Check Cherry Intro

0:00 : Hey, so this is a quick walkthrough of Check Cherry. : I'm Judd. : I'm one of the co-founders and I'm here with Matt, my other co-founder. : We created Check Cherry to help make it really easy for you guys to reduce friction between your customers, so. : Check Try does some really cool things like offer online booking. : There's an awesome client portal. : You can assign staff, you can collect payments, invoices are automatically generated and updated. : A lot of cool stuff.

0:27 : We're gonna walk through most of it and so Matt's gonna be driving. : We're in the dashboard right now of our demo account Foever events. : Thanks, Judd. : Yeah. : So once you signed up for a new account, sometimes people aren't quite sure where to get started. : And so, a few quick resources for you, just some things to be aware of. : You'll see over on the right here, a getting started checklist in your account. : And this will walk you through kind of the main things you wanna do.

0:54 : For the most part, they're pretty quick, but they include things like setting up your packages. : If you're gonna do online booking, we need to know how much you're gonna charge. : if you're gonna be sending people proposals, it's helpful to have some things already in your system. : You can set up your add-ons, you can figure out what it is that you want your customers to agree to when they book you. : And then we'll have some sample data in there as well. : You can also do things like adding your logo and setting up credit card processing just to kind of make the account. : Some other resources for you. : Probably the biggest thing to be aware of is definitely feel free to chat with us.

1:27 : So in the very bottom of your account, you'll see a little chat widget, just. : Click that and you can send us a message. : We're here to help. : We're here to answer questions, send screenshots, let you know where to get next. : So as you're going through the setup process, you know, we understand it's normal to have questions and definitely feel, feel free to reach out. : We also have some videos here. : So if you click this watch helpful videos link, that's gonna take you to a place where you can learn a bit more about any, any part of Check Cherry. : So if you're at the point where you're setting up your payments, feel free to check that video out for more.

2:02 : And we've got a lot of different features in Check Cherry you can take advantage of. : So, you know, definitely feel free to check those out. : OK, so let's show them the online booking process. : Now something that's important is you can click create new and access the online booking engine. : This will allow you to see all the steps. : It's great when you're setting things up that you can kind of hit refresh or go back and forth and kind of see how the customer will experience it. : There are some slight differences in the online booking process. : We don't let you sign and pay a deposit necessarily, so we're gonna go ahead and grab the link to the top of the online booking engine from the bottom of the package manager.

2:42 : This is probably the easiest place to get it. : Again, chat anytime you have questions. : If you open up a private window. : It'll basically Chuck Terry's gonna think you're logged out. : Here we are at the top of the booking engine. : You'll see it says sign in the top right, so we know we're not logged in. : Of course you can change the images in the back of this. : This is just the demo account that we have currently set up.

2:59 : You can change, and I would recommend changing images that basically reflect the service that you're offering. : We've got a few different services set up here, you know, we've got a photo booth service, a DJ, and a mobile bar, and obviously, these can be whatever you want. : You can organize your packages and services as you see fit. : One of the things that Check Cherry lets you do is walk the customer through the buying process. : In this case, we've got our photo booth services organized by booth type. : another common paradigm is to organize by service types. : For instance, your schools can see your school packages, your weddings can see your wedding packages, and so forth. : So let's go ahead and choose photo booth for now.

3:35 : And let's say the customer wanted to book an open-air booth. : Let's take a look at that. : And we've got a few packages set up in here. : You can load your description, what your package includes, and it's also gonna have a pricing, so the customer can easily compare and contrast, kind of pick what works best for them. : So let's pick this middle package. : And from there it's going to start walking the customer through the buying process. : So, oftentimes what you'll do is you'll have a call to action button on your marketing website. : My favorite is pricing because everybody's gonna click it.

4:06 : You click pricing, they show up, they see your services, they're like, OK, how much? : You click pricing, you send them to the online booking. : Which is effectively a sales funnel. : They'll see packages and pricing and then we collect some personal contact information. : Anybody who fills out personal contact information after seeing pricing is a great lead, worthy of follow up. : We think that it's OK. : If somebody comes to your website, sees your pricing, and says, wow, that's not for me, and doesn't become a lead, because those leads tend to just junk up your inbox and you know they ghost you and that type of stuff, so it's really they're not quality leads. : We've been intentional in how we've structured the steps of the online booking engine with the best practices that we know and so you can have high quality leads that are worthy of follow up, even personal touches if they need it.

