Prerequisites: This feature requires that you meet the Business Account Requirements below.
When you're approved for Vera Fill My Books, Vera immediately starts marketing your business. Here's how:
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Marked as sponsored on the marketplace. When people visit the Vagaro Marketplace home page, your business will appear in the list of sponsored businesses in their area.
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Top of the list in search. When people search for services and classes in their area, your business will be ranked higher if your business matches what they're looking for.
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Vera creates Daily Deals for you. Vera creates Daily Deals with the discount you entered.
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Market to nearby Vagaro users. Vera will send out email campaigns advertising your deals to customers in your area. These emails are sent to Vagaro users within 25 miles of your business who haven't visited you before.
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Market to your existing clientele. If you have Fill Last-Minute Calendar Openings turned on, existing customers with the Vagaro customer app will receive push notifications and emails about this deal.
Note
The emails sent by Vera are included with the feature and do not use your Email Marketing plan.
Our Design Team reviews all requests to activate Fill My Books in one business day. During the review process, we may need to add or change your logo image to meet our image standards, and complete or update key information missing from your business account. Once you're approved, your business is listed on the Vagaro Marketplace. If you later change your business account information, we will review it again to confirm it still meets our requirements
You need to have the following information in your business account:
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A business type set up to offer services and classes in the barber, beauty, fitness, wellness, self-care, pet grooming, and similar industries.
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At least one accepted payment method in your Facility Information
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A service cancellation policy and/or class cancellation policy
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A logo or high-quality photo of your space, your work, or your team set as your business logo
For example, the following logo images would be approved for a business to be featured:
The following logo images would be replaced by our Design Team because they do not meet our logo image requirements:
To set up your campaigns
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Go to Vera Fill My Books:
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Phone: Select More
→ → .
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Computer, Tablet, Pay Desk, or PayPro: Select Settings
→ .
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Select Get Started.
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From Settings, turn on the campaign(s) you want to run:
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Get New Customers: Promote your business to new clients in the Vagaro Marketplace as featured listings and Daily Deals. Vera will also send automated email promotions to Vagaro users in your area.
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Fill Last-Minute Calendar Openings: Promote open time slots within the next 72 hours as last-minute deals in the Vagaro marketplace. Vera also sends automated emails to Vagaro users in your area and to your customers. Your existing customers will also receive push notifications on the Vagaro app.
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In the Maximum Discount Offered field for each campaign, enter the discount you want to offer for this campaign.
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Optionally, for one of the campaigns you want to activate, select Advanced Settings to customize the campaign:
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In the Limit Number of Customers field, enter how many customers can use this deal every month.
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Use the Services and Classes Offered list to limit this deal to only a specific set of items on your menu.
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Use the Employees Who Offer list to limit this deal to specific employees.
Tip
You won't be charged a booking fee unless a customer books one of the services, classes, or employees you've selected.
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Agree to the participation agreement.
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Select Save.
Your business will be listed on Vagaro and sent for approval. Once approved, Vera will begin marketing to your customers.
Fill My Books is available to every business, including those that don't use Vagaro Credit Card Processing. Vagaro collects the fee as a deposit when the customer books online.
Here's how it works:
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When a customer books online, Vagaro collects a deposit equal to 5% or 20% of the customer's cart total.
Note
The deposit owed is based on the price the customer pays after any discounts. Taxes and tips are not included in the calculation either.
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That deposit covers the booking fee.
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You collect the remaining balance when you check out the customer.
If you already require a deposit, Vagaro works with the deposit you've set rather than adding a separate one:
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Your current deposit |
What happens |
|---|---|
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None, or lower than the fee |
Vagaro collects a deposit equal to the fee (5% or 20%) and uses it to cover the fee. |
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Higher than the fee (for example, 50%) |
Your deposit applies. The customer pays the amount you set, and Vagaro takes its fee from it. |
Additional Information:
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Customers can't use gift cards or points to cover the booking fee deposit.
