Ask Our Appointments Product Managers and Designers Anything

[Tom]

Hello Sellers! On July 13th at 1pm PT / 4pm ET, we hosted a virtual office hours session within this thread where sellers had the opportunity to post questions and hear back from our Appointments team members! 

@rvoluck, @LoganSq, @winniecheng, and @pbarfield are product managers and designers on the Square Appointments team and, together, they took the lead in today's session. Having worked on a variety of features within Square Appointments and more than 6 years combined experience at Square, they addressed questions and make sure feedback went to the right decision makers. Learn more about Square Appointments.

A few example questions:

• How can I make sure I'm getting the most out of Square Appointments?
• What are the best strategies for using Square Appointments within my business type?
• There are so many different features available within Square Appointments, what are the top three things to keep in mind for someone who is getting started?

Note regarding account-specific questions: For your privacy and security, we are not able to address issues related to specific account status details in our public forums. If you need account assistance, please contact our Customer Success team and they'll be able to take a deeper dive.

[LarkLovejoy]

Hello! I am a marriage counselor and want to be able to add a second person onto the calendar event so that both people get the text and email reminders and not just one person. I have put two events in one slot with each person's name, but if one person cancels the session, the other person is still left on the schedule when it has been canceled. Being able to add a second person to one calendar event would prevent this. Please consider adding this feature. Thanks! 

[pbarfield]

Hi @LarkLovejoy! Thanks for sharing your interest in group appointments with us. Although we’ve heard feedback from other sellers for having multiple customers to get services together (e.g. mom & daughter pedi), we do not have immediate plans to add this feature. However, we’ll continue to assess our roadmap plans and if we do hear more interest for group appointments, we will consider building in the future.

[LYSESTHETICS]

I would really like to see the option to take a deposit for appointments.

[LowdownBallroom]

I second this. 

[LoganSq]

Hi @LYSESTHETICS and @LowdownBallroom , looks like megs83 brought this up earlier here. Hopefully this helps, but let me know if you have other questions 🙌

[ddetailingpgh]

We desperately need the ability to ad variations to SERVICES

I own a car detail shop and it’s absolutely maddening that I cannot utilize the variations like I could if my services were items. The work around is to have a menu with 1000 options that would be impossible to read 

I need to be able to do the following

customer books a “gold detail” click to next page, now they can ad other services like, pet hair removal, odor removal, choose a special scent, engine bay cleaning etc etc

This would mean more money for all of us! And a way better customer experience! 

it’s killing my staff because right

now because the customers book themselves for a detail package for let’s say 4 hours, but when they get there we end up adding 2 more hours worth of upgrades! So now my staff is constantly way over worked and I’m paying Aton of overtime hours. Each week because we can’t book everything the car needs at the customer is making the appointment 

we have been forced to try and call all of the customers ahead of time to go over their appointment and the feedback is it’s a call to get an upsell. 

overall not being able to have variations on services causes my business and many others that book similarly to mine like hair salons and barber shops many

many issues. This is a known and well voiced complaint on this site, I have never heard a reasonable reason why this has not been made available to us. We’ve been told for years by the square folks on this site that they would kick it up the ladder but haven’t seen any changes yet. I’ve yet to find another booking site and merchant combo but if their was one I would already be gone over this issue

and the fact that square rolls over and gives my money away on every single charge back. I’ve had live video footage of a customer paying me at my shop, full face on camera with their license plate etc and if they say it wasn’t them square gets back to me and says hey sorry, we sided with the card holder

I’ve lost thousands of dollars in bogus charge backs because square doesn’t even attempt to defend me. seems very silly.

Solving these two issues alone would probably generate $30k more a year for square from just my businesses 

please please please give us variations on services!!!! 

[winniecheng]

Hi @ddetailingpgh , thank you for providing such detailed feedback. This definitely helps me understand how the inability to add services like “pet hair removal”, “odor removal”, etc. has a clear negative impact on your business. To make sure I understand, those are exclusive services, where customers can add as many as they’d like, correct?