4:53 : And so basically at this point, we'll start walking the customer through the rest of, you know, collecting their date, their time, and things like that. : And based on that information, we can automatically make sure that you're available that day, you know, we'll check your availability, and we'll also do things like if you charge special pricing on certain days, you know, discounts for weekdays or surge pricing on New Year's Eve or things like that, you can automatically have that get calculated as well. : Based on that date and package, you can also have different add-ons show up as well. : So we've got a couple loaded up in the system. : And those add-ons can include things like products or services that you offer. : They can also include things like extra hours if you charge idle time or if you have an option for an extra photographer or attendant, they can include things like that as well. : And as the customer chooses and adds different things, we'll keep a running total here on the right to make it easy for them. : You can also load up different backdrops in the system.

5:47 : And so in for photo booths, you know, it's common to have different backdrop options for the customer to choose from. : Check Cherry can take advantage, let you take advantage of double-sided backdrops so that if one's unavailable for a date, we can pull the other one as well. : Let's go ahead and add one of these. : And next, we'll collect the venue, and based on the venue, we can do things like looking up sales tax or travel fees as well. : And so, for instance, you'll notice at this point we have taxes automatically being applied to this order. : If you're in a state that requires that, it makes it really easy to do that. : and then at this point, the customer can either pay the deposit or pay the full balance. : We'll go ahead and select deposit.

6:29 : We also, it's also gonna ask us to, to enter our full name and agree to the terms. : So we've got a very basic contract loaded in here right now. : You can, you know, add your own terms or we've got some examples in your account as well. : You can also decide if you want to make this a little bit more prominent. : We do have an option to show this fully in line on this page as well. : But for now, let's go ahead and enter my signature, check that I've read and agreed to those. : And at this point I can make a payment. : So if I'm on my iPhone, it'll automatically show the Apple Pay option.

6:59 : If I'm on Google, we'll see the the Android Pay option. : I can also make payment via credit card, bank account, things like that as well. : for now, I'm just gonna choose this check option to kind of skip this payment. : This is something that you can customize these payment options as well. : At that point, I've successfully created my booking. : It's gonna ask me to choose a password for when I come back in the future. : And I, as the customer, can now see all my booking details. : I can come back, make further payments, and if there's anything else I need to do, like choose a design template or download an invoice, I can do that as well.

7:36 : Basically, everything I need is gonna be right here in my account. : I'll get an email confirmation as well. : And as an admin, you'll also be getting an email confirmation too. : So let's go ahead and go back to our admin account. : And log back in So now that I've created a booking under that John Smith name, I see that here on my dashboard. : So now, I've got my first booking, and I can click that and see kind of a similar view to what the customer saw, but with more information. : I can also come in and make changes. : There's a couple of things here.

8:08 : So one is the green status is, it's a confirmed booking. : Bookings can have different statuses, like proposal, confirm, confirm awaiting signature. : Confirm means The client is signed and paid and you're basically, you know, on the hook for providing the services. : You'll see also there's several tabs up there. : One of those tabs is the messages tab. : This is really helpful because it shows you all of the emails that have been sent from Check Cherry, basically. : Also, Any email that's sent from Check Cherry by default, you and the client can respond from your Gmail account or whatever, and it'll automatically be logged with the booking. : It's really cool.

8:46 : People love it. : There is a way to turn that off. : It's very rare to do that. : But I think that that's also, you know, a lot of times people that are new, kind of what what was sent out, I'm not quite sure. : Several tabs here on the bookings from the checklist, which will help you create to do items, equipment lists, whatever it may be, designs that's often used for things like photo booth overlays or if you have albums or something that people want to select, basically presenting people with the gallery questionnaires. : This is used primarily more in the world of wedding DJs or caterers where they have a lot of specific questions that they want to ask, of course, making a payment. : Is there, and then the invoice is automatically generated, automatically updated when payments come in, super easy. : There's the contract and signature at the bottom.

9:33 : And then any attachments, so you can also add files to Check Cherry. : One cool thing is you can also create links. : So we've seen people do a Google Drive or Google Doc link to maybe like an employee manual, right? : And you say, hey, only the staff can see this, customers can't see this, you uncheck that box. : And this is like the setup guide or some type of policies. : And then what's cool about that is that in one place you have this file that's kind of you can update it at any time, basically, and they'll be able to access it. : You can also attach files, for example, if you're bringing over existing bookings from another system and you have your contract signed, you could export that as a PDF and upload it here. : That could be a possibility as well.

