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Appointments
Appointments
Jon Patch avatar
Written by Jon Patch
Updated over 3 months ago

Feature Overview

For clients that would like to manage customer appointment requests to visit your winery or tasting room, Offset has an "Appointments" tool. It is free to activate in your Offset account, although if you would like to add a "visit" page to your website to allow your visitors to request an appointment there is a $500 one-time fee to add that page to your website.

Appointments vs. Tock

Several of our clients choose to use Tock for managing reservations, which is a related but very different tool for managing visitation.

If you are looking to limit or control who receives access to your tasting room or winery, our appointments tool is a great way to manage this access. If you are looking to drive traffic to your tasting room and build relationships with new customers, Tock is a great way to market your tasting room and build new customer relationships.

Here are a few other key differences:

  1. An Offset Appointment request is a request that you approve, Tock allows customers to book a reservation

  2. Offset Appointments don't allow for payment at the time of requesting or approving an appointment, while Tock allows you to collect a payment at the time of booking

  3. Being on Tock provides marketing opportunities for you to find new customers, an Offset Appointment requests

  4. Offset Appointments map onto your existing customer data in Offset, while Tock customer information (including credit card and payments) isn't synced with Offset

Your Appointment Settings

The following parameters are available for you to define in your settings.

  • Group sizes you accommodate

  • Days of the week you are closed

  • Special Closures

    • For holidays or other exceptions

  • Minimum and maximum days out someone can request a visit

  • Type of visit that your requester can select from when submitting

  • Occasions for visit that your requester can select from when submitting

  • Request Confirmation messaging shown on the website after they complete the form

Website Appointment Request Options

If visitors to your site wish to request an appointment via the online form, they must first sign up if they aren't already a customer.

They can select the following when submitting an appointment request, according to the options you have defined in your settings:

  • Preferred Date

  • Alternate Date

  • Preferred Time

  • Group Size

  • Type

  • Occasion

Once your customer submits a request, they will see the request confirmation messaging on your site and you will receive an email notification.

Reviewing Appointment Requests

In addition to the appointment details, you'll see the following information details on the customer:

  • Sign up date

  • Last Order

  • Lifetime Value

  • Admin Notes

You can change the status of the appointment request to any of the following options:

  • Requested

  • Waitlist

  • Pending Confirmed

  • Declined

  • Canceled
    No Show

  • Checked In

Calendar Integration

Once you have approved a request, there is a button you can use to create a calendar event with all the relevant details (Google, Apple, and Outlook are supported)

Appointment Email Templates

The following transactional emails map to appointment statuses and are available for you to customize in settings > transactional emails

  • Confirmation

  • Reminder

  • Decline

  • Cancelation

Email Triggering and Recipient Logic

In settings > transactional emails you have two email addresses you can set that pertain to Appointment emails:

  • Hospitality Email Address

  • Appointment CC email (if you wish to have an additional company email notified)

Appointment Request: Customer Entry Online

When a customers requests an appointment online, you will receive an email notification, but your customer will not. They will see a confirmation message on the website which you can set in the CMS.

Appointment Request: Admin Entry

If you or someone on your team creates an appointment request in Offset, no one receives an email notification.

Optional Status Update Emails

After updating the status of an appointment, you will see a button with the option to send an email for the select statuses that have an accompanying template. You can always change the appointment status without sending emails, if you wish. The email is a secondary, optional action.

Here's the logic for who receives emails if you choose to send an email:

  • Confirmed: you both receive emails

  • Reminder Email: your customer receives an email, you don't

  • Declined: your customer receives an email, you don't

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