Discounts only where time sits empty.One price in every channel.

A promo code has a life of its own: it gets forwarded and posted in coupon groups, and anyone who finds it gets the discount. Working out who it brought in and what it cost is close to impossible.

Instead, every customer got a personal balance in the bot. Bonuses are earned for specific actions: connecting the bot, a VK welcome after joining the community, subscribing to the channel, inviting a friend, finishing a quiz. Each award has its own expiry, and the same action never pays twice.

The spending rules are simple and the same everywhere. 1 bonus = 1 RUB, and bonuses can pay for no more than 30% of a session. Bonuses closest to expiry go first, so customers don’t lose what is about to run out.

A blanket discount also cuts revenue in hours that sell anyway. We needed a discount only on time that would otherwise stay empty.

The system looks at calendar history and picks up to three sessions in the next 7 days, no more than one per day: an empty weekday, a time next to a popular one, or a weak but sellable slot. These get 20% off, 15% in the morning. Customers see the same “hot session” badge on the website, in Telegram and in VK.

Discount and bonuses combine, but never beyond 30%: bonuses only fill the gap. If a 3,390 RUB session already has 678 RUB off, bonuses can cover another 339 RUB.

In August, a review of one booking showed something unpleasant. The customer saw 2,712 RUB with the hot-session discount on the website, but 3,390 RUB went to the calendar and the CRM. Only the browser knew about the discount; the server recorded the full price.

The cause wasn’t a single bug but the fact that the price was worked out in several places. We kept one: the server calculates the price, discount and bonuses, and the website and bots only display the result. The server no longer accepts an amount from the website.

Then came the monitor. Every minute it checks the whole chain: the calendar is fresh, free sessions match the calendar, every hot session gets its discount, and the total equals the rate minus the discount. Three failures in a row send an alert to Telegram.

A booking without prepayment is held for 30 minutes, then the time is released. So customers don’t lose a session by forgetting, the bot reminds them to pay. Four such scenarios are switched on, all only for bookings no older than 48 hours: there is no point messaging someone about a week-old booking.

When a booking is cancelled, bonuses come back, but exactly those spent on that booking and with the original expiry. Since 17 October the same applies to a booking that wasn’t paid in time: we added this case after a customer got in touch, and the bot sends one message about the refund.

The cinema’s Telegram and VK bots and the MORPHEUS immersive theatre’s Telegram bot share one core: menu, wallet, choosing a time, booking and payment. Only what really differs is different: the theatre has its own shows, day and evening rates, up to 4 guests in the price and +1,000 RUB for each additional one, 6 at most, and a 2,000 RUB prepayment.

The VK bot wasn’t about adding a channel for its own sake. People arriving from VK ads weren’t making it to Telegram, and since February Telegram has been restricted in Russia. The shared core opened a second channel without a second system: bookings from both bots and the website land in one calendar and one CRM.