Creating a Curbside Pickup Schedule

This article walks you through the steps of creating a curbside pickup reservation schedule.

Creating the Event Details

1. Sign up for CellarPass reservations plan.
2. From the left-hand main menu, select Experiences.
3. Then select the Events menu.
4. Click New Event from the top, right-hand corner.
5. Change the event status to Active (Private).
6. If you are using the Holiday Manager to shut down all of your other reservations events, click the Ignore Holidays checkbox.
7. Enter Curbside Pickup as the event name.
8. Set the Start Date in which you would like your first pick up to be scheduled.
9. If you are offering the curbside program as a seasonal schedule, enter the last date you will allow curbside pickups in the End Date field.
10. Using the Book Lead Time dropdown menu, select the minimum lead time a customer could schedule their curbside pickup.
11. Using the Cancel Lead Time dropdown menu, select the minimum cancel window in which a customer could cancel or reschedule their curbside pickup.
12. For Event Type, select Curbside Pickup.
13. Enter a description of the program, include a short reference to how you will be following local rules and guidelines.
14. For price, enter $0.00 and the Flat Fee pricing option.
15. Select the Complimentary option for Deposit Policy
16. On the Location or Floor Plan (TablePro user), select the area in which the curbside pickup will take place.
17. Select or create a Cancellation Policy you wish to enforce with this schedule.
18. If your curbside program is going to allow passengers, we recommend checking both Show Guest(s) and Require Guest(s) checkboxes.
19. If you have your POS or eCommerce integrated with CellarPass, you will need to enter a value in the SKU field.
20. Now would be a good time to click the Save button to save your work.
21. Towards the bottom, we recommend creating a questionnaire for your customers to complete.
    1. If you are offering customers the option to walk or drive their car, click +Add Question.
    2. Select Dropdown as the Answer Type
    3. Enter “How will you be arriving on property?” as the Question Text.
    4. As Option 1, enter “I’m Walking”
    5. As Option 2, enter “I’m Driving My Own Vehicle”
    6. Click Save.
22. We’ll want to create another question that helps you identify your customer.
    1. Click +Add Question.
    2. Select Text as the Answer Type
    3. Enter “what is the color, make and model of your vehicle?” as the Question Text.
    4. Click Save.
23. Be sure the Require radio button is selected for both of your questions.

Creating the Curbside Schedule
When determining your schedule, we recommend that you schedule 15 minute increments with 15 minutes between time slots.

For example, I can create my first pickup time to be 10:00AM and it will last to 10:15AM, but I will not create my next time slot to be until 10:30AM. Doing so allows time in case guests arrive late or you need special preparation and sanitization between curbside pickups.

1. Locate the Event in Experiences, then select Events.
2. Click the Name of the Event you wish to edit.
3. Select the Schedule from the submenu.
4. Click Add Time
5. Enter the Start Time such as 10:00AM
6. Enter the End Time such as 10:15AM
7. If you do not want to allow multiple guests to arrive for the same time slot, click the Auto checkbox.
8. For the Min field, enter “1”.
9. For the Group field, enter “1”.
10. For the Capacity, set the max number of curbside pickups you want to allow for this time slot. If you checked the “Auto” checkbox, set this to “1”.
11. If you would like to allow customers to add themselves to your Wait List, enter a number here for the max number of customers you would allow to accumulate on the wait list for that time slot in the Wait List field.
12. If you are planning on offering the Curbside program daily, click the All checkbox. If not, then click the checkbox below the day of the week you plan on offering the program.
13. Click the Save button.
14. Repeat steps 1 – 10 for each of the time slots you wish to offer.
15. If you are comfortable with the steps in creating your schedule, we always recommend testing everything before making it live. If you are ready, you will want to go back to the Event details tab and change the status to Active (Public).
16. Then click Save.

Personalizing the Curbside Experience
If you are a subscriber to a CellarPass plan that allows you to customize your confirmation emails, you’ll want to take a moment to create a Curbside Pickup confirmation template.

1. Log into the CellarPass admin panel.
2. Click Business from the left-hand menu.
3. Select Notifications.
4. To the right, locate a Reservation Confirmation template you wish to start with and click Copy. TIP: Submit a support ticket and we’ll copy over a good starting point for a Curbside Pickup confirmation template. We’ll update the ticket once the template has been copied into your account.
5. You are now either editing a template we provided or a copy of the one you selected in Step 4.
6. Enter Curbside Pickup as the template name.
7. Click Save.
8. Make all the changes you’ll want to make to the template, making sure that you include clear instructions regarding your curbside program such as where on property they should arrive at, any guidelines you’ll be following and any other restrictions that you’ll want to be sure they are aware of.
9. Click Save.
10. Click the Preview button to have a copy of the confirmation email template sent to you.
11. Now we need to assign this new Curbside Pickup confirmation template to the event.
12. Go to Experiences in the left-hand menu.
13. Select the Events from the submenu.
14. Locate the event, click the name of the event and select Details from the Edit submenu.
15. Scroll down and locate the Confirmation Template dropdown menu and select Curbside Pickup (or whatever you named your template)
16. Click Save.
17. Your program is now all set to test!

Testing Curbside Program
Once you have completed your Curbside pickup schedule, we recommend testing this as a customer would book it before promoting it. And since we want to not show this new program to those that are searching for availability, we recommend you first test this as a private event.

To complete the testing, we recommend setting up an Access Code tied to the Curbside program. The steps are outlined below or feel free to watch a step-by-step video that covers Access Codes.

1. Locate the Event in Reservations, Events.
2. Click the Name of the Event you wish to review
3. Select the Access Codes link from the submenu.
4. Click New Access Code in the top, right-hand corner.
5. Enter a unique Access Code you wish to use in the Access Code field.
6. If you want to limit how many times a customer can use the Access Code, enter the number of uses per Customer. Or leave it as Unlimited.
7. For the Start Date & Time, be sure this starts “today” as this should be set as a date before your first pickup date.
8. For the Event Date & Time, be sure this starts “today” as this should be set as as the last possible pickup date.
9. Then click Save.
10. Click the Cancel button.
11. You will now see your Access Code. Click the URL button, doing so will copy the Access Code into your clipboard.
12. Open a new browser window and paste the copied URL into your URL window.
13. If everything is setup properly your Access Code should be accepted and Curbside program should be displayed.

Final Thoughts
Curbside programs offer a great way to stay connected to your most important guests such as club members and loyal customers. Our XXXX article covers some great ways to help promote and incentivize customers to use this service often and recommend reading the article to get more ideas on how to create a successful Curbside Pickup program.