GorillaDesk's online booking will allow current customers or leads to schedule their services directly from your website/customer portal. You can enable Online Booking in your Addons.
Online Booking Settings
Once enabled, click on the addon, then select Settings.
This is where you can choose which services are available for your website visitors to book online. You can also set the following rules:
Card Payment Required - This will require your customers/leads to pay for the service before they can book.
Note: This will not save their cards on file.Display Service Pricing - This will allow your customers to see the price of the service upon booking.
Same-Day Bookings - This will allow your customers/leads to book on the same day.
Exclude Weekends - This will automatically remove the weekends from the option for online booking. This is best if you are only servicing Monday to Friday.
Clicking + add a service will allow you to choose which services your visitors can book through Online Booking. Adding a service will pull the services from Settings > Services, along with the default price of each template.
Once you've selected your services, you can automatically assign services to a specific schedule after booking, or you can assign it to any schedule by clicking on the 3-dot icon. Clicking 'Edit Learn More' will allow you to add a description to each service as well.
How will my customers get to the online booking menu?
If you have the Customer Portal enabled, your customers/leads can use the Portal Button email variable in your emails or the portal widget embedded on your website to access online booking.
However, the Customer Portal is not required to use the Online Booking feature. Without the Customer Portal, there are two different ways to get your customers/leads to book online.
1. The 'Book Online' email variable.
This email variable can be added to your outgoing emails, allowing your customers to access Online Booking directly from that link. To add the Book Online email variable:
Open Settings > Email & SMS Templates > System
Click the outgoing email where you would like to insert the link.
Click your mouse cursor in the body of the email.
Click Insert Email Variable and select Book Online.
Save
Note: You can also add some text to the body of your email to give it your own personalized feel.
2. Embed the Online Booking widget onto your website.
You can embed the Online Booking widget directly onto your website with these instructions:
Open Addons > Online Booking
Click Get your Installation Code
Copy the code and add it just before the closing body tag on your website.
If you are unsure where to paste the installation code, please consult your website admin.
Booking a service
Once the setup is complete, let's take a look at Online Booking in action. Customers/Leads can access Online Booking from the calendar icon on your website or from within their customer portal.
When a customer books a service online, they now have the option to choose how they want their cards to be saved:
Save this card on file and permit the company to charge it for any future billing
Save this card to my portal for personal use only
Pay this invoice only. Do not save this card
Viewing new bookings in GorillaDesk
New bookings will appear in the Online Booking Report which can be found in the Reports tab. All new bookings will start out as Pending until they are confirmed by a user.
Please note: Your admin will need to have access to Reports in their user permissions to access this report.
If the email or phone number is associated with a customer's account in GorillaDesk, you can assign the booking to an existing customer or add as a new customer.
If you assign a lead to an existing customer, the service address from the Online Booking will be added as an additional location to the assigned customer's account.
To confirm the appointment time, click on the service, and change the status from Pending to Confirmed.
Once the appointment has been confirmed, the job will now appear as Confirmed on your calendar, while pending jobs will appear as the pink Pending status.
Please note: If the lead's email or phone number does not match a customer's account in GorillaDesk, you will not see the Pending status pink job tiles on your calendar until the lead has been assigned to a customer. This is why it's very important to always check your Online Bookings report.
