Check Cherry 2024 Recap & a Peek Into 2025

0:07 okay at six o'clock so I think let's get started here um everyone thanks for coming uh we thought it'd be fun to do a kind of a recap of things that we did in 2024 U kind of go through them and then also uh take a look at what's going to come in 2025 and also get your guys' feedback um you know so obviously we do our survey at the end the year um there's great opportunity to provide

0:33 feedback there um you know and the features that you want to see from us um but we'll kind of just go through and then I thought maybe what we' do is um we can mention them um you know and feel free to chat if you have questions or comments um and we'll basically just kind of go through them you know down the list there's not really a particular order I suppose these

0:57 are kind of how they happened overall um or the order that they happened if you will okay so uh and it's funny Matt and I both had the same thought um we were putting the list together um there's more than we thought actually that that uh was accomplished in 2024 I don't know however that works in the mind where you think that um you know not as much got done or something like

1:38 that and then we're like oh wow there's actually quite a bit here soon as it goes out you know I I forget about it you know it's uh and yeah it's always uh I I think over the years you know we we started out um doing it just kind of to uh you know just kind of check in you know take another look at at you know plan for the year ahead and um and I you know personally I kind of enjoy the

2:01 process just looking back seeing what we did you know seeing what check charry looked like a year ago uh seeing what you know what we had planned for the next year so yeah so a couple of things I me here's I'm just kind of going through I'm going to have an article here soon um just work in progress but one of the things we did um was uh we updated the underlying uh infrastructure of our

2:21 UI and uh upgraded the user interface in several different areas um and it's always a balance I suppose for us right we don't want to make too too many changes or too Stark of a change uh but we want to keep on pushing the direction of Czech Jerry to be um more modern and you know sleek and all that stuff quite frankly I I find it hard because there's so much text in our UI to you

2:45 know it's just it is it is what it is um but we did several things to make it you know more intuitive and more responsive visually appealing um and expect that to continue I would say in 2025 um just softening things up and uh and all that stuff um yeah kind of our goal on on a lot of the UI stuff is to just do it slowly you know we're not fans of of the giant you know rewrite where

3:12 everything changes all at once um you know I think we kind of both prefer to slowly move it forward so you you know so it's not too hard to find stuff you know hopefully things slowly improve and you kind of get used changes yeah and I think it's also worth mentioning the way we build software I mean there's there are a lot of smaller changes that happen throughout the year that aren't really

3:34 notable right we don't necessarily tell people about it it's not necessarily noteworthy um but I think that the combination of those smaller changes makes the app better um over time more reliable easy to understand more consistent um all that stuff and so um you know it's been you know a process um and not everything in here is I mean I guess all the changes aren't necessarily listed

3:58 in here but we Al enhanced questionnaires quite a bit um so we did uh questionnaires you know obviously you attach those to your bookings if you need to collect more information um and we had the uh reordering of questions drag and drop that's new in 2024 conditional questions which was a outstanding request uh for a long time yeah you can drag and drop you get your conditional

4:21 questions so basically if the per person asks if person answers in a specific manner another question could show up um that's been popular popular um you can also build a questionnaire based on uh an add-on right being uh purchased so to speak and so that's great because um one of the things that I see uh people will do is they just they have really yeah you just select

4:47 the add-on right there um you know basically uh the questionnaires can get really long and laborious for your clients basically and I think this is a way to help just get the information you require um and there's the revision history on questionnaires so um that's pretty cool because you can see um over time how they were answered or if somebody changed something I guess that

5:14 doesn't have anything um but that's helpful as well and then you can allow clients to unlock questionnaires uh within a set time frame offering more flexibility and long story short is clients with lock questionnaires uh and then I think even mistakenly at times and then admins would have to go in there and unlock it that type of stuff and so now you can have it where they can unlock it

5:39 call it like hey within a week before the booking feel free to unlock it that type of stuff um one probably one of the more important features uh that we uh launched in 2024 was the customizable dashboard um and Matt and I were talking uh that we were kind of we're surprised I guess we're not big customization of dashboard users ourselves and apps Mt but we were surprised because I mean

6:04 a lot of people customized the dashboard so you guys seem to really like it so that's awesome and that was just uh I would say generally consistent feedback on on the survey uh from last year was in some form or other people were looking for some type of customization around dashboard seeing the calendar on the homepage or something whatever it was um would Matt would you say we've gotten

6:26 a lot of feedback on the dashboard in terms of you know enhancements or no we haven't yeah so um so the way we built it you know like you said we got a ton of feedback in last year's survey um you know people wanted to show something else on the dashboard not show something show a calendar things like that um and so it was obvious that you know hey we just need to make it customizable so

6:48 people can can build it how they want you know there wasn't there wasn't anything we could do that would make everybody happy on that so um so it was just kind of you know let's make it let's let's have tools and and so we've got um the way it's built you know we can pretty easily add widgets um we've had a few little requests here things like I think brands on on some of

7:08 the widgets um you know some some minor things but yeah we haven't had too many requests on that for new components if you will right yeah we've had I don't I'm not sure if we've had any new component requests maybe and so Ian I in some ways I think that's good because it sounds like we cover most of the bases um you know so but if you ever have uh thoughts or feedback on the dashboard feel free

