Is square / square appointments suitable for limo / hire car / transport operators?

[bollywoodcars]

Good Day 

My name is James, I run a London Cab (@blackcabcentral) / Indian Taxi (@bollywoodcars) wedding car / hire car company in Sydney and am thinking about utilising square and square appointments to simplify operations. I am currently using Wordpress / Kymark, Google Calendars, Square Invoices for CC payments and QuickBooks which is excessive.

I wondered if there were any similar operators out there and what your experiences were using Square apps? I would be interested to see your square weblinks.

I have began setting up a site below:

https://bollywoodcars.square.site/

My challengers / questions so far are:

1. Can the Website Site Items (Services) be setup so they link to the Appointments Items rather than a checkout?
2. Can the Appointment Items give the customer the option to add extra time when booking?

Thanks in advance for any help / pointers.

[Laurie_]

Hello, hello and welcome, @bollywoodcars!  👋

I'm hoping a few of our Square Sellers can jump in on this thread to share their and tips and what has worked for them. Unfortunately, I don't have an example website that shares your specific use case that I'm able to share, however, I'd be happy to send some resources your way.

In looking at your site, I can see you've managed to set up online booking with Square Appointments which is great! What I might suggest is adding a services page to your site navigation, for example, which can showcase what's on offer before customers enter the online booking flow. You can find more steps for customising and setting up your Square Online Booking site here. 

Regarding your second question, can you provide some more context as to why you want to offer customers the option to add additional time? 

Currently, we have the ability to add processing time to your services but I don't think this is quite what you're looking for. 

We'll keep a lookout for your reply here!

[bollywoodcars]

Hello Laurie

Thank you for your reply and welcome. I appreciate it.

Hello I did look at Services but it seems I could not link them to appointments. 

Regarding the option to add more time, if for example a customer did the ride and dine experience but wanted to book the car for an extra 30 minutes, it would be good for the customer to be able to add this at and it reflect in the calendar and cost. I've done a bit of research and i don't think this is possible yet.

One question I do have is what level do i need to upgrade to to be able to have a slideshow homepage banner? Basically i am trying to emulate my current website www.bollywoodcars.com.au in square but have the book now functionality and everything in one place.

Thanks for your help

james

p.s would love to see how other limo operators / transport providers are using squareup

[Arie]

Heya @bollywoodcars, just stepping in while Laurie is out of the office! 

You would be able to allow customers to add extra time to bookings by adding variations to your services. Variations also allow you to add additional time, and cost to a service. Learn how to get started with variations here. 

No upgrade is required to display slideshows on a Square Online site. Add your gallery to your site here. 

I've taken a look at your current website - it looks great! You could consider adding a booking link to your existing website if you don't want to start from scratch with one of our websites. This would then direct your customers to your Square Appointments booking site to check out. We have this guide for adding a booking button or link.