How to Write Taglish Messenger Replies That Still Sound Professional

Ms Reyes sends this to the Smile & Skin Clinic Page at 9:40 on a Wednesday night:

Hello po, pwede pa ba magpa-cleaning bukas? Magkano po?

Here are two replies that both answer her:

pwede sis hehe 1.5k po 😊 anong oras ka?

Good evening! Thank you for reaching out to Smile & Skin Clinic. Our oral prophylaxis service is priced at PHP 1,500.00. Kindly provide your preferred schedule so that we may check availability.

The first reads like an online shop run off somebody's phone. The second reads like a bank. Both have the price in them, and neither sounds like a clinic she'd let near her teeth.

This one does:

Hi po! Pwede po bukas, Thursday, Oct 15. ₱1,500 po ang cleaning, mga 45 minutes. May bakante po kami ng 10:00 AM at 2:30 PM. Alin po ang mas okay sa inyo?

It's still Taglish, same as hers. It just gets the rest right: po where it belongs, a price and a date nobody can misread, two real times, and nothing she'd screenshot to laugh about with her friends.

Taglish was never the problem. Here's what is, with sample replies and a one-page style sheet, so everyone who answers your Page writes like the same clinic.

The short version

• Reply in the language the patient used. Taglish gets Taglish, English gets English.
• One po per sentence is enough. Not one after every word.
• Use kayo and ninyo for the patient, never ka and mo, whatever their age.
• Open with "Hi po!" It doesn't have to guess whether the account belongs to a ma'am or a sir.
• Write prices, times and dates so they can't be misread: ₱1,500, 2:30 PM, Friday, Oct 16.
• Use the patient's word for the treatment. If she wrote pasta, don't write restoration.
• Spell words out. No "pde", no "1.5k", no "sis", no "hehe".
• Mirror her language, not her mood and not her spelling.
• Write it all down once, so the Saturday reliever sounds like Jen.

What makes a reply sound careless

Plenty of patients write to a clinic in Taglish because that's how they text everyone. Answer the same way. A careful, formal English reply to "hm po braces?" reads like a template, even when Jen typed every word of it.

The replies that sound careless come down to a handful of habits, most of them picked up texting friends:

Instead of	Write	Why
k po / ok	Sige po, noted.	"k" reads like she's being brushed off
hehe	Nothing. Delete it	It reads as nervous, or as laughing at her
pde po b? / d2 / nmn	Pwede po ba? / dito / naman	Shortcuts look rushed
1.5k	₱1,500	"1.5k" is how people price a phone on Marketplace
sis, mamsh, bhie, boss	po, or her name	Pet names are for friends. She's a patient
wait lang	Sandali lang po, iche-check ko ang schedule.	Tells her what you're doing, and that you're coming back
Hi / po / ₱1,500 / po, as four messages	One message	Every message buzzes her phone
PAKI-CONFIRM PO	Paki-confirm po	All caps reads as shouting
Thank you!!! 😊😊😊	Thank you po! 😊	One is warm. Three looks like a promo post

One smiley in a greeting or a thank-you is fine. Leave emoji out of anything about pain, a bill or a complaint.

Which language to reply in

Follow the patient. These are the cases that trip people up.

The patient writes	You reply	Watch out for
Taglish	Taglish	Nothing special
English	English	Keep po light, or leave it out. "Hi! Yes, we're open Saturday" is fine
Straight Tagalog	Tagalog-leaning Taglish, with po and kayo throughout	Deep Tagalog. "Mangyaring" sounds like a government notice
Bisaya	Bisaya, if someone on the inbox speaks it natively	If nobody does, reply in plain English or Taglish. A clear reply beats a broken one
A mix that changes partway	Whatever her latest message is in	Switching languages yourself halfway through

Treatment names work the same way. Patients say cleaning, braces, root canal and X-ray in English, and pasta and bunot in Tagalog. Use her word. If she asked about bunot, the reply says bunot, not "tooth extraction procedure".