7:33 to chat with us let us know um you know always good to see uh the feedback but there's a lot of options here and it seems like it's working for most people yeah and a lot of them are are customizable as well so if if you're not sure how to you know see your leads and kind of break them up in different ways you know maybe there's um maybe there's a way to do that too so you know

7:53 just chat with us if you're looking for something just a couple chats in the uh so Larry says Hey changes have been great I don't use the app since subscribing have there have been updates there as well yeah and I'll cover them um yeah Larry feel free to use the native app um keep in mind check Cherry also the web app works great on mobile um people really like the native apps too and

8:14 uh we'll talk about it later but you also get you know inapp notifications which are really cool um with the native app uh cam says is the conditional questions can wait is the conditional question can that be used in the inquiry process as well not just the normal questionnaire so in other words that cam I'm assuming should be on a lead form you know if I'm asking for lead forms and all that

8:38 stuff um I don't M I believe no the answer is no no um yeah not not there um you can do things like show certain like during the online booking you can show certain questions based on the package um but that's about it we don't have yeah what do you what are you thinking of the use case is it like hey pick a service and then only show pack packages for example related to that service so an

9:02 example is is uh I want to qualify my customers um I already have pricing on my website but they all seem to pass that and go direct to to the contact page and so if there is a a thing like they click an event style and then it populates based on the event style a question like an example would be my pricing starts at $5,000 can you or are you okay with that and then they can select that they can

9:31 move forward it's just a question do you do you use the online booking engine at all no currently I don't because you don't have conditional questions like that I'm using the one in um using the one in WordPress I think the the online booking engine because it does show packages and pricing at before you get contact information and so I think that can help weed out in this case

9:55 just throwing it out there um and you can also use a mode that just generates proposal requests so they can't actually book so you can review it and choose to send a proposal I just wanted I just want a button that just says hey are you okay with this on condition on whatever the the St event is because I don't use your guys' packages necessarily because mine is all Talent fee based

10:19 and based on a lot of different factors so it's not a price fits all oh so the pricing is kind of starting at yeah okay got it yeah exactly so no thank you thank you for answer no appreciate the feedback um Okay cool so so the dashboards I mean I think that's a huge feature right it's high use as as we mentioned I mean a lot of people are using it so that's great um and it was consistent

10:42 feedback over the years I would argue that's been consistent feedback in the uh in the survey but it seems like last year it was the most most common in some form or another um we enhan the messaging features of check Cherry so uh you can now send a message later or schedule it so to speak uh when sending um and so you just do that by a new message and you pick the time date and time

11:05 use case here I think people were basically you know hey if I'm working late at night I don't want client to know I'm working at midnight or something like that um that's kind of the use cases that I was hearing uh from um I think that applied you know to text messages too maybe you're you know setting a test text message and you certainly don't want that to go out at night so

11:24 yeah right yeah that's interesting right you don't want to bother them in the middle of the night um and so that's that's in there um you can finally add multiple attachments in your email um you know so you can add multiple files and send an email uh keep in mind there are some file limits that email service providers um Implement and if you're always sending the same attachments you probably

11:48 should upload them somewhere online that way you can always have the links and then you can change that file um you know at a later date basically but um that's done um and then then we have uh kind of we we this this kind of relates to the UI but the quick send button um and so um if you go to a booking now we we have what we call Quick send and this is just kind of a a better UI

12:14 experience for accessing all those automated messages and custom templates that you have we kind of break them up and and we've tried to make that better in the automated messages easier to understand uh automated messages versus um custom templates versus system templates all that stuff I think it's still a little confusing it's just a harder problem for us to solve I think you

12:33 know all around um but you can yeah you can send now you can add any of them to the queue um and you can send any of them now before that was only options based on the settings um and then you can link right to it so Larry's got his hand up hey Larry what's going on go ahead and chat with us yes um first of all you guys are doing a fantastic job uh with the software the updates it has

12:56 tremendously uh improved our business's efficiency and ultimately the client experience um we have been able to migrate to pretty much a 95% online booking um yes so seeing those emails come in in the middle of the night um really make spending that subscription well worth it and um then also my team we use it for you know managing the team and the experienced attendance and the DJs and so

13:27 thank you so much for just really empowering and enabling our business to grow um utilizing your software um what I would like to see um is kind of I guess maybe like a I don't know the terminology but more of like a logic tree when um clients are booking maybe like a just for example if they know their budget but they don't know which photo booth experience they want or if they want a DJ like a

13:58 a way that we can provide a questionnaire essentially that is dynamic based on their responses to with the goal of ultimately getting them the right experience for their particular event does that make sense basically you want to go through and say hey what's your budget and I'll show you what I have exactly exactly and then also put in additional factors you know um

14:24 in there you know more than just budget but that would be nice to see something like that that kind of guides them to the right package because more of a consultative versus uh like a menu of items yeah tell tell me what what are some of the other areas that you would want to Branch off or we talk about price what else yes so speaking about photo boots specifically um we offer different types of

14:50 photo boots so we offer roaming photo boots green screens all of that good stuff so being able to understand you know first price then also are they looking for um a uh photo experience or if they're looking for a video experience uh if they're looking for like prints if they want that in there so just really things that kind of narrow down oh you need this package because it does come

15:15 with the pH open air photo booth or uh with prints with backdrop included things of that nature so that would be some of the things that I would definitely incorporate in there um in navigating the user to the or the client to the right package yeah and cam you're right it's similar to what you were saying with price so uh good feedback I like it awesome thank you yep um checklists were

