Setting up customer types

Customer types are created and managed in your Dashboard settings.

To create a customer type:

1. Go to the Settings section of your Dashboard.
2. From the Settings menu, select Customer Types.
3. Click New customer type and fill out the following information:
   • Enter a singular and plural name for your customer type. This is what will be displayed to the public.
   • Optional: Enter an internal name. This will only be displayed to logged-in users on your Dashboard.
   • Optional: Add a note. Notes are displayed below the customer type when making a booking, and are visible to online customers, affiliates, and your staff. Learn more.
4. Click Create customer type.

Once these steps are completed, you will be taken to the settings page for your new customer type. Although you can update overall settings like pricing and visibility here, we usually recommend doing this in item settings instead. We’ll go over these options in the next section.

To return to your list of customer types, click Customer Types at the top of the page.

In this step, you’ll add your customer type to one or more items, and determine its pricing and visibility.

Adding a customer type to a single item:

1. Go to the Items section of your Dashboard and select the item you want to update.
2. Go to the item’s Options & Prices.

3. Click Add customer type and choose your customer type from the dropdown menu.

   

4. Optional: If needed, make the customer type exclusive.

   When a customer type is exclusive, this means that once one of that customer type has been booked on an availability, you’ll only be able to accept bookings for that same customer type. Learn more.

5. Click Add.

6. Repeat these steps for any additional customer types you’d like to add.

Duplicating customer types

You can also add a customer type to an item by duplicating an existing one, which will

Adding a customer type to multiple items at once

You can add a customer type to multiple items at once using the Price Sheets Overview in your main Dashboard settings.

How to use the Price Sheets Overview.

Setting price and visibility

After a customer type has been added to an item, you’ll see a pricing table next to it, which should look something like this:

To update these settings, you’ll want to focus on the first two columns: Visibility and Price.

• Visibility: By default, the customer type will be visible to anyone making a booking. Click on the visibility status to change it. Learn more.

• Price: To set a price for your customer type, click None, then select Change from the dropdown menu. Enter a price for the customer type, determine whether to apply tax or not, then click Save.

  

Other options

To update additional settings, click the pencil icon next to the customer type name. These settings are optional and item-specific, meaning they will only apply to the particular item you’re updating.

• Internal name: An abbreviated or informal name that will be displayed to your staff only. If you want to use an internal name for the customer type when it appears on this item only, you can change it here.

• Note: Displayed below the customer type name and price when making a booking. If you want to display a note for the customer type when it appears on this item only, you can add it here.

• Make exclusive: When exclusive, once one of the customer type has been booked on an availability, you’ll only be able to accept bookings for that same customer type. Learn more.

• Per-booking minimum/maximum: Minimum and/or maximum number of the customer type that can be included on a booking (for example, if you need to specify a specific group size).

• Per-availability capacity: Maximum number of the customer type that can be booked on an availability. Once the capacity is reached, the book form will no longer allow that customer type to be booked online (Dashboard users can still book the customer type, but will be notified that they are overbooking).

Viewing customer types on items

You can view a list of the customer types that have been assigned to an item, including whether they have been assigned to any availabilities, by navigating to the item’s Options & Prices section. For customer types with no availabilities, an “inactive” label shows next to the name of the customer type. This makes it easy to see at a glance which customer types need to be assigned to availabilities or which can be archived due to disuse.

By adding a customer type to one or more availabilities, you are making it available for online customers and staff members to book.

New availabilities

When creating new availabilities, you will be required to select one or more customer types to add to your book form. During this step, you also have the option to set the per-booking minimum and maximum and the per-availability capacity for each customer type, if needed.

Customer type settings at the availability level will override any settings made at the item level.

If you’ve never created an availability before, follow the steps outlined here.

Existing availabilities

To add a new customer type to existing availabilities, follow the steps outlined here.

You can view and manage your customer types by navigating to your Dashboard’s Settings, then selecting Customer Types. Here, you can see all your customer types at a glance.

You can further customize this view by using the Display options menu, where you can choose to show a variety of information, such as Columns for customer type IDs, SKUs, or Notes, whether a customer type is archived or has usage on an item, and whether to show plural names for your customer types.

• Customer Type names that use numbers (ex: Four Hour Rental) should always be spelled out when the number is between 1 and 10. Any larger numbers (ex: 48 Hour Rental) should use numbers and should not be written out.
• For Customer Type names using decimals (1.5 Hour Rental), the numbers should not be written out regardless of the range.
• Please note: If an item uses Customer Types of varying length (numbers under 10, numbers over 10, decimals, fractions, etc) it is best practice to use numbers for consistency.
  • Example: A fishing boat rental item’s customer types should be created as:
    • 3/4 Day Rental
    • 12 Hour Rental
    • 1 Week Rental
  • And NOT created as:
    • 3/4 Day Rental
    • 12 Hour Rental
    • One Hour Rental

• Why? It is not recommended to start Customer Type names with numbers (ex: 4 Hour Rental) because the amount of purchased Customer Types will be placed next to the Customer Type name in multiple places in the dashboard and customer confirmation emails. This can create confusion for both dashboard users and customers.

  • Good example:

    

  • Bad example:

    

There are certain scenarios where it is best to use customer type notes, and others where it may be best to use another location.

• If there is only 1 customer type in the book form: Information should be placed in the customer type note only. It should not also be placed in the item description.

• If there is more than 1 customer type in the book form:

  • Use customer type notes to differentiate between different customer types. If you would like to distinguish one customer type from another, that information should be placed in the customer type notes (not in the item description).

    

  • Don’t repeat customer type notes. If the information you would like to add applies to all customer types, do not use customer type notes. Instead, place that information in the item description.

    

• Other Notes
  • You do not have to provide customer type notes. If you do not require any additional information, feel free to leave it empty.
  • Note: We assume that if people skip the item description in the integration, their website already contains all needed information to encourage conversions. If their website doesn’t already contain needed information, they should not be skipping the item description in the integration.

In some cases, it may be beneficial to make an individual customer type “Call to book.” For example, if a client is resistant to opening an item to online booking due to a complicated private tour option, it’s possible to make the Private Group customer type call to book while still allowing other customer types to be booked online. Whenever possible, it’s preferable to make all customer types bookable online, but this is a good solution to open up online availability that would otherwise not be bookable online.

To do this, set the customer type capacity to 0 and check the Include in online calendars as “Call to book” when closed? checkbox under the item’s bookability settings.