Po, kayo, and what to call her

One po per sentence

Leave po out and a Taglish reply sounds curt. Pile it on and it sounds like a script:

Hi po, ₱1,500 po ang cleaning po, available po kayo bukas po?

One per sentence is plenty:

Hi po! ₱1,500 po ang cleaning. Available po ba kayo bukas?

Kayo, never ka

Use kayo, ninyo and inyo for the patient, even though she's one person. "Anong oras ka available?" is how you'd ask a friend. "Anong oras po kayo available?" is how a clinic asks.

Do it with patients who are obviously younger than you, too. Every patient gets po and kayo, and often you can't tell their age anyway. A teenager asking about braces may have the parent who's paying reading over their shoulder.

"Hi po," not "Hi ma'am"

A lot of patients message from someone else's account. Ms Reyes might be writing from her son's, so the name on the thread says Jun Reyes. "Hi po!" is right for both of them. "Hi sir!" is wrong for the one who's actually asking.

Once she's given you her name, use it. "Salamat po, Ms Reyes" tells her a person read her message, which no amount of po can do.

Write the facts so nobody can misread them

The Taglish can be relaxed. The facts can't. Prices, times, dates and treatments are what she'll act on, and a misread one turns into a no-show or an argument at the counter.

Fact	Risky	Safe
Price	1.5k, 1500	₱1,500
Range	800 up	₱800 to ₱1,500 per tooth
Time	2:30, alas-dos y medya	2:30 PM
Day	bukas, sa Sabado	bukas, Thursday, Oct 15
Treatment	oral prophylaxis, restoration	cleaning, pasta

Bukas needs its own warning. Jen replies at 11:50 PM: May bakante po bukas ng 10:00 AM. The patient reads it at 12:20 AM. Which day is bukas now? Put the day and the date beside it every time.

The ₱ sign is fine on Messenger. SMS is different. There, the peso sign changes how the whole message is encoded, and a reminder that billed as one message can bill as three. Our SMS reminder templates go through that.

The same message, three ways

She needs to move her appointment

Hi po, pwede po ba ma-move yung appointment ko bukas? May biglaang lakad po kasi.

Too casual:

ok sis anong araw ka pwede? hehe

Too stiff:

We acknowledge your request for rescheduling. Kindly be advised that rescheduling is subject to availability. Please indicate your preferred date and time.

Sounds like a clinic:

Okay lang po, salamat sa pag-inform. Pwede po namin kayong ilipat sa Friday, Oct 16, 10:00 AM o 3:00 PM. Alin po ang mas okay sa inyo?

Both bad replies leave her to pick a day and start a back-and-forth. The good one offers two times, so she can answer in one word.

She's running late

Her cleaning is at 2:30 PM.

Papunta na po ako, traffic po sa Banilad. Mga 20 mins late po ako.

Too casual:

sige po ingat hehe

Too stiff:

Please be informed that patients arriving more than 15 minutes late may be required to reschedule as per clinic policy.

Sounds like a clinic:

Salamat po sa pag-update. Ingat po sa biyahe! Hihintayin po namin kayo. Kung lagpas na ng 3:00 PM, baka kulangin na ang oras para sa cleaning, kaya ililipat po natin sa ibang araw.

"Ingat" is kind, and it still leaves her guessing whether the slot is hers. The stiff one quotes policy at someone stuck in traffic. The third keeps the kindness and gives her an actual time to beat. Put in your own clinic's cut-off, whatever it is.

She's unhappy about the wait

Ang tagal ko po naghintay kanina, almost 1 hour. Sana po sinabihan man lang ako na delayed si Doc.

Too casual:

sorry po hehe marami lang po talaga pasyente kanina

Too stiff:

We sincerely apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused. Rest assured that we value your feedback and will take the necessary steps to improve our services.

Sounds like a clinic:

Pasensya na po talaga, Ms Reyes. Tama po kayo, dapat sinabihan namin kayo na delayed si Doc. Simula ngayon, magme-message na po kami kapag lagpas na ng 15 minutes ang delay. Salamat po sa pagsabi nito sa amin.

