How a visit stays private.

This site

Signup asks for the place: your name, work email, business name, what you run, the address, a phone number, and the business’s Google listing. You find the listing by searching Google from the signup page; Hostline asks Google on its servers, and Google sees the search but not who typed it. When you confirm your listing, Hostline keeps Google’s ID for that place, a link to it, and its name and address as you confirmed them, and uses the listing for your business name, address, and kind. If you paste a Google Maps link instead, Hostline keeps the link. Hostline keeps these on its servers to set up the account, and an admin verifies the business before it can use the desk. You sign in to the desk with a one-use link sent to that email; the session is a cookie on this browser.

The sample on the home page

To try Hostline on your phone, you give your mobile number on the home page. Nothing is texted then. On the next page you find your business on Google and pick it, and you agree to two sample texts. Hostline sends them through its SMS provider: the welcome now, and the follow-up only when you tap Finish sample visit. That yes covers those two texts only. It does not sign you up for anything, and it is not consent for any other message. STOP works for both.

When you search for your business, Hostline asks Google on its servers and shows you what Google returns. It keeps only Google’s ID for the place you confirm, with the name and kind you confirmed, not the rest of Google’s details. Hostline keeps your number, what you tapped on the sample page, and your rating or note, so it can follow up about the business you named. A number entered without finishing the next page is deleted within a day. To limit misuse Hostline keeps a scrambled form of your connection’s address, never the address itself. Sample records, with the phone number, are deleted after 30 days.

A visit

The business already takes a phone number at check-in. Hostline texts a link for that visit. The link opens in the phone the guest already has. There is no guest app.

Consent

A phone on an order is not consent. The first text to a new number asks for a yes, and the welcome follows only after it. Visit texts include STOP and HELP, and STOP is honored for every business. The welcome text is a welcome. It never asks for a review. The close goes out once, after the visit ends, outside quiet hours.

Loyalty

Messages after the visit, including birthdays, gifts, and invites, wait for a separate yes. A visit text is not that yes.

Reviews

At the close, a guest who answers Great or Okay is invited to leave a Google review, with the attendant named. A guest who answers Not great is not invited to Google; their feedback goes to the business privately. Hostline does not charge for a published review, and a review is not required to use the link.

The business’s POS

When a business connects its point of sale (Clover or Toast), Hostline reads the visits, the bills, the menu, and the staff from it to run the guest pages and the desk. The bill is shown as the POS has it. Hostline never takes a payment. Hostline also reads the business’s Google rating and review count from Google for the listing it is linked to, a few times a day, and keeps each reading.

Location

Hostline does not use the phone’s location to tell if a guest is in.

More

The same rules are in Terms.