10:18 : And, and also under that invoice tab you can also come and make changes anytime too as well. : So, you know, say customer, you know, reaches out, they need to add more time or you need to adjust what's being included with the invoice editor, you can come and easily change dates and times and numbers of hours and things like that. : That you can also override pricing or make other changes, and that'll, be reflected immediately and so we'll always keep that invoice up to date with the total, how much has been paid, and what their balance is as well. : And those changes impact just that booking, right? : Or just that proposal. : So common use cases of proposals, basically you've talked to somebody and you know what they want. : Repeat client, hey, we'll have what we had last year, you can duplicate a booking, send them a proposal, maybe you've met somebody in person and you know what they want, you can go ahead and do that as well. : So you just go get create new proposal, put in your info.

11:16 : And I think it's worth mentioning that typically your customers are gonna come in either through online booking, you know, if you have a link on your website, or they're gonna come in through, you know, maybe they reached out to you via other means. : And with the proposal, it's basically just a quick way to send them a link that they. : Can agree to and see the details and sign and pay. : Yep, I think it's also worth mentioning not every Check Cherry customer offers online booking. : The vast majority do, but there are some that we do have lead forms where you can collect leads, you know, lead info, have a sales call. : We have an appointment feature that connects with Zoom. : You can do appointments, talk to people, send the proposals, close the sales, and then manage the bookings basically with Chuck Jerry. : It's certainly possible and does happen.

12:01 : Now that I've created that proposal, I now have a page in the system kind of similar to my confirmed booking, but you'll notice the status is proposal in the right here, and I can hit that preview button and take a look at what the customer is gonna see. : So I've created the proposal, but I've not yet sent it to them. : You know, they're gonna see an overview of your packages, of what's included, a pricing breakdown, what their deposit is. : They can come in, they can accept and sign, and they'll be all set. : Once I'm ready to actually send that out, I would just click that send email button, and I can customize my message if I want to. : Otherwise, I can hit send, and that's gonna go out to the customer. : And then they'll be able to click that link and go to this proposal view. : once they accept and sign it, then it's going to become a confirmed booking, just as if they've gone through the online booking process.

12:50 : It's worth noting here on this proposal, this looks great on mobile. : If you scroll down, you'll see that there are some options where they can choose add-ons, backdrop, that type of thing. : There's settings where you can turn these on and off, that type of stuff. : So, consider that there's also printable versions, and so these are kind of more for somebody who wants to pass it around, corporate, that type of stuff. : You know you can do that. : The client can download it as well from there if they want from the link, but you could too and then send it out. : That's certainly an option. : And there's also this viewed by at the very bottom, and that'll tell you anybody who's viewed the proposal who's basically not logged in and a staff member.

13:27 : And so that could be helpful to know, hey, do I need to follow up on this? : Have you seen it? : Are they passing it around? : So going back to our dashboard, your dashboard always has an overview of what's been created, what bookings you have. : You can customize the dashboard if you deal a lot with proposals. : We have lots of different widgets and things you can do to see more of a proposal-centric view. : Under the sales tab, you'll see more of your day to day operations. : So if I go to sales bookings, I can see that book.

13:52 : That came in through the online booking that we created earlier. : If I go to proposals, I can see any proposals that are in the system, see where they're at, what the status is, and similarly, if I have leads in the system, I can see those as well. : Leads are where they've reached out, but maybe they haven't yet. : You don't have enough information from them to actually send them a proposal yet. : You can also go to the calendar to see more of a calendar view of this information. : So, if I turn everything on, I can see all the different leads I have, the different proposals, different bookings, and get an idea for what my calendar looks like. : You know, if I just wanna see confirmed bookings, I can do that as well. : And just to add, being able to see confirmed bookings, proposals, and leads all on one calendar is really helpful because it lets you know if the date's gonna be booked up or hot or something of that nature.

