Appointments: Bookable Time Slots for Retail

Transcript
Square Appointments: Set up bookable time slots for your retail store As a retailer, you may be looking for additional ways to maintain safe social distancing for customers that would like to visit your store in-person. One option is leveraging Square Appointments to help you create bookable time slots for your physical location.
Step 1: Activate Appointments Using a desktop/laptop, head to Appointments from your online Square Dashboard or navigate to squareup.com/appointments/ and log in with your existing Square account credentials. Enter in your Business name and phone number and confirm your time zone Enter your mobile phone to receive a link to download the Appointments app - you can also skip this step and download after completing setup
Step 2: Set up your bookable shopping options Next head to the Services section of your Appointments Dashboard (you will then be asked to go to the Service Library in the Items section due to a recent migration) If there are any pre-created services, feel free to remove them by clicking into each service and selecting Delete. Select Create a Service Give your service a name - let’s use “Personal Shopping Window” as an example - and an optional description Select Fixed for the price type and enter $0.00 for the price Set the duration to your preferred booking length Turn on the Block Extra Time feature if you’d like a buffer between the end of one appointment and the beginning of the next (For example. customers will see “20 mins” as the appointment length but additional time will be blocked on your calendar) Make sure Bookable by Customers Online is enabled to allow customers to use your online booking flow and click Save.
Step 3: Create your online booking flow Find Booking Site within the Online Booking section of your Appointments Dashboard Select Edit Business Details and confirm your location information and hours are correct and click Save. Your booking site is ready to share out with your customers! You have a few options sharing this with customers: Share the link to customers to send them directly to your booking site Embed a booking widget or button on your existing website If your site is powered by Square Online Store, you can quickly add your booking options from your Online Store Dashboard site editor by adding Square Appointments as a menu item to your navigation bar Add a booking button to your email
Step 4: Confirm your booking preferences Find Calendar & Booking within the Settings section of your Appointments Dashboard Set up your booking preferences within the section labeled Online Scheduling Decide whether you want bookings to be scheduled on a certain time (e.g. half hour) or according to the service duration Choose minimum and maximum times you want to accept bookings from customers (e.g. minimum 2 hours in advance and no farther than 2 weeks away) Click Save
Step 5: Customize your customer notifications Find Communications within the Settings section of your Appointments Dashboard Decide whether to send customers a confirmation request by text and/or email reminder along with the time frame you wish to send the communication Square Assistant will be turned on by default, allowing your customers to confirm, cancel, or change their appointments by replying directly to Square text messages Optional: Customize the message in your email notifications with dynamically generated information to make sure it matches your use case We also recommend downloading the Square Appointments app to manage your appointments from a mobile device or iPad, available from the App Store or Google Play Store.
Step 6: Keep in mind, once your customer books the appointment, you only have the option to manage appointments through the separate Square Appointments app, available from the App Store or Google Play Store. When your customer is done shopping, you can choose to check them out from the Appointments section of your dashboard or the Square Appointments app using their appointment, and your inventory as well as your Square reports will update.

[@marlenem9740]

Hi, I’m having trouble getting my services to be booked at certain times rather than it being set up to my hours I have open, any advice?

[@royaltybeautyempire3757]

Same here

[@idahopaintball1047]

Create a new employee with only certain availability

[@Neshathepetnanny]

Soooo…you need to create 3 new employees..with three different emails and three different phone numbers??

[@square]

As the owner, you show up as a staff member option when booking appointments for your services. Are you looking to book multiple appointments at once or something different?

[@xRedBerri]

Is it possible to have multiple appointment without adding staff members?

[@AlienImagery]

I am using square appointments for services. I am having trouble with the blocked time, it doesn't block time after each appointment for travel time, any suggestions?

[@bellahairpeace1276]

try adding travel time as a service and add duration manually

[@user-oj6en3jc9g]

Is a way to offer timeslots without adding staff? It will not let me make a "dummy" staff member without an email for each one. I just want to host an event with timed sign ups.

[@square]

At this time, a Staff member is required to complete booking services. However, our appointments team may be able to assist you in making sure that you're set up for success. When you have a moment, please reach out directly by logging into your Square account and heading here: squ.re/contactsqsupport

[@square]

HI Marlene M - Thanks for reaching out! The ability to limit service times is a feature request at this time. We appreciate your feedback and will make sure to make this visible to our product team.

[@hamsack981]

has this issue bee addressed? I too am having trouble. I have certain services that can only be done at a certain time.