Is there a way to text a customer that their order is ready for pick up?

[JandDRockinWW]

We expanded our small business (food trailer) this year which included using the square register with kitchen tickets. Since our business, at this moment, is strictly set up for events (fairs, festivals, etc.) I was thinking it would be neat to take the order and give the customer a number but instead of them waiting (unless they want to), text them a notice their food is ready to pick up. That way they won't have to keep checking back, they can enjoy their selves where they are at. Is that something I can do with square or is there another app that works with square?

Thanks!

Donna

[humblewoodfire1]

Hey Josh, plugging your app that does not currently work with square is not helping anyone in this thread.  You have been posting for a few weeks.  Why not let us all know when it's actually live and usable?

The "waitlist me" app is free to use for up to 100 text messages per month.  I pay the base subscription fee of $60 for unlimited messages and am able to provide a custom text to our customers when they are added to the queue as well as when we alert them their food is ready.  For the record, $60/month translates to 1200 SMS messages if we were paying 5 cents per text.  Our business is pretty small and on busy weekends we text around 150 people per day, and about 500/week overall.  This would translate to about $100 month at your rates.

You can also use the waitlist me app in multiple locations and sync across devices.  We use it on our food truck and at our brick and mortar with great success.  To be clear I have no affiliation with this app, just many years of trial and error streamlining our customer experience with various apps and plug ins. 

[PreOrder_Apps]

Hi. I'm just curious about something you mentioned. What do you mean by "You can also use the waitlist me app in multiple locations and sync across devices."? 

Use it? Do you mean it'll send out texts for multiple locations? 

And what do you mean by "sync across devices"? Your Square devices or the Customers' Devices? 

Thanks in advance for the insight!

[humblewoodfire1]

It’s an iPad/iPhone app. Unrelated  and not connected to square. 

You add a name, number, hit add to queue and they get a text saying we got your order lookout for another text when It’s ready. When food is ready hit another button on app and they get automated text alert. Hit button again and they get a robo phone call saying their order is ready. 

Syncs Across devices = I add to our iPad and my staff can see on other devices with the app. For example person taking orders adds customers via an iPad, another staff member uses an iPhone to text customers when their order is ready. 

App is available for free take a look I’m sure most of your questions will be addressed 

[joshlsullivan]

I'm signing a contract with Square to have it listed in the Marketplace. And being usage based, you don't have to worry about fees during the light time in your business.

By the way, I just found this thread last week. 

Thanks.

[Valentina]

We introduced this feature back in June, but this thread didn't receive an update!

When customers using Curbside Pickup arrive at your location, they can alert you of their arrival via text. You will see an arrival alert in your Square Point of Sale - with identifying information - so you are able to deliver food to your customers at the curb. 

To enable the text message notification feature, navigate to Settings > Pickup & Delivery from your Square Online Overview page, and set up each location individually. Click the Set up button to start, then below Enable Pickup, you’ll see a toggle you can turn ON that allows your customers to send you a text message notification.

If you haven't already toggled this on, head here to learn more about how it works! 🎉

[humblewoodfire1]

Hey Valentina,

Please go ahead and un-mark your response as a "best answer" as it does not actually address the initial posters question, and it truly seems like you all don't actually read the full context of these feature requests. 

The notifications you are describing are ONLY applicable to online orders.  The original post, and many subsequent posts, have been asking for the ability to text customers that place their orders IN PERSON, not just online.  Square pulls all the same info from credit cards when orders are place online or in person, so why can't we utilize the existing functionality you are describing for in person orders???

Please specifically address this distinction in your response.

[joshlsullivan]

Notify Customers pulls in all orders for messaging. https://notifycustomers.net 

[PreOrder_Apps]

Hi. Just an fyi because this text notification idea/thing is actually a really good idea and I could've swore there was another Square Partner company that did it already, but this is something we know how to do. 

Disclaimer: We are an official Square Partner. We're a small, tech company based out of Chicago and we try to help small businesses who don't have big budgets. So we often "pool" our Clients' money together to help make them the features they need.

In fact, we've finally formalized this whole "pooling" thing into a new site called SquareWishList.com - which we are currently running on our main website for the time being at: https://getpreorder.com/features 

If enough folks, needs this and chip in, we can knock it out for everyone. 

Basically, as a Square Partner we get our own Square "Application", so businesses would sign up on our site and "connect" their Square Account (which takes like 15 seconds), then our system can automatically read any Customer(s) phone number(s).

So once connected to our Square Application/Website, you wouldn't even need to do anything else - our system would just automatically check for all new orders that are marked as "in-store" (which in Square's API is actually called something else) or whatever order type is possible - then the system would automatically send out a text notification based on the Square Fulfillment Status (which is the blue button that you can "Mark As Ready" on your Square POS).

I hear ideas all day and night that are super difficult and expensive to make, but this one isn't too bad.  

[joshlsullivan]

My app was born out of the PYOP (Paint your own pottery) world, where the pickup of an item is about a week after the transaction. Clients spent too much time looking for customer information, so I set out to fix the problem. Notify pulls orders from customers and provides a searchable, sortable dashboard to message customers. Pricing is based on usage and no monthly fee - $0.05/text in the US. Supports other countries, including Canada, UK, and AUS. 

[FLD57105]

It was my understanding when you check an order as ready, it should notify the customer that their order is ready to be picked up but my customers are saying they are not receiving anything. Can this feature be implemented to notify them once marked as ready?