Large Group Reservations and Private Party Settings and Instructions

Review the steps for setting-up, activating, and using your free inquiry form for customers to use. Ensure that the customers googling for a 'restaurant that accepts large groups' end up finding you by activating your inquiry page.

Contents

1. Private Party General Settings
   
2. Visual Guide: How Occasion Types Appear on Your Website
   
3. Consider: Event Planner - Advanced Inquiry Management
   
4. VIDEO: More Large Group Bookings with Event Planner
5. VIDEO: Using Large Group/Private Party Reservations
6. WATCH: How To Configure Inquiry Notifications
   
7. WATCH: How To Manage Your Inquiries 

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WATCH: How to Manage Large Group/Private Party Reservations

 

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Private Party General Settings

1. To begin, navigate to the "Party/Group Inquires" tab under "Sales & Inquiries" on the left sidebar of your SpotHopper admin.

2. Click the header labeled “Settings.”

3. Slide the gray toggle seen below and activate your inquiry form for customers to inquire on your website. 

Inactive:

Active:

4. Review the “General Page Settings” 

5. Set up your “Inquiry Form Settings”

Available Occasions

Simply check the box next to the occasion to show that you are available to host this kind of event. Your customers will be able to choose from the available list while making an inquiry for their private event.

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Visual Guide: How Occasion Types Appear on Your Website

Choose which photos are displayed on the Private Party form (as shown in the picture above) by changing your pictures from the “Layout of Your Inquires Page” section on the “Settings” page seen here:

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Capacity Settings

• "Minimum capacity" sets the minimum number of guests that may be inquired about for a Private Party.
• "Maximum capacity" sets the maximum number of guests that may be inquired about for a Private Party.
• “Recommended Budget Per Person” is optional. Your customers can change it when they inquire - whether you enter a number or not. However, it works similar to “recommended tip” - customers are more likely to spend what you suggest, …the higher you make it, the more money customers are more likely to commit to spending. 
  

If you’d like to save time managing inquiries, add your available “Event Spaces” that customers can choose from for their private party. 

Once you toggle “Yes,” add in all of your available spaces. If you need more spaces, you can click “+ Add More” at the bottom. 

Customers will view the available event spaces by clicking on the "Space Preference" dropdown menu on the inquiry form. 

After selecting an event space, the event space description you saved in your settings will appear below.

If you added an “Available From” date range, it will appear to customers as seen below. 

If you choose to “pause” an event space, it will appear as “currently unavailable” to customers on the inquiry form as seen below. It will be marked unavailable indefinitely as long as you have it paused.

Your customers will see this on the inquiry form:

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Timing Settings

Key:

• Allow same-day requests if you’re open to receiving last-second party inquiries. Remember, these are only inquiries. You must send customers confirmation.
• Start Time Increment can be set to determine what times the customers can reserve a private party to start. When this value is set to 15 minutes, the customer will have the option to select times 15 minutes apart, such as 12:30, 12:45, 1… etc. Time increments for private parties can only be set for 15 or 30 minutes.

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Texting Permission

Your platform will automatically upload the marketing information of customers who inquire with you if they opt-in to marketing permissions.

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Contact Information and Notification Settings
The final steps are to assign a contact phone number and to record the emails and phone numbers that will receive notifications of incoming inquiry notifications.

1) Confirm your contact phone number in case customers have questions when filling out the inquiry form.

2) Set the email addresses that will receive notifications of incoming private party requests.

3) “Configure text notifications” if you would like to make sure that you never miss an inquiry. You can set how you are texted here as seen below.

After clicking to configure text notifications, you can change the following settings. Ensure that you’re texted exactly how you choose to be. 

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Consider: EventPlanner - Advanced Inquiry Management

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Just click on the Settings tab in Party/Group Inquiries and scroll down to the "Event Planner" section:

 

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AutoResponse

Can’t drop everything to respond to every inquiry in time? AutoResponse does it for you, reassuring customers that you can and will handle their request.

1. Toggle the feature on.
2. Choose how much time you would like to pass until the auto response is sent.
3. Craft your auto message so that more customers will choose you - and not the other 2-3 options that they inquired about. 
4. Include attachments to make the inquiry process easier for you. 

Settings for Proposals and Payments

If you do not want to include a specific payment type, simply uncheck the checkboxes. Be sure to edit and adjust the default pricings accordingly. You can change your payment amounts in each individual inquiry as well. 

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How To Configure Inquiry Notifications | Never Miss a Big Ticket Inquiry

How To Manage Your Inquiries | Never Miss a Big Ticket Inquiry