If you're wanting to invite customers to book a specific service - perhaps to take advantage of a special or tailored offer, you can use Sign In Scheduling's booking invites feature.
Booking invites send customers a unique URL which, when clicked, will send them straight to your booking page.
As well as specific services, you can limit booking invites to specific customers and staff members. You can also set booking invites to expire after a certain time period or a certain number of uses.
This guide explains how to use booking invites with Sign In Scheduling.
To get started, head to 'Setup' > 'Booking invites'.
SECTIONS:
How to create and manage booking invites
Special offers & urgent appointments
Creating booking invites from the inbox
How to create and manage booking invites
Under 'Setup' > 'Booking invites' you'll find the option to create booking invites and can view a list of all previously created booking invites.
For each one, you'll be able to see which service, customer, staff member and location it was created for, as well as the date on which it was created, when it will expire, and how many times it's been used.
To copy a booking invite's URL, click the 'Copy link' button under the 'Actions' section. To delete a booking invite, click on the red trash can icon.
To create a new booking invite, click the '+ Create new' button. You can then select the service, customer, staff and location using each drop-down menu.
To apply multiple customers and/or multiple staff members to the booking invite, click the drop-down arrow to select an additional option from the menu, or start typing the name of the customer/staff into the box and select the option when it appears.
Note: only those staff members set up to take the specified service will appear as selectable in the list.
To set a booking invite to expire after a certain period of time, click the 'Expires' checkbox. You'll then be prompted to enter the number of days after which you'd like the booking invite to expire. Customers won't be able to book via this booking invite after this time period has passed.
To set a booking invite to expire after a certain number of uses, click the 'Expire link after it is used' checkbox. You'll then be prompted to enter the number of uses you'd like to permit for this particular booking invite. Once it's been used this number of times, customers won't be able to book with it.
Note: If both expiry options are ticked, the booking invite will expire at the limit that's reached first.
To send an email containing the booking invite to your selected customers, click the 'Send invitation email to customer' checkbox. You'll then see a preview of the email they'll receive, which you can click to edit. They'll receive this email once you've created the booking invite.
Special offers & urgent appointments
Booking invites provide a really useful way to invite customers to take advantage of special offers and to book urgent appointments.
To do this, head to 'Setup' > 'Services' and create the special offer/urgent service.
Amend the service details and price accordingly, then scroll to the 'Online booking' section and select 'Privately bookable with a URL'. This will mean that the service will not automatically appear on your booking page alongside your standard services. The privately bookable service will be reserved only for customers who've received an invite to book it.
To create a new booking invite for this special/urgent service, head to 'Setup' > 'Booking invites', click to create a new invite, then select the service from the drop-down at the top.
Booking packages
Booking invites are also a good way to invite customers to book packages of appointments.
To do this, head to 'Setup' > 'Services' and create the service for the package.
Set the service details accordingly, then scroll to the 'Payment' section and select 'Payment required on booking' from the drop-down.
You'll then be prompted to enter the price. This should be the total price for the whole package of appointments. You may wish to run this at a discounted rate.
Head back to 'Setup' > 'Booking invites' to create a new booking invite for the package. The customer can then click the link and book the first appointment of the package, paying in full for all 5.
For the remainder of the appointments, you have a couple of options. You can:
- Set up a custom booking question for the initial booking, asking the customer to give their preferred dates and times for the rest of the appointments, which you can then book on their behalf from your calendar, or
- Create another new service for the package under 'Setup' > 'Services' covering the remainder of the appointments, with 'Don't show price' selected under 'Payment'. You'd then create a new booking invite for this service, set it to expire after the number of uses it would take to book the rest of the appointments (here it would be 4), then send the new booking invite to the customer, instructing them to use that booking link to schedule the rest of the appointments included in the package.
Creating booking invites from the inbox
Users with an Enterprise/Bespoke plan also have the ability to create booking invites directly from the Sign In Scheduling inbox.
Booking invites created this way are temporary and valid for one week. They are single-use, and will expire after the invited customer clicks 'Book now'.
To do this, head to the 'Inbox' tab in the left-hand menu, then click the pencil icon to compose a new message.
Add the customer(s) you'd like to invite into the 'To:' field at the top. You can then use the empty text box to write your message.
To generate a new booking invite and include it here, use the {%booking_invite%} tag.
To tie the booking invite to a particular service, head to 'Setup' > 'Services', click on the desired service, then locate the 'Direct link to service' section. You'll need the string of numbers at the end of this link.
Copy the string of numbers and add it to the booking invite tag in the following format:
{%booking_invite service=1909405%}
When the customer clicks the generated booking invite, it will send them directly to book the service you've specified.
Need more help?
We hope this guide has been helpful! If you have any questions, don't hesitate to reach out to our support team who will be happy to assist.