Finding a guest
What this covers
Getting to the right guest quickly, whether you are on the Guests page or halfway through taking a booking. Everyone can search guests.
One box, three fields
The search box looks at first name, last name, email and phone at the same time, so you can type whichever the guest just gave you. Partial matches work — "mar" finds Maria and Marco.
The same search appears inside the booking form and the waitlist form, so you never have to leave what you are doing to check whether somebody already exists. There, results also show visit count and a VIP star, so you know who you are dealing with before they reach the desk.
Searching by phone number
Type the digits as you have them. If you are searching for a number saved in a different format, try the last several digits on their own — that is usually the quickest way to a match, and it avoids the country-code problem entirely.
Tabledoo also keeps a tidied version of every phone number behind the scenes, which is what lets the caller screen-pop recognise an incoming call even when the number was typed in a local format years ago. See Caller screen-pop, explained.
Narrowing the list
On the Guests page you can filter by:
- VIP — only VIPs, or only non-VIPs.
- Blacklisted — useful for reviewing the list occasionally.
- Tag — everyone tagged "wine club".
Filters combine with the search box, so "wine club" plus "smith" is a valid question.
The list is always ordered alphabetically by last name, and paginated. There is no sorting by visits or spend on this screen — for questions like "who are our top spenders?" or "who used to come and has not been in for months?", use the guest report instead. See Guest analytics and segments.
When you cannot find someone
- Try less. "mar" beats "Maria Papadopoulou" — one typo in a long name finds nothing.
- Try the phone instead of the name. Names get misspelled at the door; numbers usually do not.
- Check for a duplicate. A guest who booked online with a different email may have a second profile. There is no automatic merge, so pick the one with the history, and correct the details on it.
- Clear your filters. A VIP filter left on from earlier hides most of your list.