How to keep track of recurring appointments.

[CurlyDoodle]

The title of this thread has been edited from the original: recurring booking group and glitch.

Hi Everyone!

As a dog groomer, I encourage my clients to keep a regular appointment as it makes it better for me, for them, and for the dog! 

My first question is: how can I get Square to understand the parameters of such a group? Thinking like a computer is harder than one thinks 🙃. It would be easiest if the system could understand that X customer has the recurring appointment box checked. Barring that, how can it understand that certain customers have an appointment automatically every 2-8 weeks? I've tried various things and generated totally different lists!

Second question: because of that problem, I created a manual group that currently has about 50 clients. Sometimes I remove a client from the group because they moved, their dog died, etc. Here's the weird part: when I tick the box and select "remove from group," it doesn't. I have to repeat this process twice! Anyone else experience this glitch?

[Katie_SQ]

Thanks for your questions, @CurlyDoodle! I'd be happy to help you find the best solutions for your workflow.

Understanding Your Recurring Appointment Needs

I'm not sure that I understand your first question about Square "understanding the parameters" of your recurring appointment clients. Could you please share a bit more about:

- What specific information you're hoping to track about these recurring clients
- What actions you're trying to take with this group of clients (e.g., sending reminders, filtering reports, scheduling future appointments)
- What you have already tried that's generating "totally different lists"

I'd love to learn a bit more about what you're trying to accomplish, so I can explore alternative options that meet your needs.

Group Removal Issue

Regarding the issue with removing clients from groups - I'd like to gather a bit more information to investigate further:

- Does it consistently take exactly two attempts to remove a client from the group?
- After the second attempt, are clients successfully removed every time, or does it sometimes fail even after multiple tries?
- Are you removing clients one at a time or in batches?
- Does this happen with all groups or just this specific group with 50 clients?
- Does this happen on the Square Dashboard across multiple web browsers (e.g., Chrome, Safari, Firefox)?

Thanks! I'll keep an eye out for your reply. 😊

[CurlyDoodle]

Thanks for your reply! I have been playing with the new AI feature in hopes of solving this problem, but no luck. 

To answer your questions:

I want to track how many recurring appt clients I have as a percentage of all clients, how many visits, and how much income. My goal is for all clients to be regulars, but I know this is an impossible goal. However, I feel that the greater the percentage, the better for me, the clients, and the dogs. 

Not sure what actions I want to take directly with the clients, other than being aware and running reports on regulars versus others. 

Here's what I tried with AI that is similar to my direct Reports attempts:

I tried "top clients by visit frequency" and got a list. "Lifetime spend" was not accurate, showing like $15 for clients who have 50+ appointments already. 

It seems like I got some info on the request "how many customers book an appointment at least once every 6 weeks" yesterday, but today it's just saying it doesn't have access to my appointments. 

In Reports:

I tried the report "new vs returning customer visits" and it gave me some numbers, but said "visit frequency can only be shown for one month or less." I need to see trends over time, and since most visits are scheduled every 6 weeks, that won't show in a one month period. 

The smart group Regulars has the parameters of minimum visits in a time period. With an entry of 1 visit at least every 2 months, I get 128 customers. The problem is, some of them have visited in the last 2 months, but only once. I need to know who makes an appointment at least EVERY 2 months. The smart group gives me 128 customers, but when I manually filter it's actually 54 customers.

[Katie_SQ]

Sorry for the delay getting back to you here, @CurlyDoodle!

Currently, Square doesn't have built-in reporting features specifically designed to track recurring appointment patterns in the way you're describing. Unfortunately, the standard reports and smart groups don't provide the level of analysis you're looking for regarding consistent appointment frequency over time.

I can certainly appreciate how useful this type of functionality would be, so I'd encourage you to submit a Feature Request on our Feedback Hub. This is the best way to make sure your suggestion is seen by our Product team. Other Sellers with similar needs can also upvote your request, which helps our team understand the demand for this type of feature.

Sorry I couldn't be of more help here. If you have any other questions, please let me know!