[ddetailingpgh]

Yes so right now my customers can choose from 6 different detailing packages that vary by size, 3 different sizes

in my business this is just the tip of the Ice berg. 

they need to be able to choose a gold detail, then a gold detail for a midsize car, then add pet hair removal, smoke removal, and paint chip touch up as additional services that have durations as well

I cannot possibly do the work around and add all of the possible combinations to the service menu. There would be hundreds of services

Right now the bigger issue is because of squares lack of structure here it’s putting me in multiple binds 

1. It creates the illusion that we are trying to bait and switch the customers or up charge them. 

2. I am very unorganized because of the durations. Let’s say you book a gold detail for a midsized car, that’s a 4 hour job, it’s a 6 hour job with two more services added, now these services aren’t being added until the day of and it’s putting us way over schedule. Been paying Aton of overtime 

[facegirlbyday]

My question would be why is It so difficult for square to program tracking if packaged services?  I know Vagaro has had It for years now and that is the main reason many service providers do not switch over to square for their main POS.

[mindfulmassage7]

Hi, can we have a way as an owner to see all the gift certificate/card numbers? Other booking sites allow it. Saves sooooo much time when people show up without the GC and you have no way of really getting it without hunting and pecking and sending the email to yourself. Please please please make this easy!  Thanks!

[winniecheng]

Hi there, thanks for the question. We definitely have heard feedback that having better visibility into gift cards would help streamline checkout. Just to make sure I understand, are you using eGift cards or physical cards?

[Dragon18]

Will resource scheduling ever work in square appointments? Can we have separate calendars for resources (rooms, equipment, etc) instead of staff?

[Dragon18]

Also will we be able to charge cards that are held for appointments on the square terminal directly? That would be really helpful.

[LoganSq]

Hi Dragon18!

We support resources at the moment, although it sounds like what you’re after might be slightly different. Do your appointments normally need a resource and a staff member, or just a resource?
Currently you can’t charge a card that’s been held for an individual appointment from terminal, but you should be able to charge a card on file from there if it’s saved to the customer. We’ve been wanting to improve the appointments <> terminal experience for a while — I’m curious if you’re using another device alongside the terminal too for accessing your calendar (E.g. phone/ipad/laptop)?

[Dragon18]

Our appointments require either a resource and a staff member, or just a resource typically.  For example, if we offer a snow cone party in our facility, we need a snow cone maker and someone to run it.  If we rent out our snow cone maker, I need the resource blocked off so a snow cone party cannot be booked in the facility during that time.  Staff members are available to run other parties at the same time.  

We are using our work cell phone to access appointments and charge a card on file if needed, but it’s one additional device that isn’t always next to our terminal and often my employees have trouble with that phone and end up calling me so I can charge them from the app at my home.  It would be so much simpler to have employees charge them right away as they come in the door.

[mrsmckimmie]

The most important thing for my business would be intake forms. 

I do pet grooming, so when clients book, they're booking an apt for their pet. I need to get the pet's information (i.e. Name, Age, Weight etc) and have them sign a liability waiver. I'd like the option for this to be for new clients only.

I would also like to be able to customize email and text automations. 

[LoganSq]

Hi @mrsmckimmie , intake forms aren't something we support right now but is an area that we're actively look into right now.

We do support waivers though! If you log in on your computer, and go to Appointments > Settings > Communications, you'll see a digital customer contracts section. We're also working on adding more flexibility here so that you can choose to have them only send to new clients

What types of email and text customizations are you interested in?

[Jeanne100]

Could you please add the statement: “You will not be charged at this time” under the No Show Protection. Currently it only states: “A payment card is required to hold your appointment.”  Adding the “no charge” statement after this would prevent any customer confusion. (Some customers believe that they are charged the moment their credit card is entered).  Thank you so much.

[MPhin09]

Agreed!! I have several clients who assume they've paid for their appointment when they enter in their card info to book the appointment.

[popsicleshop]

I agree. I worry this will give potential customers cold feet when they are booking a $200+ catering event with us. My work-around is that I've added explicit directions of "how to request a booking" and said "your card will not be charged at the time of booking. we will call and confirm your event details." 

What's annoying, though, is that if a customer doesn't check "save card", I have to ask their card information AGAIN over the phone. I've had many customers say, "but I just put my card information in the system"

[MegganDickson]

We also need this issue resolved.

to book an appointment they need to whether their card info for No Show protection, but we are utilizing “Card on File” for contactless checkout and new clients are storing their card on file so then we have to contact them.

**How can we have the system secure Card on File at the time of online booking ??