To help your guests keep track of their place in line or manage their appointment in real-time, we’ve made the Status page much more flexible and responsive. With Waitwhile 3.0, we have introduced the ability to communicate with guests while they're on their Status page (for waitlisted guests) or Confirmation page (for scheduled appointments).
Tip: If you want to reduce your SMS messaging fees, this is a great option to communicate with your guests for free!
Let's take a look at how status page messaging works for frontline staff and for guests.
Staff using status page messaging
As a staff member and Waitwhile user, you can access Status page messaging from the Messages tab when you click on any guest or visit profile. A few things to note:
The option to send messages to your guests' Status page shows up in your "Send as..." list with the name Chat.
Once a guest responds to your message, it will be indicated on the visit card by a preview of the message next to a purple badge. You can also find the message on the Messages page.
Lastly, you will be able to see what message type (SMS, email, or chat) any message is, by looking at the text below each message bubble.
Note: The default message channel will be the same as the last channel used by the guest you're messaging. In other words, if they sent you a message via SMS, your channel will default to SMS as well. However, you can easily update this from the dropdown that opens.
Guests using status page messaging
Your guests can access the messaging feature by scrolling down on the Status page to find the Messages button. Here, your guests will be able to see messages that you have sent them and they can respond quickly and easily (as long as you have enabled your guests to respond to outgoing messages).
You can turn on or off whether or not your guests should be able to respond to messages. Simply go to Settings > Messages > Waitlist messages or Settings > Messages > Booking messages and use the toggle "Allow customer to reply to messages".
Note: All messages, regardless of type, will be displayed on the Status page. So if, for example, you have set up automated SMS messages like in the above animation, these will show up here, alongside manually sent messages.