Update your schedule

Update your schedule any time, but be sensitive to the needs of your customers. 

View your schedule

Your "My Schedule" page has two tabs.

• Weeklies
  • These are weekly spots, like Mondays @ 2pm
  • These create available and booked single spots on your schedule for the next 60 days
• Schedule
  • These are single spots, like Monday, Nov. 13th @ 2pm
  • Your booked spots may come from a single or a weekly booking

From your schedule, click on an image to navigate to the appointment page.

Shifts

Your appointment times are all quoted in terms of the expected arrival time at the customer’s home.

For clarity, if you have an 8.30am appointment, arrive at your customer's home by 8:30am with groceries. Think of your shifts in two parts:

1

Outside the home: Grocery shop and travel (~45 minutes)

2

Inside the home: Cook three dinners and clean-up (~3 hours)

Time inside the home

Expect your time in the customer's home to decrease as you cook more appointments. On average, chefs take:

Add weekly availability

From the weeklies toggle, click the "ADD A WEEKLY" button.

• To start, create an available weekly to add single available spots 60 days out automatically. 
• Customers can then book a weekly to add single booked spots 60 days out automatically.
• If you're new to the platform, you're required to have a 6-hour gap between weekly spots (many new chefs take 5 hours in their first few appointments). Once your in-home time decreases, your gap between spots can decrease.
• You can add 1-3 weeklies per day (8am-4pm start times).
• Set availability on our busiest days: Mondays (41%), Tuesdays (31%), and then Wednesdays (16%).

• Pick consistent daily times (e.g., 9am/3pm every day) to avoid arrival mistakes.
• If you have a relationship with a customer and want to offer them an 'off-schedule' booking, contact support and we'll help. 
• If you previously deleted a single spot (e.g., Wednesday, 2/10 @ 2pm) within a weekly (Wednesdays at 2pm) and want to add it back, add the weekly again (Wednesdays at 2pm) and all gaps within the weekly will get added as available spots.

Cancel weekly availability

From the weekly toggle, click the available weekly and cancel. 

Cancel a weekly booking

• You cannot cancel a booked weekly. Contact support and we'll try to reassign the customer with another chef.
• To change the day/time of a booked weekly (e.g., move John Smith's weekly to 3pm from 4pm), get permission from your customer and then contact support (we'll manually make the fix).

Cancel single availability

From the schedule toggle, click the available single and cancel. 

Cancel a single booking

Scroll to the bottom of your appointment page for a link to cancel.

For short-notice cancellations, add a cancellation reason (dropdown). Your cancellation fee may be waived.

For all cancellations, add a detailed, empathetic note to your customer explaining why you're canceling. 

• Minimize cancellations - Customers prefer their original appointment times.
• Cancel a week early - If you cancel more than a week early, no cancellation fees apply.
• Add details - Add a thoughtful, descriptive note why you're canceling (e.g. "I found the love of my life and I'm getting married").
• If you're sick - Proactively cancel any upcoming available and booked spots ASAP.
• Ability - You can cancel a booked appointment, but you cannot change the date/time. Contact support for random exceptions.
• Holidays - You and customers can manually cancel appointments that fall on holidays (these days are not automatically blocked).

Cancellation fees

For short-notice cancellations, you give permission for Dinner Elf to compensate your customer with a cancellation credit, which is deducted from your shift pay.

Cancellation fee exceptions

• Sick / contagious - If you're sick and contagious, cancel your appointment and choose "I'm sick / contagious" (dropdown). Cancellation fees won't apply. Unfortunately, we cannot offer reimbursements if your kids are sick. 
• Roads are unsafe - If roads are unsafe (e.g. flooding, ice), cancel your appointment and choose "Roads are unsafe" (dropdown). Cancellation fees won't apply and your customer will not get a cancellation credit.
• Daily max - Your daily maximum in cancellation fees is $50. Contact support for reimbursement.
• Multiple cancellations - If you have 5+ short-notice cancellations in a 90 day period, future cancellations fees won't be waived (even if you're sick) for a limited time. Continued short-notice cancellations may result in you being removed from the platform.

Customer cancellation

If a customer cancels after 5pm 3 days before your appt, you'll get $35 no-cook pay unless:

• you're rebooked at the same date/time or
• the customer cancels within 3 hours of booking.