15:41 enhanced uh you know so we have now you can assign checklist items to staff members um so that's new um and then they can view their assigned checklist items um and checklist is one of those things where um what we see is um typically people with larger staff counts use checklists as opposed to just kind of single operators obviously you're not as worried about it um but so this was

16:08 a great I think it was a great enhancement basically because you have team members that are responsible for certain things um and so uh checklist is awesome if you're not using it and you have staff um I recommend it um that due dates all kinds of great stuff so speaking of the staff um we also did uh an improvement to staff availability settings so staff members can now set

16:31 their availability based on specific days start times end times you know that type of stuff and so excuse me um obviously it's important if you have people that work with you and have you know lives outside of working with your business um and so they they're not willing to do weekdays or you know maybe uh you know they can't do anything too late uh because they have children I'm not quite

16:57 sure I mean there's various reasons but your staff can now basically set some constraints um and you know I think longer term we'd like to have even more features around scheduling and staff stuff calendar Integrations all kinds of stuff um but this is a good step in the right direction I think uh it really helps us probably worth mentioning all of the the staff availability stuff is um in

17:21 the mobile app as well I think um to me the where I think the sweet spot of the mobile app is for your staff where they don't necessarily want to Lo in they don't you know want to remember you know sit down and do it they just uh want to do things quickly on their phone so yeah yeah the staff is important um payments so we did H payments is really important obviously for uh everybody and

17:46 um we added I think probably uh one of the more uh notable features for most existing customers the credit card sir charges um that was uh oh I think since day one people and asking to do Ser charges and stuff um and so you can now do that on your payment plans or payment settings should I say um so credit card a whatever it be and different uh Payment Processing fees worth

18:11 noting there are various uh laws that you might need to comply with uh so check with your local regulations um but this is a great way for people to recoup the payment processing fees give clients the option to pay with card um and still earn the same amount um we did tax exemption for clients so I put this in the payment section as well so if you have uh a customer who you're doing repeat

18:37 business with and they're nonprofit or something like that you can now mark their account as as a tax exempt and uh upload a document and if they book online uh or if you create proposals U it'll it'll be tax exempt so easier uh than overwriting it on each booking as that's how it was before payment plans and so this was a huge feature um a lot of work went into payment plans um

19:07 Larry asks if uh if we have a way to pull tax exempt clients and let's see here under The Client List I don't think we do but um just chat with us sometime that'd be an easy one for us to ask but the payment plans is new um and so this allows you to basically offer uh set payment plan dates you know um you know hey pay pay a deposit up front and then three payments and you

19:37 know broken out evenly to your event or monthly payments um obviously customers could have made a payment of any amount at any time towards their balance um but we think this is this is really cool and what I love is the automated uh charges on cards you know you can set that and require it or configure it um I think it's just great for businesses to basically smooth

20:01 out cash flow it's great for customers because they can you know expect know what to expect and pay off over time um that type of stuff so this is new um what do you think so far has been the feedback on the payment plans yeah um yeah broadly positive I think um there's a few people that want to be able to do things like hide the the full balance up front so um there may be a few

20:25 more tweaks we make to it but um yeah it's been been real positive um you know we've been seeing people set up payment plans and um I think it's a just a nice way to kind of you know simplify you know one less thing to worry about and um and I think it's mostly useful for high dollar amounts you know if you're doing a lot of weddings um things like that you know you're you're dealing

20:47 with people on a limited budget but you know but a high dollar amount and so I think payment plans really help a lot with that yeah I think that that's you know and it's a you know it's also selling feature for your customers too or you know for for you too is you know an advantage you can give you know your customers as yeah cam handle the whole process yeah cam you're

21:09 not offering payment plans yet is that what I'm am hearing you that yeah so yeah okay cool yeah let us know how it goes um you know yeah I've thought about it for years and we just haven't had that option here and so I'm excited for that I'm curious if there's any thoughts on actually making it so people can't make a payment more than what they um more than what you want them to pay

21:33 as far as like the first couple payments go uh because sometimes you don't want them giving you the money in a physical year before the actual event for tax tax St so I don't know if that's an option just a thought I wanted to throw out there we had a few requests for is to like we always show the the pay the full balance up front feature or option and um that's one will probably

22:00 make optional the only kind of uh hiccup there is is a lot of times people set their final due date you know say 14 days before the event and then you know if if we didn't have the the pay full balance then nothing would show up so exactly yeah I understand why yeah so there's a few like edge cases we'll have to figure out first but no worries I just wanted think I think that's

22:23 something that you know it's worth doing and I don't think it'll be too hard for us to add so if people want to give me money I'm taking it that's all I'm saying I just want to deal with it all in one year I mean I think it was last year I got paid $45,000 in full payments for this year and I was like uh I don't want to have to sit on this for nine and a half months that's where

22:50 I was at with some of them so that's the only reason I share it it's not the problem is just it'd be easier to just say ah you can't pay that extra and I guess it makes sense because they're already committed right I mean they're already committed it's not necessarily like yeah yeah it's not a problem it's just more of a I prefer not to get it so early that it's like sitting