14:42 : Great feedback we've got from customers that they wanted that. : And also even include things like blockout dates, if you're gonna be out of town, then you just need to make sure you're not taking bookings then, or if you have staff accounts, you can show their availability as well. : Then you then you can also hit the subscribe to calendar button in the very link in the very bottom right and link this up with your Google Calendar, your Apple Calendar, things like that. : We have lots of other things in here, your to do list, you know, what you need to do, your messages, expense tracking, reporting, so lots of different options available. : If I go to my manage menu, that's where I'm gonna see more of my setup stuff. : So, you know, when I was going through my getting started checklist, you know, had links to a lot of these same things, but you can always find them under the management menu. : So if I wanna go and change the packages that I have, you know, I've got my basic standard premium, and hey, I've been getting a lot of requests for a super premium package, you know, I could come in here and duplicate the existing one, you know, rename it, give it a new image, things like that as well. : Yeah.

15:45 : Under add-ons, you can set up any like upsal options you have. : It's gonna work real similar to the packages where you can set up different things that the customer can browse from. : You can also limit your add-ons to just showing up for certain packages as well. : So for instance, this gold stanchion add-on might not make sense for all of your packages. : Maybe it's something you just want to add on photo booth or maybe just on certain types of photo booth even. : Similarly, backdrops, very similar to add-ons, but it's a place where you can load all of your backdrops as well. : And we do integrate with, we have lots of integration, so if, if you use certain backdrop providers, we can automatically import those as well. : Discount codes let you set up different, you know, discounts that you give to a customer.

16:27 : So if you want to give somebody, say, a 10, you know, $10 off code that they type in and, and get a discount, they can do that. : Yeah, this is your traditional discount code type situation or coupons where people have to type it in. : There is a way we can grab the actual link with it, but generally, people type in the code, you advertise it, it's just a great way to market and sell your business and give people a reason to come and book you. : And then flex pricing is kind of similar to a discount code, except it's automatic. : So with flex pricing, you can set up rules that get automatically applied without the customer needing to do anything. : So, for instance, if you want to give your customers a discount for a weekday booking, And you can set that up and you could give them 10% off or $10 off or something like that. : There's a lot of options with flex pricing on the discounts. : We primarily see it on the surcharge actually, right?

17:18 : So things like with surcharges, double the rate for New Year's Eve weekend, a surcharge for bookings that go into the late night, you know, you can do discounts. : Hey, book me in the next, you know, month, you know, by the end of the month we're offering 10% off. : You can do stuff like that. : You can do surcharges based on the venue location. : You could do surcharges based on the city. : So we have customers that are in, for example, New Jersey, and if they go into New York City, it costs more for them, right? : Tolls, traffic, parking, all that stuff, whereas if they stay in the suburbs, it's much more reasonable. : So take a look at the rules again, chat with us if you have questions.

17:54 : And next big thing that a lot of people come to Chet Cherry for is for email automation. : So, it's real common that customers when you Just need an easy way to stay on top of your customer communication. : And so Chitter has lots of features for helping you manage that. : So, within your account, there will be a bunch of automated messages already set up, you know, things like your customer's booking confirmation. : You know, when they book you, we'll have a basic email set up with the details. : You feel free to come in, customize that, make it your own. : But we try to have reasonable defaults, so you don't necessarily need to do that from day one. : If you want to get a little bit more advanced, you can also set up new automations as well.

18:32 : So you can set up a follow-up email to go out a couple of days after somebody books you with additional information or links to fill out their questionnaire or request for information, things like that. : You can also set up emails that go out. : As the customer's date gets closer, just confirmations, hey, just letting you know we're looking forward to being there in a couple days or reminders to your staff, things like that. : Right, so I think Check Cherry makes it really easy for you to look like you're really on top of stuff, basically an automatic email a few days, you know, a week before the event, hey, is there anything I should know? : That can make a lot of sense. : We also have these pre-built templates. : So if you are interested in ideas as to how you might use this, click on that pre-built template button. : That's a great option.

19:14 : It'll give you an idea as to kind of like, hey, maybe this is how I might use that anchor, and Yeah, it's really a helpful feature. : You can also connect to Twilio account and send SMS messages very similar within the same system, and that can also be great. : Absolutely. : And basically, with all of these emails too, if the customer replies to it, it'll get forwarded along to you, and you can just reply to that response, and it'll get back to the customer as well. : So, you don't need to be doing your messaging and Check Cherry. : You can continue to use Gmail or whatever you'd like. : And then similarly with proposals, you can do things like follow up on your proposals, set reminders, hey, just to let you know, you've got 2 days left on your proposal. : Do you have any questions?

