Waitwhile is happy to announce an extremely powerful feature update for automation of the guest check-in flow: QR Serve! This functionality has been around for a while, but has been revamped and improved to better help you provide the most seamless customer or guest experience possible. 

With this improvement, you can streamline your operations by immediately moving guests to the “Serving” state from the Waitwhile app by scanning their QR code. This allows you to move your guests through the customer flow automatically, and easily track which guests have been and are currently being served, all while keeping your focus on providing excellent customer service.

QR guest serving is just one more way that Waitwhile is helping businesses manage their customer flow and enhance the customer experience. We are committed to providing the best tools and features for our customers, and we can't wait to see how this new feature will improve their operations.

This feature is available for all users on Starter, Business, and Enterprise plans. Set up your QR Scan Action and start automating your customer flows by going to:

→ Settings > Location: Serving

We are glad to present a new addition to an old feature for Waitwhile that makes it easier for cafes and coffee shops to manage their waitlists and improve the customer experience. Starting today, companies with the business type "Cafe" in Waitwhile can now enable a new option that allows their guests to join the waitlist directly from Google Maps or Google Search.

This feature was previously only available for companies with the business type "Restaurant", and we're thrilled to now offer it to cafes as well. By enabling this option, cafes can provide an even more convenient and streamlined experience for their guests, and reduce wait times for their customers.

We understand how important it is for cafes to create a positive customer experience, and we believe that this feature will help them do just that. As always, we are committed to providing the best tools and features for our customers, and we will continue to explore new ways to improve the customer experience. 

Enable this by by first making sure your business type is set to “Cafe” or “Restaurant” here: 

→ Settings > Location: General > Business Info 

And then toggling on the feature here: 

→ Settings > Public: Waitlist

We're excited to announce an update in our Developers section - Status tags for webhook requests! Now you can easily track the status of your webhook requests with just a glance. Tags show the current status of each endpoint URL - whether it's Active, Failed, or Disabled - making it easy for you to quickly identify any issues and take action.

With this update, you'll be able to manage your webhook requests more effectively, and have more control over your workflow. 

We're always striving to find new ways to improve our user experience and we believe that this feature will make your experience with Waitwhile more efficient and hassle-free.

This feature is available for users on our Enterprise plans. Check it out by going to: 

→ Settings > Developers: API & Webhooks

We've added some really useful features to our customer messaging function. It's now easier than ever to personalize and edit your outgoing messages - with almost no effort!

• Dropdowns instead of curly brackets: We've redesigned the messaging editor to make it more intuitive and easy to use for all users. Your different placeholders will now be displayed in dropdown lists instead of having to enter them in curly brackets.
• Displaying all placeholders: You'll now also be able to see all placeholders that we support in the product - right there in the editor! Previously, some of them were only accessible through our API.

We hope you enjoy this update and please let us know if you have any questions! You can find it by clicking the "Edit" button next to your different Waitlist or Booking messages.

• Settings > Messages > Waitlist
• Settings > Messages > Bookings 

We want to make it possible for you to communicate seamlessly and accurately with all your guests. Therefore, we are now adding multi-language messaging! Users who have enabled two or more customer-facing languages under Settings > Styling > Localization can now also use these in outgoing customer communications. 

In the updated Waitlist and Bookings messaging editors, you will see language chips, where the chips represent each language variant currently selected for messages. There is also an “Add” button, which opens a menu with all languages to choose from. Displayed languages are based on which languages you have added in your localization settings.

Please note that if you do not edit the template, guests will receive the default message for the given language. Personalize your outgoing messages in different languages by going to:

→ Settings > Messages > Waitlist 

→ Settings > Messages > Bookings

If you have been looking for even more flexibility in your messaging templates - look no further! With our new Advanced Mode editor in messaging, you now have even more options when it comes to personalized communication with your guests or customers. 

• Advanced mode editor: Use our new advanced mode editor to create emails or texts using liquid template syntax. This opens up a whole new world of opportunities, enabling you to include things like conditional logic (if/else), for-loops, operators, and more in your messages. You can read about how to best utilize it here.
• HTML templates for email: The Advanced mode editor also allows for you to use HTML to craft your customer facing emails. This means that you can create beautiful, customized email templates with ease and continue to wow your customers!

You can access this update while in the editing window for any message. Go to:

→ Settings > Messages > Waitlist

→ Settings > Messages > Bookings

We want to enable our users to integrate Waitwhile with a variety of their own systems in a smooth and user friendly way. Therefore, we now present the Zapier integrations builder! With it, you can set up a number of different integrations - without having to leave Waitwhile.

We have partnered with the integrations platform Zapier to enable you to integrate with 5000+ software solutions. This means that you easily can connect Waitwhile with your other favorite tools, including, but definitely not limited to: 

• Calendar applications such as Outlook and Google Calendar
• CRM systems like Salesforce and HubSpot
• Other fundamental systems including Square, Slack, Mailchimp, Zoom, SurveyMonkey - and many more!

Please note that to use our integrations builder, you'll need an account on the Zapier platform. Set up your integrations by going to:

→ Settings > Developers > Integrations 

User roles and permissions have been fixed AND improved!

You may have previously experienced some confusion with your custom roles. All users would see all product elements, regardless of their permissions and they would receive an “insufficient scope” error message when attempting to take actions that they didn’t have permissions for.

We have now made two important improvements:

1. For those users that don’t have the permission to perform a certain action, we have removed the visual elements leading to that action within the product. Example: If you don't have the permissions to add a new visit, you will no longer see the “Add” button.

2. We have nested any permissions that have a dependency on another one, beneath the dependent one. Example: In order to delete a visit, you also need to have the permission to edit a visit. Therefore, the “Remove visit” permission is nested below the “Edit visits” permission. So when you toggle on “Remove visit”, “Edit visits” automatically gets toggled on too. See screenshot below.

We have some awesome news! We know how important it is to all users of the Waitwhile waitlist to display accurate and updated wait times to their valued customers. Therefore, we have now officially launched our new Wait Time Machine Learning feature which we call "Intelligent" (because it's pretty smart)! 🎉

Going forward, you will now have the choice of two estimation models to help predict your wait times.

You can read all about this in our help article "A Guide For Setting Up Estimated Wait Time".

Intelligent Wait Time Estimation will be available for all our users. All you have to do to enable it is click on the "Intelligent" button when choosing an estimation model. 

--> You can find this feature by logging into your Waitwhile account and going to: Settings > Waitlist > Wait Times

By popular demand, we are now introducing “Follow-up” messages for everyone using the Waitwhile waitlist or the bookings! While users currently can send out automated “Completed” messages immediately after a visit, our “Follow-up” messages allow for an added level of customization. 

These messages can be configured to be sent out at any time following the visit, enabling the users to communicate better with their guest. For example, the “Follow up” message can be set to: 

• Remind previous guests that it’s time for them to book another appointment. This is very useful to drive repeat business and keep customers happy.
• Send delayed “Thank You” messages following a guest’s visit, to make sure that the guest receives the message after they’ve left your premises. 

You can enable follow-up messages for waitlist and bookings by going to: 

→ Settings > Messages > Waitlist messages
→ Settings > Messages > Booking messages