23:09 there in an account for so long yeah yeah I like it uh another big feature was AC direct debit payments um and so now um long you know I think probably since day one people have wanted a at check cherity and I I think the reason it wasn't always the top priority is because we don't think that customers necessarily you know are itching to log into their bank account do a

23:35 um certainly now unless there's a reasons such as paying Payment Processing fees um so if I can save 40 bucks or something sure I'll log into my bank and take the 30 seconds or something like that I think that that's a common pattern or a reasonable pattern you know to expect somebody to do but disadvantages to e with you know it does clear a lot more slowly it's um just kind of a little

23:58 bit more more complicated you know there was a lot to to kind of deal with on the back end as far as you know somebody puts the the wrong number in and then you know and then the funds don't get through and things like that so um definitely a lot of complexity to it but I think you know I I think it's been been pretty pretty reliable we've been seeing people using it um I I think it's been a a

24:18 good addition as well like it uh mini session enhancement so we improved the mini session feature of check Cherry to allow for multiple bookings to happen in one time slot and so um for those who are confused many sessions are uh often used kind of like one date multiple booking slots um and so photographers use them we see them with corporate head shots Santa photo shoots that

24:47 type of thing um and this will basically allow you to say hey um you know there's there I'm going to have 15 minute long slots um it's only going to take a few minutes to get everybody but I don't you know have have 10 people come within this 15-minute slot and then people are a little late a little early it doesn't necessarily matter um and so I'm excited for that yeah two slots

25:09 left that type of thing um and we haven't run any numbers to see what the usage is like on the mini sessions um but I do know that people do use it for the Santa uh sessions and stuff like that yes it's uh it's interesting sometimes the you know I I don't think it's a huge feature of cck cherry but it's something that you know we had somebody using it for like Santa slay rides or um you know

25:33 we've seen photo boo set up you know uh just in a location and and book it out for the whole day things like that so it's kind of interesting seeing some of the things people do with it all so what else we got Integrations so QuickBooks integration uh was a 2024 also let I mean probably one of those things that it's you know almost from

25:58 day one people wanted some level of a QuickBooks integration uh we got finally got it done uh is it still just for us customers or do we now have and I think Canada's in beta beta if you're in Canada and you want to do that you know let us know uh and we can kind of hook you up yeah all of the the fun thing with QuickBooks is for us anyway is the uh all the tax implications of everything you

26:26 know every country handles sales tax differently so we just kind of have to go through and test everything with each country and so we just kind of need to you know uh some people willing to to begin so if somebody's from the UK or Australia and wants to test out the QuickBooks integration they should reach out to us Matt yeah yeah Okay cool so yeah let us know um we integrated with

26:48 Patty um so they offer photo booth templates um and so Patty is uh really cool Service uh I think 10,000 plus customizable photo booth templates you can bring them in check Cherry have your clients pick them all that good stuff um so check that out and then also we upgraded the integration with PBO templates um so that's phot templates.com and really changed it to where it uses more of check

27:18 Cherry's native features if you will um and so that's great because it just works works really well when we know when a template's been picked and and all that good stuff and you don't need a subscription to access the PB templates um I don't know with Patty do you need a subscription to access Patty's templates I don't remember I don't think we require a key or anything yeah I

27:44 think once you're once you go to actually download it then of course um then of course you would but um and then they've got yeah you would need it right you need it once you uh get the template one of my searches sorry searches features um that we added was the global search so um that's been really helpful um it was a kind of a consistent not major but consistent support issue where

28:10 people were looking for things and there was multiple search text areas where you'd have to find leads versus you know bookings and and uh maybe something would be checked or unchecked and un toggled um but this has been great um and so um we'll probably enhance this uh in 2025 would be my guess I'd love to see us even pull in things like packages and settings or add-ons you know if

28:33 you want to find an add-on real quick um we have to see how that all works with the the ranking and all that stuff um but yeah Global search is awesome uh came out great the media library is new um and so also another thing so by I don't know that anybody ever really asked for Global search that was not really something that people ask for but we knew it was something that would be really

28:58 helpful the media library is something that people asked for quite a bit and they're just using the same images again and again and they wanted them in check Cherry um so now you can do that um so if you're changing the header of your proposal you can basically grab um you know items from your media library uh frequently use that type of stuff and uh go from there um so that's been great and

29:21 not a lot of feedback on the media library either um I'm going to say that's a good thing and that it's working um but we haven't we haven't heard a lot of feedback on that one either um another feature related to packages and add-ons was you can now include add-ons automatically with a package and so you can do it free of charge or you can actually include it plus the cost

29:46 um so that's been really helpful for bundling services and uh just great for um doing things like managing your availability with add-ons for those premium packages that type of stuff and so I also think it just I'm curious to see how people use it over time but yeah you can include add-ons automatically and before in check chair you would just basically description say stuff and maybe do

30:10 a booking bundle um and it would work but if you had a lot of it it would become unwieldy basically and kind of hard to understand what was going on um Larry says contract templates is a current feature correct I'm not quite sure what you mean by the contract templates we don't have any there's no uh various templates you know there's a contracts you know term section but we don't

30:31 have templates that you can pull in um it'd be cool we should do stuff like that you know kind of a starting point um you know the contracts are tough because state laws vary and you know the devil's in the details on that stuff but I think giving you guys a place to start um and then kind of modify from there um even reach out to a local attorney you know who knows your your jurisdiction

