Automations
An automated booking system for photo booth businesses
An enquiry gets a priced quote, then a contract the customer signs online, then a request for the deposit, which is paid into your own account. Before the event, reminders go out with the balance and a link to pay.
What happens automatically
The six stages of a booking
An enquiry arrives from your booking page, your own website form, or a lead you typed in yourself. From there it goes through six stages, and each one starts the next without you opening the app.
- 1
Quote
The booking page prices the date from your date pricing, so a Saturday in December and a Tuesday in February can carry different prices. It adds the extras the customer picked and sends the quote at the right price. Date pricing starts on Starter.
- 2
Contract
When the customer accepts the quote, they get your contract with the booking's details filled in and an e-signature field at the bottom. The signed copy is filed against the booking and emailed to both of you.
- 3
Deposit
The signing page asks for the deposit. It goes through your own payment gateway into your own account. We never hold it and we take nothing from it.
- 4
Confirmation
The booking is confirmed only when the deposit clears. The customer then gets a confirmation with the date, the times and what they booked.
- 5
Balance
On a schedule you set, say 28 days before the event, then 14, then 7, the customer is emailed the amount still owed and a link to pay it. The emails stop once the balance is paid.
- 6
After the event
The next working day, the customer gets an email asking how it went, with your review link in it.
Automations also cover enquiries that have not booked yet. A lead that has not replied in four days gets a follow-up email, and a quote gets one last email before it expires. On Starter and above, each rule is a row you can switch off, retime or reword. Every message sent is listed on the booking, so you can see what the customer received and when.
Your part
What you still decide yourself
Your prices
You set your prices and your date bands. You know what a Saturday in your area is worth.
Your contract wording
You write the contract clauses and we fill the booking details into your wording. We do not supply a contract template or legal advice.
The day itself
You decide which dates you will travel to, assign the attendant and pack the kit.
You still pick up the phone when a customer wants to talk to a person. The automations handle the quotes, contracts, deposit requests and balance reminders that otherwise get done at eleven at night after an event.
Limits
What the automations do not do
They cannot reach a customer who gave you the wrong email address. You will need to ring them. They do not block a date on your calendar when it is booked somewhere else, so your availability is only as current as what you have entered. And they send nothing for a booking you create after its event date. That is the usual reason an operator tells us an automation "did not run": backdated bookings skip the schedule on purpose, so a year of history you import does not email a year of customers on the day you import it.
Questions
Questions operators ask about automations
Can I turn individual automations off?
On a plan with your own automations, yes: each one is a switch, and you can change its timing and rewrite the wording of every message. On Free the built-in automations run but are read-only, so switching them off, retiming them or adding your own starts on Starter.
Do reminders come from my email address?
They send from your business name and reply to your address. Verifying your own domain is a setting on every plan.
Does the deposit go through you?
No. Deposits and balances go through your own Stripe, PayPal or bank details, straight into your account.
What happens to automations on the free plan?
Free runs the built-in notifications, among them the booking confirmation to you and to your customer, the staff assignment notice, and the quote, contract, proposal and payment notices. They are read-only. Balance chasing, reminders on a schedule you set, and any automation you write yourself start on Starter.
Will it email customers I import from my old system?
No. Anything dated before the day you import is skipped.
Try it on your next booking
Free for your first 10 bookings. No booking fees, and deposits go through your own gateway into your own account.