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how to manage online take away ordering and walk ins

How do I manage online orders who have booked a time for collection but then if I take a phone order is there anyway I can block off the slot on the website to prevent a further online order coming through. .  How does anyone manage this issue.  

Also how do you manage the option for "ready as soon as possible" collection for online orders when someone may have booked a slot just after opening.  Thanks in advance hope this question makes sense.

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Hey @Alexanders that's a lot of questions all in one place! 

Right - I'll start with the bad news....... there isn't a perfect solution to this unfortunately, but there are a few tools available or about to be available (I'm in the beta program - worth signing up using the link at the top of the page as we get to test some of the new features). 

With regards to booking time slots, the last info I heard was that the 'X orders per 15 minutes' feature only works when orders are placed as ASAP, not if someone schedules a collection for later. 

This means you might get more orders than you're planning for at one time from your online store (7pm seems to be my busy point for pre orders for some reason). I've set my prep time at 30 minutes as this seems to give me enough time to manage the orders I've got coming up. I also chat to my customers so they're aware that even with the online system there can sometimes be a short wait. 

If you're busy enough for a phone order to need to block out another order why not steer everyone online to order? Right now I'm only taking orders online - even if someone comes up to order I ask them to order online (I've switched on ApplePay & GooglePay along with printing a QR code they can scan to take them to the ordering page). This could save you some staff time & keep it all nice & simple. 

There are two things I'm aware of that Square has to help with the bits you're looking at - but I can't remember if they're public or beta NDA. Either way, they're due soon & more reason to sign up to the beta program 😁




Pizza Is Chill

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Super Seller

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Hey @Alexanders that's a lot of questions all in one place! 

Right - I'll start with the bad news....... there isn't a perfect solution to this unfortunately, but there are a few tools available or about to be available (I'm in the beta program - worth signing up using the link at the top of the page as we get to test some of the new features). 

With regards to booking time slots, the last info I heard was that the 'X orders per 15 minutes' feature only works when orders are placed as ASAP, not if someone schedules a collection for later. 

This means you might get more orders than you're planning for at one time from your online store (7pm seems to be my busy point for pre orders for some reason). I've set my prep time at 30 minutes as this seems to give me enough time to manage the orders I've got coming up. I also chat to my customers so they're aware that even with the online system there can sometimes be a short wait. 

If you're busy enough for a phone order to need to block out another order why not steer everyone online to order? Right now I'm only taking orders online - even if someone comes up to order I ask them to order online (I've switched on ApplePay & GooglePay along with printing a QR code they can scan to take them to the ordering page). This could save you some staff time & keep it all nice & simple. 

There are two things I'm aware of that Square has to help with the bits you're looking at - but I can't remember if they're public or beta NDA. Either way, they're due soon & more reason to sign up to the beta program 😁




Pizza Is Chill

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Hi @Alexanders, thanks so much for your post and thanks to @Sam_400º for taking the time to answer!

 

I know order staggering for scheduled pickups & delivery was a popular feature request. I've double-check this on my end and it looks like order limit/staggering should now work for scheduled pick up & delivery as well so that should help.

Tra
Community Manager, Square
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