Laughing and blaming the crowd makes it worse. The stiff version is the apology she already gets from her telco. What works is saying what went wrong and what changes now. Only promise the change if the owner has agreed to it.

Mistakes that look professional

Translating an English template word for word. "Mangyaring maghintay po ng kumpirmasyon" is correct Tagalog, and nobody talks like that. Write it the way you'd say it at the counter: Hintayin lang po ang confirmation namin.

Corporate English to sound serious. "Kindly be advised", "please be informed", "for your reference". They add formality and no information, and patients read them as a brush-off.

Two languages from two people. Jen answers in Taglish on Thursday, the reliever answers in English on Saturday, and the patient feels like she's dealing with two different clinics.

Too many sorries. "Sorry po sa late reply, sorry po talaga, pasensya na po" before the answer even starts. One apology for a slow reply is right. Three bury the answer.

A reply that's polite and answers nothing. Salamat po sa inyong message! Babalikan po namin kayo. She asked what time you open on Saturday, and she still doesn't know.

Write it down: a one-page style sheet

None of this sticks if it lives in Jen's head. Print one page and tape it beside the inbox. Here's the one we'd write for Smile & Skin Clinic, the example clinic we use on this blog:

Topic	Smile & Skin Clinic's rule
Greeting	"Hi po!" Then her name once you have it
Language	Hers. Bisaya only if you speak it natively
Po	Once per sentence
Addressing her	Kayo, ninyo, inyo. Never ka, mo, iyo
Prices	The ₱ sign and the full figure. ₱1,500, not 1.5k
Times and dates	2:30 PM. The day and the date, like Friday, Oct 16
Treatments	Her word. Cleaning, pasta, bunot, braces
Emoji	One 😊 in a greeting or a thank-you, at most. None about pain, money or a complaint
Never	sis, mamsh, bhie, boss, hehe, k, or shortcuts like pde and d2
When you don't know	"Iche-check ko po kay Doc at babalikan ko kayo bago mag-5 PM." Then do it
Every reply ends with	One question or one next step

Then save the replies you send most often in Meta Business Suite, so nobody retypes them from memory. Our guide to answering price questions on Messenger has the price replies. The sheet also makes a good first-day handout when you're training a new receptionist.

Where OtterFlow fits

Everything above works by hand. The style sheet holds up until 10 PM, when nobody's on the inbox, or Saturday, when the reliever is.

OtterFlow's assistant, Flo, replies in the language the patient used: English, Taglish or Bisaya. It answers from the services, prices and hours you approved, so the price it quotes at 10 PM matches the one your front desk quotes at 10 AM, and it only offers times that are genuinely open. If you've written a style sheet, bring it to setup. We build the messaging around your clinic and keep tuning the wording when something reads wrong.

It doesn't diagnose. Clinical questions go to your staff, and anyone on your team can take a conversation over. The quickest way to judge its Taglish is to write some yourself: ask Flo a price on our Messenger chatbot page and read what comes back.

Setup: ₱0. Then 4,975 a month.

Questions clinics ask

Our dentist wants every reply in English. Is that wrong?

Not wrong, just a little cold against a Taglish question. There's a middle way. Keep the facts in English and put the greeting and the closing question in Taglish:

Hi po! Cleaning is ₱1,500 and takes about 45 minutes. We have 10:00 AM and 2:30 PM tomorrow, Thursday, Oct 15. Alin po ang mas okay sa inyo?

It reads warmer than all-English, and the facts stay as exact as your dentist wants them.

What if the patient is rude, or writes in all caps?

Answer calmly, with po, and answer the question. Don't match the caps or the exclamation marks, and don't defend yourself in a paragraph. If it's a complaint, the third example above is the shape to follow.

Try this first

Pull three replies from last week, each written by a different person on your inbox. Cover the names and read them side by side. If you can tell who wrote which, so can your patients, and the style sheet is this week's fix. If all three read well but one went out the next morning, the wording was never the gap, and that's what a fifteen-minute call with us is for.