30:53 laws would be cool go ahead Larry yeah so yes so my my uh question is more along the lines of uh when I have a client that has strict like legal um requirements that we have to integrate into our standard agreement um are we but those requirements are for every event that they book so oh so Contra client specific contract terms correct there you go yeah um and not a

31:20 feature and I don't I think they're the first to mention that actually I don't have you heard heard that one before I'm gonna be the first to mention a lot of stuff man might as well get used to it yeah no it's good u i mean well it's good in that we want new new information it's bad in that you know it's harder to prioritize things that just get mentioned once tell me more how often does

31:41 this happen um you know in terms of throughout the year I mean is this like one is this no so it's most of my business is uh corporate nonprofit and all of them I'd say 85% of them like my contracts get my standard agreement is redlined um and then I'd say 80 80% of my business is repeat business so um it'd be nice to you know once I finally get those red lines done and I can integrate

32:12 that into that specific client's contract going forward I won't have to go through the legal because that sometimes takes weeks to get through some of these companies legal departments so I'm just wanting to have once I have it no it makes sense um and you're currently you just override it manually I would assume right I do I do just change it yeah um no that's interesting

32:34 I haven't heard that before so but that's good to know that that's happening um I think as a side note I think the best feedback that our customers give us is kind of when they help like explain the problem of what's going on you know what I mean so you did a great job of that I mean that's really helpful giving context why it's helpful all that stuff so love it thank you sir appreciate it yeah

32:53 native app updates also so um you know our iPhone and Android apps got updates so you can send scheduling message you can view the Open click bounce status of messages um we did a whole new message center in fact um where you can review uh and approve messages um you know there's quite a quite a bit in there um as a side note I mean as Matt's on here um I don't know if it works I I you

33:19 know I at least on the Mac if you have a Mac you can download cheze cherry as a desktop version and uh get inapp alerts um I thought that was pretty cool um you can also obviously use the app um not I don't know why anybody would do that but you can get the inapp alerts which is kind of cool uh on the desktop um so if you want to you know get those um you can look at historical messages add

33:43 multiple attachments to message to to your emails um adjust the send replies improvements to message template system overall um there was just a lot there and uh I like what you said earlier about the messages kind of being you know really a staff thing primarily The Sweet Spot um but we I mean a lot of people use the app um certainly um and then there was just a ton of small stuff you know like

34:09 I say there's just a lot of you know as you guys give us feedback we prioritize we try to squeeze things in here and there and while a lot of those changes aren't noteworthy or uh you know even that memorable I think over time what happens is those add up to just making a great user experience and so we really appreciate all the feedback you guys have given us um what are some of your favorite

34:30 features uh from Hello Jude and mat can I ask a question how you guys doing yeah sorry I joined late so I didn't want to like just jump in U one of my question would be like I work with certain event centers and I kind of have a deal with them whereby I give like a little bit off here and there and some of them provide me with a list I don't want and mostly the list is just their

34:54 name name and email no phone number included but I'm looking for is there a way in the future you guys because we kind of automated messages already but in more like you know people that are you don't you you don't have on boarded already you can just like get the list of because like one of the event places now send me like 50 people that I have booked for next year or like this coming year

35:19 and all I have is their email but I would like to do like kind of email automation without having to leave check Cherry ecosystem to maybe like another this thing like I don't know if I'm putting it right but the idea is like having automation system for people that I've never sent a proposal to or create a new account for because that means I have to create new account for 50 people before

35:43 I can send them those automated message that we you guys currently have build in place am I making any sense if I am not just let me shut up so maybe so what I'm hearing is you want to be able to upload a list of leads and then send them emails and automated messages am I correct on that yes something like that without having all the full information about their party

36:07 apart from the dates their name and the email address so uh just a couple of thoughts um one we've stayed away from uploading list of leads because typically when people do that it's just going to end up resulting in more spam reports I guess um so it's like hey I want to have my list of leads and send email blast that type of stuff we don't have those features um at the moment yeah

36:28 mass emails um specifically because they tend to damage our deliverability basically or or your deliverability even um from your account um you know and so check Cherry doesn't do much on sales automation I can see where it would be helpful I think if we ever did uh you know more complex um sales CRM type features where you upload lists of leads and mass email and it goes out on different

36:53 IP addresses and different email addresses I could see something like that um I don't know that it'll be 2025 I Matt what do you think yeah I think um that's the thing we wrestle with I mean it's you know it's it's an obvious feature to have you know be able to send out email you know in in larger quantities um it's just the the problem we run into is you know it's so so frustrating when

37:14 a proposal doesn't get through or you know you're trying to go back and forth with a client and um you know and that's not getting through um and unfortunately like sending out a bulk you know 50 emails at once just like just kills the the deliverability rates and so um you know in a in a perfect world I you know we would have had it years ago it's it's just kind of figuring out how

37:38 to balance those those two things I think so yeah I mean like from a technology standpoint it's you know like it's probably not that big of a feature we already have the messaging all that stuff it's just more managing the IP addresses and reputation and all that stuff it just seems like a lot of work um and will leak to more for customer service issues and unhappy customers frankly um

37:58 so that's kind of yeah that's where that stands right now but like I say there are ways we can get around that right or or we can mitigate that with different IP addresses and sending and you know that type of stuff um maybe it's a feature you pay extra for that would help as well um you know I'm not quite sure we we'll we'll see but good feedback thank you guys I appreciate my

