Calendar and other apps. Links in the reminders are click-tracked, so you can see who tapped through to your scheduler. Our guide to getting customers back for service covers the timing and wording.

Common questions

Does TheyCal replace Xtime, myKaarma, Dealer-FX or CDK?

It takes on one job they also do, the due-for-service reminder, and puts it in the customer's calendar. Booking, appointment confirmations, declined-service campaigns and texting stay with them.

Will customers get two reminders for the same car?

They will if your service marketing tool and TheyCal both send one. Decide whether the calendar event runs next to your due-for-service email or takes its place for customers who follow you, and use the same interval in both so the dates agree.

Which tools put booked service appointments in the customer's calendar?

Of the pages we read, myKaarma's help center is the one that describes it, through appointment confirmation emails. Ask your own vendor as well, since product pages leave features out.

How many customers do dealerships lose from service?

Cox Automotive, which owns Xtime, puts the dealer share of service visits at 29% in its 2025 Service Industry Study, down from 33% in 2018. Our page of dealership service retention statistics lists every figure with its source.