Product Updates

October 2023: What’s New at BentoBox?

October 23, 2023

Meet digital waitlists, new automated marketing campaigns for Pre-Order & Catering customers, and credit card expiration notifications.

The holidays are fast approaching and that means the busiest season of the year in hospitality. Here are the improvements made this month to better support restaurants ahead of the upcoming end-of-year rush.

1. Digital Waitlist.

Our Digital Waitlist allows guests to add themselves to your restaurant’s waitlist and view their place in line directly from their phone or computer.

When a diner joins the waitlist, they will be prompted to provide their name, phone number, and email, similar to if they were making a reservation.

Once the diner is added to the waitlist, they will receive a text message confirming their place in line. This text message will also include a link to the confirmation page where they can check their updated place on the waitlist. Diners can also remove themselves from the waitlist by replying 'CANCEL'.

This feature is available to BentoBox customers using Reservations or Waitlist.

Read more: Digital Waitlist

2. Automated Marketing Campaigns Updates.

Previously offered only for Online Ordering customers, Automated Marketing Campaigns are now available for Pre-Order & Catering customers too — for free.

It’s important to reach diners with timely nudges based on their past behavior to drive more revenue, but building a marketing campaign from scratch takes time and resources. Automated Marketing Campaigns are pre-built templates that you can customize easily and set up to run in the background. Plus, you’ll get access to robust reporting to track performance.

The campaigns that are available to choose are:

Welcome Email — Sent one day after first purchase.
7 Day Promo Email or SMS— Sent seven days after first purchase.
It’s Been 30 Days Email or SMS — Sent 30 days after a diner’s last purchase.
It’s Been 60 Days Email or SMS — Sent 60 days after a diner’s last purchase.
Pre-Order and Catering Reorder Email or SMS — Sent 11 months after a diner’s last pre-order and catering order.

Read more: Automated Marketing Campaigns

3. Credit Card Expiration Notification.

It’s important to keep payment information up-to-date to ensure uninterrupted service. That’s why we’ve launched an alert to notify you when a credit card is about to expire and remind you to update it. A yellow banner will appear at the top of your dashboard during the month of the expiration date of your provided credit card. After that, a red banner will appear at the top of your dashboard once your credit card has expired.

4. Updated Order Status Button.

This new update allows restaurant operators the ability to notify customers if their order is ready sooner than the automatically assigned pick up time. You can now mark the order as “ready” in your Clover POS, which keeps your kitchen moving and communicates more accurate status updates with diners.

Read more: Updated Order Status Button