38:20 other question would be which ways are you guys currently think in implementing AI for some of us that has this last year and barely want to type anything to create the nice message hey I'm guilty of it like I love check Cher you guys know at least had my African voice like a couple of time now you know but like definitely there's a couple of things that I'm still learning to do better

38:46 within the system or that I will ow you know you guys put in place because like I do a lot mostly weddings we know how this female feel they love Aesthetics immediately they click book now and take them to check Cherry site I lose half of them because I track ATT track it with lucky orange and yeah you guys have a good features whereby when if they fill the form out I can always get

39:10 them oh let me complete this whatever for you but most times it's like they just like oh okay it looks different because the design from your page is not translating to the design in check Cherry because check CH has his own thing and he can't upload like he can upload everybody's font and stuff like that so I would love the idea where by one day everything stay on my website but check

39:35 Cherry is still killing it you know yeah did I did I correctly the the 50% of people that click over do book no a lot of them just drop off from there they just fall off what percent or maybe because I can't even track it because so I most times luy even show me once they out on my website I can see what's going on and I can only for try to track it individually by seeing okay how many of

40:03 them fill out the form or like and it's very very like I'll say 10% if not less fill out the form that way so mostly I just end up I just took that aspect out and just sent them a brochure with a hope that they'll fill the form like because I use a lot of Google Google ads so they'll fill out the form then I send them a a brocher after they click submit that's the way I've

40:27 been using to try and medicate them leaving the site after they click book now because I don't want to talk to them if I have like if I have it my way I don't want to talk to them I just want them to book if they like what they see and if the price works for them but right now I couldn't do that because I feel like I lose a lot of them once they click book now and it

40:48 it changed to check Cherry website that's what I've noticed it's not consistent with what we see over the years of check Cherry that that being uh material with conversions I would think do they don't see the pricing until they click book now I would assume right yes yeah and I my my hunch is that's probably where most of the drop off happens is they see the price and they're like

41:10 well I'm not going to continue because I can't afford that and I would argue that that's a win right because then you don't end up with a lead in your system that you have to waste your time you know who's never going to understand the value or the expectation I guess of even being in range um and so I think it's okay we see a lot too with um the way people buy online is they're looking for

41:35 information a lot of times at first you know and so they're coming you know they're checking out different websites collecting information and checking pricing uh you know and and they're not necessarily at the point where they're ready to book yet uh you know and so typically you know they'll come back later or you know compared to other you know they'll actually do the booking at

41:57 a different time than when they when they first come to your website um but yeah um any other thoughts on features in 2024 um and if not we'll kind of move on to what we're thinking in 2025 um but I'd love to know what was kind of people's favorite feature or maybe there was something smaller I missed that that type of stuff um and if not we'll kind of talk about yeah I think like

42:23 the media Gallery is pretty dope that you guys had that and you can just pull from that every now and then because some people ask the same questions and I don't know if I had a PDF but mostly images and like oh can we see what your setup look like so depending on what they asking I just like okay hey this is what you're looking for I just I can do it easily on my phone and I'm not also sure if

42:48 you guys have an app I think I'm end up finally download it because I I just been using the mobile on my phone I'm never sure if you guys have an not for like mobile phones yeah there's an iPhone and Android app uh check it out um and you can get the Links at the bottom of check cherry.com um links and QR codes that type of stuff uh and then cam on your pricing thing I mean just could you even put

43:15 on the web form like as like a title hey minimum price starts at X do you have that the problem is is each style and type of event is different on pricing of where so like example is the luxury Market that I'm in with wedding starts at a certain price point whereas when corporate corporate could be production right and I don't want to lose that lead when I say starting fee

43:40 starts at right so the conditional is based on the type of event and then that so yeah I just wanted to share I appreciate that you guys answer as often and as fast as you do I don't chats yeah yes I I just want to share that as a user um that has been one of the most powerful tools of all tools when we can have a conversation with you guys and especially with the things that you've listened

44:11 to QuickBooks this year that was absolutely gamechanging for me uh there's a few things I wanted to talk to you guys about but I think that'll be on a different conversation when I'm at meex are you guys going to be at meex this year y oh yeah okay so I'll come find you and we'll talk a little bit about it there's a few tweaks I'm hoping that we can or if it's just something

44:31 I'm doing wrong um but other than that like I just I just really appreciate um and I I think I'm speaking for everyone on the group that you guys listening to us it really a lot uh as business owners in this and that's why I went all in and I'm trying to get all my friends to join because you have no idea how lifechanging this is nice um and userfriendly a lot of the other ones are

44:57 not user friendly like training somebody and training yourself to get it figured out it's just a pain in the ass so thank you yeah fast customer service good customer service easy do software is never going to go out of style and so top priority for us I can definitely send what everything DJ cam R just said I have like three people trying to take me away from check Cherry that

45:22 yeah even cost like a whole I'm like okay I'm paying you to teach me Google ads or this not to try and change my CRM system I like what it works I understand it like I you know it's the truth I'm just being honest like even though I still have like some things that I would like it to change but you can you know you can't have it all but in all honesty and also when there's

45:45 situation when you guys change your fee I think mat was the one that reached out to me because like um was I couldn't because then I didn't know I was even monthly I thought I was playing yearly but he fixed that for me on the back end so I appreciate I do appreciate thank you it man thanks thanks for the support in the business um there's a question in the uh chat here about they