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Once a deal is used, Vagaro calculates the booking fee from all items in the cart, even if the customer adds other items that aren't included or books with employees who aren't included in the deal. For example, if a new customer uses your deal for a haircut but also adds a package and another service, the fee is calculated from all three items.
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In the scenario above, the only items excluded from the calculation are gift cards and products. The booking fee won't be calculated from these two items unless you've specifically created a daily deal for gift cards.
An online booking incurs a 20% fee only when the customer has never visited your business before. Existing customers aren't charged this fee, with two exceptions: when they book a Daily Deal you created for your customer base, or when they use a Fill Last-Minute Calendar Openings deal.
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If a customer's account isn't in your customer list, they're considered a new customer.
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If their account is already in your customer list, they're considered an existing customer.
Sometimes a customer books using a different email or account, which causes them to be treated as a new customer. To prevent this, Vagaro asks whether they've visited your business before. If they confirm they have, the 20% fee won't be charged.
Note
When a customer fills out a form before booking or messages your business on Connect by Vagaro, a profile is created for them. But because they haven't actually visited your business yet, they're still treated as new customers when they book, and the 20% fee applies.
Whether the booking fee is refunded depends on how far in advance the appointment is canceled. Vagaro refunds the fee to the customer only if the appointment is canceled at least 24 hours before it starts. If your cancellation policy requires more notice than that, for example, 36 hours, the longer window applies instead.
You will be responsible for refunding the 20% or 5% deposit to the customer if you refund them after the appointment is checked out.
If you have the following settings turned on in your Online Appointment Rules, this feature may affect how they function:
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Appointment Lead Time/Class Lead TIme: When Fill Last-Minute Calendar Openings is turned on, your lead time is capped at two hours so clients can book last-minute openings. This overrides a longer lead time you've set. If your lead time is already under two hours, that lower setting stays in place.
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Block New Customers from Online Booking: This setting must be turned off if you want to activate, Get New Customers.
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Minimize Gaps in Your Schedule: This setting is not affected by any of the Vera Fill My Books campaigns and will work like normal.
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Require Acceptance for Online Booking: The customer will still be required to pay a deposit for bookings.
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Waitlist: A deposit will not be required to waitlist. If a spot opens, the customer will be prompted to book and pay the deposit.
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Auto-Assign Employee When Booking: We recommend enabling Fill My Books for all employees if you have this feature turned on. Vera will only book employees who offer the deal.
Comments
35 comments
Hi Joy, yes a 20% fee won't be charged if the customer does not use a Daily Deal or Vera Deal. If a discount is applied, then a fee will be charged.
Hi, we have fill my books turned on for one employee and specific services. None of her services or books have been filled with any clients, however, on VERA fill my books it already says we have $342 in revenue. None of these checked out services were discounted. Does this mean we will still get charged for the new clients? As I am understanding, “You won't be charged a booking fee unless a customer books one of the services, classes, or employees." We technically made $345, but we should not be charged any fees on this revenue since these services & stylists were not checked off in the fill my books settings.
Hi Evelyn, no, you will not be charged a fee for those. Since your business is listed on the marketplace and marketed via email, we will consider some additional bookings as brought in by Vera. These won't be charged a fee, though, but they will be tracked in the report.
You will be charged a fee only if Vera's Daily Deal discount is used.
Thanks,
Jamie
Why is Vera overriding my online booking hours? I have it set to not take appointment requests closer than 14 hours, but I came in this morning and got one with just 2 hours notice. What on earth is going on here, y'all? Vera seems to be the wild West with the AI just doing whatever it wants.
Hi James,
This is to help promote bookings at your business. When Fill Last-Minute Calendar Openings is turned on, your lead time is capped at two hours so clients can book last-minute openings. This overrides a longer lead time you've set. If your lead time is already under two hours, that lower setting stays in place.
Thanks, Jamie
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