Live Q&A: Ask us anything Square Messages

[kellyj]

On Thursday November 19th 2pm PT/ 5pm ET the Beta Community hosted the Square Messages team, live here in the Seller Community! 

Jason Purdy, @jasonpurdy, the Product Manager for Square Messages answered your questions about Square Messages.

Have you ever wished that you could email or text your customers inside of Square instead of using your personal account? Maybe you’ve heard that we’re testing new functionality now with Square Messages in beta? Are you interested in using it?

What are you looking for in a perfect Messaging platform for contact between you and your customers? We’re looking to and answer the questions, ask some of our own, and take feature requests you have for this product.

How does a Live Q&A in the Seller Community work? 

Over the next week we’ll take your questions here in this thread. On November 19th at 2pm PT/5pm ET we’ll start answering these questions live and take more throughout the hour. (There is not a LIVE hangout here, we'll all be plugging away at our computers).

Here are some example questions for this thread:

• What is the purpose of Square Messages?
• I want to test Square Messages, but what if there is a bug?
• What do you need from me to make this product the best for my business?

To get started testing Square Messages, please join our Beta Community, and see what other products we may be testing for now!

**Please note this date has changed due to scheduling changes with our host.

[jasonpurdy · Accepted solution]

Hi all! Getting started a few minutes early here, and wanted to thank you for attending our Live Q&A with Jason Purdy.

Please direct all new questions to this thread, and we'll be sure to answer them as they come in. Please remember questions should be about Square Messages and the plans for this product to come.

Ask away! 

[jasonpurdy · Accepted solution]

Hello again, Sellers!

Thank you for the great feedback.

Some of you I have spoken with in the past and many of you I hope to hear from again. We hear you loud and clear that we need to improve permissions and security of the contact data and messages information.

We are also very excited to bring Messages to more places and integrations. Please reach out anytime, feedback always welcome.

Our Square Messages Beta is being managed in our Beta Community where you can connect directly with our team. If you are interested in testing this feature further- please join the Beta Community and send a message to @kellyj who can get you started with Square Messages. 

We look forward to launching this product!

Jason
PM, Messages

[kellyj]

@WEDriveIns 

Post questions directly to this thread by using the Reply button, and just stay logged into the community. 😃 

The questions that we'll work through first are the ones already asked in this thread, then get any new ones that come up, and we'll answer those as well. 

You may want to push the refresh button a few times throughout the time, so you can see what is coming in new.

And just FYI- in the future, we'll be using a live video/messaging platform in order to take questions in more of a Twitter type style. Thats still in the works though, so it will be coming soon. 

[WEDriveIns]

I'm a pop up drive-in movie theater business whose website is built on Weebly/SquareOnline.  As Square currently doesn't have an adequate front end movie ticketing solution, I naturally chose a movie tkx app from Square's App Marketplace that is already integrated with Square.  

However, just because that app is integrated, all that really means is, every time someone buys a movie tkx, I can see it under Square Customer Directory.  But this is insufficient for me to then match up a movie tkx order to the many dinner orders I received directly from my Weebly/SquareOnline website. Note, movie tkx and dinners can be ordered on different dates by different members of the same family with different last names.  When a dinner is ordered, there's no info that automatically ties it back to the movie tkx that would tell me the date, day, time, and parking space # of the attending family. Therefore, I'd like to hire someone who can write me a program that will do the matching.  What advice/help does Square offer so I can get this done?

Thx - Nancy

Thx - Nancy

[WEDriveIns]

I sell pre-ordered dinners off of my pop up movie drive in website built on a Weebly/SquareOnline.

Is there a drop-down calendar function available during check out to allow people to indicate when they want their dinners delivered and a writte-in field telling their parking space #?

Thx - Nancy

[kellyj]

@WEDriveIns 

In Addition to the Self-Serve Dining options that would allow the families to order from their location at the theatre, you may want to look into using something like Appointments to make a reservation for as specific spot. Perhaps thats also something you could talk ask for Square developers who have their own platform for questions like this, in the case you do need to hire someone for less one-size-fits-all kinds of services.

[jasonpurdy]

@WEDriveIns 

Square Messages would give you the ability to send messages to those patrons who are at the theater, or who made a purchase. In theory you could send a message to a ticket holder asking them for the confirmation or order number they received? 

[ENS]

Can't wait

[jasonpurdy · Accepted solution]

Hi all! Getting started a few minutes early here, and wanted to thank you for attending our Live Q&A with Jason Purdy.

Please direct all new questions to this thread, and we'll be sure to answer them as they come in. Please remember questions should be about Square Messages and the plans for this product to come.

Ask away! 

[South_of_North]

Will the function automatically pull phone numbers from folks who already have their phone number associated with their square accounts?

[jasonpurdy]

@South_of_North 

Great question, yes phone numbers from Square Directory will automatically be available in Square Messages. 👍

[jasonpurdy]

@ENS 

Did you have a specific question we can answer for you?

[jasonpurdy · Accepted solution]

Hello again, Sellers!

Thank you for the great feedback.

Some of you I have spoken with in the past and many of you I hope to hear from again. We hear you loud and clear that we need to improve permissions and security of the contact data and messages information.

We are also very excited to bring Messages to more places and integrations. Please reach out anytime, feedback always welcome.

Our Square Messages Beta is being managed in our Beta Community where you can connect directly with our team. If you are interested in testing this feature further- please join the Beta Community and send a message to @kellyj who can get you started with Square Messages. 

We look forward to launching this product!

Jason
PM, Messages

[nika · Accepted solution]

Hello all! Popping in with a quick and exciting update...

@jasonpurdy is currently looking to interview anyone who is interested in having an inbound number for your customers to send messages to without having to respond to a receipt or appointment notification. Wheels are starting to get in motion! So if you're interested, make sure to first join the Beta Community.  Then request to join our Square Messages Advisory Board and look for the 30 min interview request post to sign up for a slot.

We're really excited about this future launch, but we need to hear your input first! Can't wait to hear from you.