For the purposes of this article, the term "members" is used to refer to clients that benefit from priority booking.
Priority booking is defined in any the following ways:
Priority access: allowing members to book services BEFORE other clients.
Discounted rate: offering members services at a discounted rate.
Exclusive services: offering services that only members can book.
Extended services: extending the duration of services for members.
Select staff: allowing members to book specific staff members when booking.
Appointment modification: allowing members to edit and/or cancel their appointments.
etc.
How to set up priority booking
To set up priority booking, follow these steps:
Create services for which you want to offer priority booking; you can duplicate existing services or create new ones. For clarity, consider labelling them accordingly (e.g. "Member services", {name of service} (members-only), etc.).
Suggestion: you can separate these services into distinct categories (ex: "Member services" or "VIP services", and "Non-member services").
Configure your member services as you see fit. Here are some ideas:
Priority access: enter appropriate "Limit time in advance" values, making sure that the value set for member services is greater than the value set for non-member services.
For example, let's say you want members to be able to book service two months in advance, whereas non-members only 15 days in advance. In this case, you would set the "Limit time in advance" setting for the member services to "60 days", and "15 days" for non-member services.
Discounted rate: edit the service price.
Extended services: edit the service duration.
Select staff: assign the appropriate staff members to the service(s).
Appointment modification: set the service's cancellation policy accordingly.
Apply booking filter tags to your target services. Booking filter tags can be found in the "Services" tab > Service details. See the example below:
Configure your widget to present only the target services:
To do this, enter your service tag(s) into the service filter tag parameter. We suggest using the code generator (Booking widget v2 generator, Booking widget v3 generator).
Label your buttons accordingly. To make sure only members book member services and non-members book non-member services, clearly label your booking buttons. For example: "Book now [members-only]", "For members", "Member reservation", etc.
How to make services exclusive
To offer exclusive services (i.e. services that only members can book):
Option 1:
Apply booking filter tags to ALL services, ensuring that member and non-member services are tagged differently. For example:
Tag all member services "VIP", tag all non-member services "Regular".
Configure your widgets accordingly (we suggest using the code generator (Booking widget v2 generator, Booking widget v3 generator).
Apply the relevant service tag to all widgets that will be available to non-members (for example, "Regular")
Apply the relevant service tag to all widgets that will be available to members (for example, "VIP")
Label your buttons accordingly. For example: "Book now [members-only]", "For members", "Member reservation", etc.)
*Note: With this option, non-members can still technically book member services (if they choose to click the buttons labelled as members-only). To ensure only members book member services, consider option 2.
Option 2:
Implement your widget into a site or page that only members can access (e.g. a customer portal). Note that this will require adding some javascript code to your page to detect whether or not a client is signed in. For related information, see this guide.
Whenever a booking is cancelled, was missed (i.e. no-show) or was completed, the associated tracking page will contain a link to your booking page for your clients to book another appointment. Here's an example:
However, this may cause an issue since the booking page displays all services, making it possible for non-members to book member services. To avoid this, you may change your booking page redirect URL; we suggest choosing a client sign-in page. To do so, contact your Booxi representative.