46:07 wonder if we want to open up uh translations on the platform and the main reason is they can't switch to Check Cherry because they're mostly in a French market and so I'm assuming that's uh in Canada uh Quebec or something um and I I wish it was easy for us to do International and localization um in the app it's not it becomes actually quite a bit of work and we do get uh

46:35 requests for different languages um I don't know I mean I in my mind it's like under 10 times in a year it's not often um and then it also tends to be you know really vary um and so um it's not something that we'll be adding anytime soon I wish I had a better answer I wish it was easier for us basically to just add other languages um but it's actually quite a bit of work um both in setting it

47:05 up and then also um in managing it so to speak so it's probably not something that's going to happen in the next year or a few is what be my guess um maybe some might change we'll see um maybe AI will give us a way to uh you know automatically translate the app it tends not to so well um and I got on the comment on AI um you know we're interested in AI right uh we use chat GPT and mid

47:32 journey and other things and you know we have fun with it um we're interested in kind of learning um and seeing kind of what works we're we're we're fans of software that works and so um I could see what the message is that being an area you know where it can help you craft a message or make it more casual or more professional or something like that that that could really help it's built

47:54 in so I get that U no specific plans for AI uh in 2025 um at the moment at least Rosie says will you have any special trainings at PBX and so I think the short answer is um yes we're going to do like a side talk um and I've got a talk with Rob at photox so because I think we're going to change it to basically how to get the most at a check Cherry something of that nature um Rosie if

48:21 there's anything specific you're looking to you know learn feel free to chat it in um you know and let me know and then uh the person who mentioned about the translation said that's sad because snapic offers an open translation where they can manually translate each buttons yeah yeah I mean I think software like snapic is um not as complex from uh you know from the UI what customers see I

48:44 mean there's just there's a lot of texts in a lot of areas in Check Cherry that have to work um it's just not an easy thing for us to accommodate um probably tens of thousands of strings you'd have to translate like there is a lot between message Automation and and just different you know Integrations uh where we integrate with other uh tools and unfortunately with the CRM it's

49:10 just kind of a just a much more complicated a lot harder and like I say I wish I had a better answer I mean it would I would love it would make me if I had a magic wand ch ch is available in any language you want um but we have to prioritize and run a business and it's just not something that's really on the table right now so um I wouldn't mind because the rest is so nice yeah put the

49:33 effort on my side translate yeah no I get that um you know it's just but again it's just a lot of work and also I think having users translate the whole app would not be feasible um so yeah um and then in 2020 well I guess Larry here what does he have multiple fields for deliver deliverable links uh use several software for different photo booth experiences and they all have their own unique

49:55 Gallery links yeah and so um you know you can put a gallery Link in the booking um on a uh on the where is that the uh media we yeah we relabeled it deliverables um so you want to be able to do more than one it sounds like um and so that's interesting you know I I could see that you know you kind of build them out or something like that theoretically you could actually put them all in

50:21 the instructions um there's not really anything special about the instructions fi and if you put will yeah that's good feedback a and another thing we want to do is we want to do more Integrations so um you know we're always talking to other companies and seeing who's interested we know that check Cherry is better when it works with software you guys are already using um and so we're really

50:45 open to integrating with other companies that do uh stuff that that you guys use if you ever have ideas for Integrations uh feel free to reach out out reach out to that company as well let them know especially with this uh you know we'll be in in February we'll be in Las Vegas at the trade show um and if you're in the photo booth world that's a um you know we'll be reaching

51:06 out and just touching b with other vendors so that's a good time to kind of touch base with people so um in terms of 2025 so what do we have coming down the pipeline um so probably the next thing coming is going to be an applo feature and so this is basically hey um I want to have a meeting with a client to qualify them um you know before the sale after the sale that type of

51:35 thing um so that'll be coming um probably first we want to do things like uh rethinking how proposals work um you know we know people want more from our proposal system everything from grouping multiple proposals to adding more content um changing the look maybe themes we'll see we'll see what that looks like we're not quite sure um we want to make it way easier for you guys to work together so if

52:01 you work with other people in your Market um you know how do we make it easier for you guys to work together um we have some ideas around that um and I think we want to enhance some of the add-on features of Check Cherry um that's been uh you know something that comes up quite a bit those are just some things to that I think off the top my my head Matt anything you can think of in 2025 those

52:26 are those are kind of the the big ones that we know um but I would say the the main thing is um so we'll do our I don't know when we'll send out that survey probably in the next couple of weeks um but every year we do an end of thee survey and um that's a good chance for us to because you know all year long we get we get different features and you know sometimes something that's

52:48 super important now you know when you look back at the year it's like oh you know that's fine but you know there's something else that that just keeps coming up so um so it's really helpful to see like okay what you know what are the takeaways once we get feedback from everybody um you know what are what are the things people are missing and then um and then like you say with some of the things

53:08 like you know ways of working together um you know we don't necessarily get a lot of feedback about that but we think there's some you know we have we have a lot of cool ideas that we think would would really uh kind of move the needle on some of that and cam says hey I'd love to I'd love the work together option when working with other companies that use chck I have three in my market and we do

