Please don’t hestiate to email us at support@bench.bike if you can’t find the support you need here.
Getting Started
#1. Choose a shop name
#Begin setting up your shop by choosing a name in Settings.
Choose a name that represents your business well. While you can change shop names at any time, be careful about changing your shop’s “short name”. Changing short names changes the e-mail address where customers communicate with the shop about their orders. It also changes the shop’s online booking URL.
Example email addresses and URLs
Shop short name: acmebikes
Service email address: service@acmebikes.shops.bench.bike
Online booking URL: https://bench.bike/acmebikes
We advise against chaning shop short names after work orders have been received, since this changes the email address where customers communicate with your shop.
2. Add shop services
#Shop services can be either public and available on your online booking page, or internal-only and available only to shop staff. Most shops use a mix of both public and private services.
For example, ACME Bike Co. would want to make their Mountain Bike Assembly service publicly available for customers to book on their website, but keep Generic chain replacement private to the shop.
Services can be added to orders by mechanics and service managers at any time.
Streamline order intake by adding your most common services in Settings.
Less common services can be added over time as the need arises.
3. (Optional) Add Online Booking to your website
#Every shop needs to accept walk-ins, but not every shop has online booking. Online booking sets your shop apart from the competition. When customers book online, their orders show up in the Dashboard immediately with the Needs Review status.
To add online booking to your website, simply copy the URL from Settings and link to it from your shop’s website.
When customers arrive at your shop to drop off their bike, simply find them in Bench, set the order status to In Shop, and go through your usual intake process to determine whether any additional parts or services are needed for the job.
Online Booking
#All shops get a bench.bike URL where services can be booked online by customers (e.g. bench.bike/acmebikes). All public shop services are available for booking your shop URL.
Adding online booking to your shop website is as easy as linking to your shop’s bench.bike URL, available in Settings.
See choosing a shop name for how to change this URL.
Bench users are not required to use online booking, but it’s a great way to increase service bookings.
New customers booking online will need to verify either an email address or phone number before their orders appear in the Dashboard.
Accepting Payments
#Accepting payments through Bench greatly improves both the shop and customer experience.
Enabling payments in Bench lets customers settle up before they even arrive for pickup. Bench’s automated Order Complete notification contains a link to review and pay for the services completed for payments-enabled shops.
Customers can pay with: Apple Pay, Android Pay, and all major credit cards.
As soon as customers pay, their order status changes to Paid, clearing them for pickup.
Setup
#Begin payment setup by navigating to Payments in Settings.
Payment processing is performed by our payment partner, Stripe. You do not need to be a Stripe POS customer to enable payments in Bench. However, if you already have a Stripe account, enabling payments is nearly immediate.
How it works
#When payments are enabled, and an order’s status changes to Complete, the customer receives a message that their bike is ready for pickup.
The notifications contain a link to review and pay for the order, even before arriving at the shop. As soon as payment is received, orders transition to the Paid status.
Due Dates
#Due dates allow your shop to set target dates for service completion. Orders with past or soon-approaching due dates appear at the top of the dashboard. This allows your shop to prioritizee its most important orders.
Due dates can be changed, but as a courtesy, changes should be communicated to customers by sending them a message with an explanation.
Real time messaging
#Real time messaging lets shops communicate with their customers in real time, retaining a permament paper trail of all communications and decisions throughout an order’s lifetime.
Messaging in Bench can be done over email, text (SMS), or both. Customers who verify both an email address and phone number receive messages via email and text.
When your shop sends messages to customers, they can simply respond directly to the text message or email, just like they’re speaking with another person – because they are!
Use messaging to get approvals, provide updates on timelines, and communicate any details relevant to work orders.
Internal Notes
#Internal notes are great for providing context to other mechanics. If a mechanic needs to hand a job off to someone else, they can provide all the current context in an internal note as the handoff process. If a job won’t be done by the end of the day, mechanics can add notes for themselves for the next morning, so they know where to resume their work. If parts need to be ordered and the job transitions to Waiting for parts, add a note about the part order number.
Internal notes are crucial to keeping shops organized and running efficiently.