topic Re: Toast Tables - Guest Notification in Restaurant Operations

Toast Tables - Guest Notification

Sdaniel — Fri, 14 Feb 2025 17:38:55 GMT

Hello everyone,

I wanted to check if anyone using Toast Tables knows if there's a way to send notifications to guests only as a text message, without the phone call. Right now, whenever we send notifications to guests, they receive both a text and a call at the same time. The issue is that guests tend to ignore the call, as it shows up as a spam number.

For further context, we only use the waitlist portion of Toast Tables, we do not use reservations.

Any insights would be greatly appreciated!

Re: Toast Tables - Guest Notification

Rob — Fri, 14 Feb 2025 21:18:19 GMT

Thank you for reaching out! That’s a great question. I looked into it, and it seems you can send a text message without making a phone call. However, please note that the text may still come from an unknown number and could appear as spam. It appears the settings to do this are located in the Waitlist & Reservations section. Since you don’t use reservations, I'm not sure if this will work for you. Below are the steps, along with a link to where I found the information. I hope this helps!

"Navigate to Waitlist & Reservations > Guest Communication > SMS. Ensure that your SMS templates are set up correctly and that the auto-response feature is enabled if needed."

Toast Tables: The Guest Experience

Re: Toast Tables - Guest Notification

Sdaniel — Fri, 14 Feb 2025 21:26:20 GMT

Hey Rob!

Thanks for the reply!

We do have this set up correctly. After further investigating, it turns out that back in 2022 we were signed up for a beta. The agent I spoke with said the product team is working on removing the calls for our locations and it seems we don't have access to turn off the calls ourselves. We are ok with the text as it sends now, but the call and text were sending at the exact same time to our guests, and it was causing confusion for our guests.

Re: Toast Tables - Guest Notification

rcmck — Fri, 14 Feb 2025 23:11:01 GMT

I was going to say I don't have any phone call feature just sms, but there was a post about phone calls in the feature requests that mentioned a beta being available. https://toasttables.canny.io/feature-requests/p/automated-phone-call

Re: Toast Tables - Guest Notification

Sdaniel — Fri, 14 Feb 2025 23:17:13 GMT

Yes, the agent also mentioned that it was only available for some customers and as it turns out we were one of the few added to the beta. The issue is that we have no access to disable those calls unfortunately. Would you say having just sms is working out for you? Our GA regional has concerns that guests may not be happy if we turn off the call feature.

Re: Toast Tables - Guest Notification

rcmck — Sat, 15 Feb 2025 19:47:47 GMT

Don't have anything to compare to, only ever had sms with any waitlist app I have used, occasionally a guest will miss a message if they are not paying attention, so I can see the benefits of the call feature.

Re: Toast Tables - Guest Notification

Rob — Wed, 19 Feb 2025 14:55:41 GMT

I see, I'm sorry about the confusion here with these calls; I haven't heard about this feature before, nor have I seen documentation about that, I've been at Toast since 2019! Has this functionality been removed from your location yet? I want to make sure this is actually removed and not lost in the weeds. Let me know if you need any further help!

Re: Toast Tables - Guest Notification

Sdaniel — Wed, 19 Feb 2025 16:15:32 GMT

No worries, I am glad we were able to figure it out. It must have been something we agreed to when we switched from Wisely waitlist to Toast Tables. The agent I was working with confirmed that the product team removed the call feature from our locations. Thanks for checking in Rob! 🙂