Want to create an awesome experience for walk-ins and appointments at your beauty salon? Use this sample set up to turn your Waitwhile waitlist into the customer flow of your dreams!
Here's how this Customer Flow works:
Your customers go to a website to schedule an appointment at a time that works for them.
Your employee is alerted to let them know that a customer has scheduled an appointment with them.
On the day of service, the Booking is added to the waitlist before the appointed time and the customer is sent a reminder SMS message. The customer 'checks in' from their car to let you, as the business, know they have arrived.
You 'alert' your customer when you are ready for them to come into the building for service.
Your employees complete the order from the 'Serving' tab - this sends a 'thank you' message to the customer after the entire experience is over.
To try this customer flow do these 5 steps:
1. Enter in your basic business info
Navigate to the Settings > General to start configuring your business. This is the most important part to ensure that if something goes wrong, your customers can always call your business if they get stuck. Here is a quick video that explains all of the options in the General Business settings.
2. Configure your alerts
The Waitwhile SMS messages is really how you can bring your customer flow to life and help educate your customer how you need them to wait for their turn.
Go to the Settings > Messages to configure your waitlist and appointment messages.
You should enable these message types at a minimum:
Waitlist Confirmation
Waitlist Next In Line
Waitlist Alert
Booking Confirmation,
Booking Reminder,
Booking Completed
Now that you have the right Alerts enabled, you can modify those messages to say what you need them to say. For this Customer flow, you’ll need to replace the default text for each Alert with the appropriate message from the chart below.
Alert Type | Sample Message |
Booking Confirmation | Hi {name}! You're scheduled to visit {business} on {date} at {hour} with {resource}. Manage it at {appointment} |
Booking Reminder (Set for 1 hour before booking) | Heads-up! {resource} is set to see you at {hour} - please respond to this message with HERE when you have arrived. |
Waitlist: 'Next in Line' | It's almost your turn - if you haven't already, reply back with HERE to mark yourself as arrived. |
Waitlist: 'Alert' | We're ready for you - please come inside the building now. |
Booking Completed | Thank you for visiting {business}, {name}! We hope to see you back soon. |
4. Update your customer registration form
Go to the Settings > Customer Input Fields to change what information about your customer you'd like to collect when they register. Here you can ask your customer questions, require information, etc. For this customer flow, make sure to make the phone number ‘required’ to ensure that the customer receives the SMS messages they need about their waiting process.
5. Share your Check-In link with your customers
Now that your configuration is set up, you can start using your waitlist right now. We recommend that you share your Public Registration URL to your customers - they’ll use this link as a way to add themselves to your Waitlist.
Here are some examples of ways you can share the Check-In URL with your customers:
Connect Your Check-In URL with a QR code and print it on signs at your business for customers to use to join.
Embed your Check-In page on your website to make it easy for customers to find to add themselves.