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Waitlist

Don’t turn away potential customers who are interested in reserving an experience that is currently sold out. If there’s a cancellation, fill those newly opened slots automatically from a waitlist. If a customer is interested in an experience and has flexibility for when they can attend, allow them to join the waitlist for a block of time to keep all of your experiences reserved to capacity.

If the waitlist is turned on for a given experience, customers will be presented with the option to “Join Waitlist” during checkout when an event time does not have enough open spots to accommodate them. You can also manually add a customer to the waitlist from your Xola Dashboard. 

What's covered in this article:

How to enable Waitlist

  1. Locate Waitlist in the Xola App Store and select it.
  2. Click INSTALL > Agree > Finish

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How to configure Waitlist for an Experience

  1. Navigate to Products > Experiences and select the pencil icon to edit your experience.
  2. Select Waitlist from the left side menu.
  3. Toggle Enable Waitlist for Back Office and/or Enable Waitlist for Checkout
    • For Checkout Only: Either use the default or custom checkout message that is displayed to your customers when there is an event time available for the waitlist. 
  4. Next, under configure your Waitlist Settings
    • Limit waitlist spots: toggled on this limits how many guests can waitlist into the event. 
      • For example, if you set the limit to 5, then only 5 guests can be signed up for the waitlist, and after these 5 guests, the waitlist will not be shown to customers.
    • Send invites to customers automatically when: 
      • All waitlisted groups that can fit the open spots
        • For example, send an email automatically to any customer that fits into that event time and the number of seats that just opened.
      • Groups whose waitlisted quantity would fill up at least X % of open spots
        • For example, you have set the percentage to 50%, and there are two waitlisted groups, one with 5 guests and another with 2 guests. If 6 spots open up, only the group of 5 will be invited. This helps prevent smaller groups from taking up spots that larger groups could have used.
      • Delay first invitation by X minutes
        • If toggled off, waitlist emails will send to all guests as soon as spots open. 
        • If toggled on and the time is set, the waitlist email will be delayed for that much time before sending it to guests. 

Note: Ensure email notifications are enabled for waitlists (go to Settings → Notifications and check Join Waitlist). If this setting is disabled, customers will not receive an email when they join a waitlist.

Waitlist - Notifications.png 

Waitlist: Front End Checkout

This text will display to your customers inside of checkout when they have selected an event time that does not have enough open spots to accommodate the number of guests entered in the Quantity section during checkout.

You can customize the text customers see in the waitlist configuration for the experience. 

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What the Customer will see

Say that a customer wants to book the 6:00 PM time slot on June 12th, but it is already at capacity. That customer would see the following at checkout:

Waitlist - Front end checkout.png

Once they've entered all of their contact information, they can click the JOIN WAITLIST button to join the waitlist.

A customer has the option to have a flexible time range in which they would be able to visit.

  • If they opt-in they will be put on the waitlist for the time range they entered. If the spots open they will receive an invitation to book via email.
  • They will also be presented with other event times that are open if in the time range they enter.

Waitlist - Checkout available timeslots.png

Customers who successfully join the waitlist will see this message, along with the option to continue shopping:

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They'll also receive an email notifying them they are on the Waitlist.

If spots open up, they will receive an email inviting them back to make a purchase(if configured):

Waitlist - Spots available email.png

Waitlist: Back Office

If Waitlist is turned on for a given experience, you can waitlist a customer from your Xola dashboard. 

When the back office waitlist is enabled, the Join Waitlist button will appear for all events with 0 availability (future events only). 

Note: The Waitlist is directly correlated to reservations that come in and consume the capacity set for an event. That being said, capping or blacking out an event will disable the Waitlist functionality for that event in the back office and front-end checkout.

Dashboard - Enter waitlist.png

Should you click the Join Waitlist button, a pop-up window will ask you to gather additional information from the customer to join the waitlist

Waitlist - Dashboard Join.png

You have the option to give them a flexible time range in which they would be able to visit.

  • If the customer opts in, they will be put on the waitlist for the time range you entered. If spots open for an event within the specified time range, the customer will receive the email to book.

The customer will receive an email notifying them they are on the Waitlist, and if spots open up, they will receive an email inviting them to make a purchase (if configured). 

View Waitlisted customers

When on your Dashboard, you can easily see in all views (List, Day, week, and Month) how many waitlisted guests you have for each time slot. Waitlisted guest counts will show beside your reserved guests. 

Waitlist - Dashboard Reserved view.png

To filter your dashboard by Waitlisted customers

  • Navigate to your Dashboard
  • Next to the Reserve view, click on the Waitlisted view
  • Now, you will see only event times that have waitlisted guests. 

 

Waitlist - Dashboard.gif

From the roster, you can select the 3-dot menu to the right of a waitlisted group to see available actions.

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  • Confirm: will not show if the event does not have capacity. If you click confirm you will be given options for how you wish to collect payment.
  • Invite to book: will also only be displayed if the event has capacity. Once you choose this option, your customer will receive an email inviting them to confirm and pay for their waitlisted reservation.
    • If they have a flexible time they selected during checkout, you will be given the option to choose which time slot you want to invite them to:

  • Send Message: will allow you to send a message to your waitlisted guest. 
  • Rebook Customer: will allow you to rebook this customer into another event or experience. 
  • Remove from Waitlist: will allow you to remove a customer from the waitlisted group. 
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