Collecting a small deposit (10 to 15% of your predicted check average) can significantly reduce no-show rates. This guide offers best practices to follow when offering deposit reservations.
Create a deposit experience
To create a deposit Experience, follow the steps to create an Experience.
Changing an existing experience to deposits
To change an existing basic or credit card hold Experience to a deposit for Availability Planning:
- From the Control Panel tab, click Experiences.
- Select an existing Basic or Credit Card Hold Experience.
- Click Pricing and policy.
- Click Change.
- Select Deposit.
- Click Done.
- Click Save.
Setting deposits for different party sizes
Once an experience has been assigned a deposit, the deposit amount can be defined per person or per party, based on the party size.
In the example below:
- Parties of 1-5 covers do not need a deposit to make a reservation.
- Parties of 6-9 covers require a $10 deposit per person to make a reservation.
- Parties of 10+ covers require a flat $100 deposit to make a reservation. This amount doesn’t change based on how many people are in the party, because it’s set to “per party.”
To specify deposit amounts:
- From the Control Panel tab, click Experiences.
- Select an existing experience, then click Pricing and policy.
- Change the pricing method to Deposit, then select Set various pricing amounts.
- Add or remove multiple levels of deposits by clicking the Party size dropdown.
- If the Price amount for a given tier is set to $0, it will be considered a basic reservation that doesn’t require a deposit.
- The Guest type determines whether the price amount is applied per person or per party. If it’s set to per person, the price amount is multiplied by the party size to determine the required deposit. If it’s set to per party, the price amount is fixed regardless of the party size.
Update your policies
Policies inform guests of guidelines for cancellations and changes. For example, specify whether all sales are final, or if your business requires guests to cancel within a certain timeframe. To learn more, visit Configuring Guest Modification Policies.
Guest communications
Reminder emails and text messages help reduce no-shows and last minute cancellations, and are enabled by default. If you’d like to customize or disable these messages, visit Cusromizing Automated Messages to your Guests.
Considering the flow of service
To defer deposits for any guests (regulars, VIPs), communicate to your staff so they know when to apply a deposit. Most businesses use chits to convey this information, so make sure your compatible chit printer is installed properly, and have your hosts practice printing a few chits.
Guests may have questions about their deposit, so consider running through some FAQs with your front-of-house staff. It’s often helpful to acknowledge the deposit when giving the check to guests. For example, “As a reminder, the Tock deposit you paid to secure the reservation has been deducted from your bill.”
We recommend planning how gratuity options will be displayed on your guests’ checks. Many businesses choose to highlight the original total (before the deposit) on the bill presented to the guest, apply automatic gratuity to certain party sizes, or customize their checks in other ways.
Enabling a point of sale integration
If your business uses Lightspeed or Toast as their point of sale (POS) system, you can enable an integration to automatically deduct the deposit amount from each guest’s bill. For more information, view articles on Lightspeed and Toast integrations.
Setting up a custom tender button
Every POS system has the option to set a custom tender, which allows you to deduct a Tock deposit. Before your first service, we recommend configuring a “Tock Deposit” tender, and printing a practice check.
Even if you’re using one of our POS integrations, having a custom tender button configured will allow you to adjust deposit amounts.
Most POS systems have a report that aggregates payment types, including custom tenders. To check that your staff is ringing in deposits correctly, you can check your POS numbers against Tock’s Income Summary report.
Avoiding payment processing delays
To avoid payment processing delays, we recommend refunding deposits before service. Due to payment processing times, it can take up to 10 business days for guests’ funds to be returned. Refunding deposits after service contributes to higher dispute rates and an overall poor guest experience.