One message instead of an app with commission.

What it looks like from the guest's side.

Take a konoba. On the site the guest picks the day, the time and the number of people. If they want a peka, they tick it, because a peka is ordered ahead. They type their name and, if they like, a note. While they choose, the message they are about to send writes itself under the form, word by word, so they see exactly what they are sending. At the end they tap the button, WhatsApp opens with the message ready, and they just send it.

You then receive a message like this:

Hello, I'd like to book a table for Saturday at 8 pm, four people. Veal peka for four, ordering ahead. Name: Mark. Note: we have a child with us.

The form sends nothing to a server along the way. The guest's browser puts the message together, and the guest sends it from their own WhatsApp. The same form works for anything that can be described by choosing: a takeaway order, a hairdresser's appointment, an airport transfer with the number of passengers and bags, an apartment enquiry with dates. That is how Plejo Taxi receives enquiries with the route, the date and the number of people, and at Anin Dvor the order is also the reservation. Both examples are in my work.

Why a message and not an app.

Booking and ordering platforms work differently. The guest opens an account there, and you have a profile on their platform. That costs money: some take a commission on each order or each new guest, others charge a monthly subscription, some do both. A good part of the relationship with the guest stays on their platform rather than with you.

For a large restaurant with steady traffic, such a platform can make sense. For a small konoba, a small salon or a taxi with one vehicle, it is often a cost for a job that one well-composed message does just as well:

• No commission. Not per order, not per guest, not per month. The form is part of your site.
• The guest installs nothing. They already have WhatsApp, and on the site they open no account and invent no password.
• Everything arrives at once. No back and forth about “which date?”, “how many people?”, “what time?”. Everything you need to know is in the first message.
• The conversation is yours. The message and the guest's number are in your WhatsApp, not on someone else's platform. You reply as you always do, in the same conversation.
• Language to suit. The form can be set up so the guest chooses in their own language and the message reaches you in the language you read. That is how transfer booking works on the Plejo Taxi site.

What happens after the message.

After the message, everything goes on as before. You reply from WhatsApp on your phone or computer, confirm or suggest another time, and the guest gets an answer from a person, in a conversation they already have open. If something changes, they write to you in the same conversation, so the whole history stays in one place.

The honest limit: it is not a calendar.

This is important to say before you decide. The form does not know whether a table is free on Saturday at 8 pm. It does not see your schedule, does not lock a slot and does not send an automatic confirmation. The guest sends a request, and the booking exists only once you reply. If the slot is taken, you suggest another in the same conversation. Double bookings are prevented by you, because only you know what is free.

Nothing is paid on the site: no card deposit and no payment in advance. If you need a calendar that locks itself, real-time bookings or payment on the site, a WhatsApp message is not the right solution, and I will tell you so at our first conversation. The rental website works the same way: the guest enters the dates they want, and the enquiry arrives on WhatsApp.

For most small businesses this is not a drawback but the way they already work. Bookings are still taken by phone and written into a notebook. The difference is that the message arrives complete, written down and saved, so nothing is forgotten or mixed up.

How it fits into your site.

I build the form to fit the business. The questions are the ones you usually ask on the phone, in the order you ask them, and no more. It works alongside a website I build, and the content of the form, such as dishes, time slots or routes, I change when you send me the change, within 24 hours.