53:25 events together yeah and so it's something we see and obviously there's unique opportunity there for us um the devils in the details on a lot of these features you know it's not like we just um you know set out to knock it out I mean there can be things that happen that aren't foreseen you know where things come up quicker or you know priorities change or maybe it's not a good time

53:45 to do this because we should do this instead or we have to get other groundwork you know laid for uh that feature to work but sometimes we'll start on a feature and then you know partway through it's like you know this just this is too confusing we don't like where it's going and and kind of hunt on it for a little bit yeah not all the work we do gets put out yeah I mean I think that's important

54:06 to to think about too and um but yeah I mean so give us feedback on the survey um and if you have any thoughts on what you'd like to see feel free to share it um but um chat with us any time and I guess that's another thing that's new in 2024 is we hired Sam so Sam's been helping us with chat um we still see the chats we're still monitoring chats we're still heavily involved um but it's

54:29 been really nice to have her help us out and allow us to focus in other areas um and just less disruption all around I would say it's been really nice for Matt and I um but Sam's been working out great um and so we're really happy with her and uh hope hope that she's you know uh happy with with uh you know what we do for her and and uh everything's going well so far so we we're excited

54:56 about that and 2025 should be good and we might even be doing more hiring so we we'll see what happens um well everyone thanks for coming I mean if anybody has thoughts on on 2024 2025 feel free to you know chat with us um you know raise your hand now you can share some things um and if not we'll sign off and uh Happy uh Happy Holidays happy uh you know uh New Year to to everybody

55:20 as well so really appreciate that yeah cool and Larry says 2020 top UI and ux enhancements for me would be to consider chech charity subscribers Target client being corporate and nonprofit organizations instead of private events what do you mean by that Larry I'm not following that um so thank you for giving me just a second so since we've shifted away from private events

55:45 uh such as weddings birthdays anniversaries things of that nature and focused more on uh brand activations and corporate Gallas and fundraisers things of that and those types of events just dealing with the program directors the program managers all of the quote unquote event organizers for these different companies um they enjoy the professionalism of the platform however like on

56:12 the back end I'm doing a lot of like workarounds to appeal to that type of client specific needs so great and I mentioned before like um just with the for one example when they're booking online it there needs to be a place where they can enter the name of the event all of my events have an like an event name so when they're seeing that first proposal it'll come out usually the organizer's

56:43 name and then what they're getting from us like Sarah Jackson 209 Party Booth and it'll say that as the title when it would be much more um I L I remember looking at your account what what was how would we do that though that's what I didn't understand I remember looking at your account and that the titles were kind of um I guess generic and not not necessarily uh something

57:13 we could automate well I think it's as simple as adding in a field or a place during the request for quote process given maybe like a conditional where you say uh do you have an event name or what is your event name that is the question that I ask my clients every single time is what is the name of your event and they will enter that information in there and I wish that there was a

57:39 way for that to automatically pull to proposals to the the contract to everything because that's what that's how they differentiate all of their events anyway you know because they're doing mult multiple events a year and they're booking them months in advance so having to you know sift through because they're email driven you know I'm trying to educate them on the Simplicity of

58:04 the client portal that's what we call it um and they're they're loving it but there's like I don't really see the difference in when they're going through their emails on the different types of events and being able to do the contracts where they're customized for specific clients legal requirements and all of that that would be another way that we could being corporate so

58:27 just little things like that really big impact uh on our day-to-day yeah no I get it I appreciate the feedback and um you know I think have you tried to doing an extra question on the booking process just to ask that information I know it won't set the title um I have not tried that I will definitely give it a shot um and see if something I can do as a you know a better

58:56 workaround but it is a a easy like it's an easy enough thing to where I don't mind doing it but it seems like it definitely could be added simply to the platform just what happens on RN is there's a lot of these type of things where one person has something specific that works with them but like nobody else is asking for it it's just hard to make that stuff a priority quite frankly and and

59:23 that's what you know I've been explained and I I definitely understand that um for sure um I just think that as more photo booth because this is what I I see I see as more subscribers start using Check Cherry what the common theme is going to be is the is you're changing the way that clients expect to book photo boot services and I'm just talking about photo boots even though we offer

59:53 a lot lot of different stuff just specifically photo booths the normal process that they're dealing with at least in my market which is Texas and uh Oklahoma New Mexico um they are used to speaking to someone from that initial touch point and having a conversation about their event and all of this before we send anything over so that's not happening with my business I don't have

1:00:21 the time the bandwidth to do that so I really lean on you know the platform being as seamless and as automated and as efficient as possible you know with every interaction and you guys like I said you you all are doing a fantastic job and I can't even stress it enough because I get goosebumps whenever I think about to my business and how it has allowed me to scale and grow exponentially

1:00:48 faster because of the Simplicity and the experience that my clients get in every review I have over 800 five star reviews praise the Lord like we're doing great business the main theme that I see is we're professional and it is from that initial initial website interaction that links over to the Check Cherry page and now they are in our platform in our Network

1:01:16 and really just loving the way that they are engaging with our business without even talking to an individual that's what I love about it I love it thanks for the kind words I mean it's just encouraging to hear um that we're making an impact on your business and and uh keep the feedback coming you know absolutely and I'll see you in Vegas I'll be there

1:01:37 in Vegas so I'm gonna stop by come say hi yeah I appreciate it Larry all right thank you gentlemen you have a great evening awesome have