19:55 : And then similarly, you can do that for leads as well. : So once somebody comes in, maybe they fill out a contact form, they call you up and you just enter them as a lead, you can have drip campaigns or email campaigns that go out to them automatically. : You can also set up just one-off message templates. : So if you find yourself answering certain questions a lot or certain things you need to send out to customers a lot, you can set up predefined templates that include a lot of that information, and then that gives you a chance to kick it out or customize it before you send it. : Questionnaires give you something like Google Forms or Jot form or something like that, you'll be familiar with this concept. : Basically, questionnaires are kind of More in-depth sets of questions that you ask the customer. : If you have a simple booking process, a lot of times you don't necessarily need to do this, but if you do have a lot of detailed information you need to collect after the fact, questionnaires are great, and questionnaires are designed to be sent after a booking comes in. : We don't want to prevent somebody from booking with a million questions upfront, but once they've paid that deposit and they've committed, now you can follow up with those more detailed questions.

21:01 : and we do have a bunch of templates you can use as well. : So if you click new questionnaire, you'll see different options, you know, anything from music planners to highly in depth, you know, if you deal with corporate clients, planners, and surveys, things like that as well. : Checklists basically allow you to stay on top of, you know, make sure things are getting done. : Assign things to yourself, to staff, and, you know, just kind of stay on top of operations as your bookings get closer, and make sure things aren't falling through. : Really helpful feature and especially as you have staff that you rely on to grab things you don't want them to forget, that's when I think we see people use checklists the most when they got people coming to pick up equipment at the office, shop, whatever storage unit that they can just grab their stuff and check it all off and make sure it's good. : And design collections are real helpful for if you need like templates or photo booth strips, things like that, that you need customers to choose from. : Design collections are really helpful for that. : So you can upload your own templates, you can bulk upload them if you have a bunch.

22:03 : We also integrate with a lot of different template providers, so we can automatically. : Pull in templates from them as well. : So if you use something like photo booth talk, photo booth templates, you can automatically include those within your account as well. : And then under user accounts you'll see all of the users that have access to your system, you know that can be customers, but a lot of times that's gonna include your staff. : If you've got staff accounts, you can come in, you can set up new staff, new admins. : And you can control what they have access to. : If they're somebody you trust, you might give them lots of access to see all the bookings, to make changes, or if you want to keep things a little bit more locked down, you can do that. : And I want to show them real quick.

22:40 : If you go to one of the bookings, let's show them how you can impersonate a user, cause we get a lot of questions. : Oh, what will my staff, you know, what will they see? : So, so we can assign somebody and see there's this impersonate button, so go ahead and click that. : And so now you'll see that orange bar at the top, but we're basically seeing this as the staff member would see it. : So super helpful to understand what various permissions can do, all that stuff, and then you just click that button in the orange to get back to being an admin. : But you can impersonate client accounts and staff accounts and experienced Chuck cherry as they would. : And then in business settings, we've got lots more options for things like setting up your contracts, setting up travel fees, your tax, things like that. : you also see under integrations, and we integrate with a lot of different companies, everything from design template integrations to analytics to backdrops, accounting, appointments, under website integration, you can see lots of different widgets that we have for.

23:36 : Getting access to things you can embed directly within your account, things like contact forms, links to your online booking, different widgets we have as well. : Lots of different options on your website integration once you're ready to add Chet Cherry to your website. : If you're new to Check Cherry, you just got in your account. : You know that this list is really helpful with adding packages, making a test booking, log out, make a test booking, create a proposal, accept it on your phone, just so you can see the whole process. : Check Cherry does not have like a sandbox environment, so. : You'll have to log out. : It's a real booking, but you can post date things and delete them or whatever it may be, but the test bookings can be really helpful in understanding and I guess connecting dots. : So I recommend making a test booking, chat anytime you have questions.

24:24 : Of course, if you ever have feedback, we're always open. : Chuck Sherry got to where it is today by us. : Listening to our customers and what they need and want, we're always improving the platform. : There's a lot to check, Cherry. : You don't have to use all the features. : We've got a lot of customers, for example, that don't do checklists. : If it's just one person or something, they might not use it, but there are tons of features, and we're here to help you evaluate and get on board.