Three Ways to Stop Answering “What's My Cashback?”

Every rental business knows these questions: “What’s my cashback balance?”, “How much have I rented from you?”, “Can I see my past orders?”. Customers ask them at every pickup, and every time it takes your staff’s time. The answers matter to the customer — they just can’t get them without your help.

Self-service solves this: the customer sees their own data at any moment, without waiting in line. In Turborent there are three ways to do it — the customer portal, the Telegram bot, and the Customer Data API. The foundation is the same for all three — the customer’s loyalty balance and rental history — the delivery channel is what differs.

Customer portal — a branded mini-app

The portal is a public page for your organization: its own address, your logo, your brand colors. It doesn’t look like a “login page” but like a small app: customers can add it to their phone’s home screen, and it works as a standalone app — with its own icon and branded design.

Sign-in is by phone number, no passwords. The customer enters their number and confirms it with a missed call, or grabs a QR code right from your staff at the counter — the code lasts 60 seconds and links the account in one tap.

Inside, the customer sees:

• loyalty balance — cashback accumulated from past rentals;
• order history — what they rented, when, and what it cost, with per-item details and discounts;
• their contact details — name, phone, email.

There’s a bonus for you too: if the customer’s number has never been seen in the system, signing in to the portal registers them automatically — they just add their name. A new customer appears in your CRM by themselves, no data entry by staff, and immediately enters your retention funnel.

Telegram bot — a channel that’s always at hand

Customers open Telegram every day, more often than any website. The Turborent bot builds on that: each rental business connects its own bot — its own, with your name and icon.

Setup takes a minute: create the bot in BotFather, paste the token in the settings — and customers can message it any time.

Linking by phone number. The customer taps “Share phone number” — Telegram passes the number to the bot, and it instantly finds the customer in the system. No codes, no activation links: open the chat, tap the button — done.

Balance with /balance. The customer checks their accumulated cashback at any moment — right in the chat, no calls to the rental point.

Automatic notifications. Triggers send messages to the customer’s chat: an order has been created or completed, it’s time for the post-rental survey (the survey link arrives straight in the chat), or the customer hasn’t rented for a while — the system finds these customers on its own and sends a personal reminder.

If a customer sends a number that isn’t in the system, the bot asks for a name and creates a new customer right in the chat — just like the portal, with a “registered via Telegram” note in the CRM.

Customer Data API — the data on your own website

Do you have your own website, and do your customers already visit it? The Customer Data API lets you show loyalty balance and rental history right there — no Turborent pages to host.

Here’s how it works. On your website, the customer enters their phone number and confirms it with a missed call or an SMS code — the verification happens on your page, the customer never leaves. After the check, the API issues a 30-day token and the site receives the customer’s data: balance, order history with items and discounts, final totals. The token can be revoked at any time.

Privacy is built into the architecture: the API gives the customer only their own data, the phone number is always masked (never shown in full), and access from your site is restricted to a list of allowed domains. Service messages (tokens, statuses) are delivered via a signed webhook — secure, no manual polling.

The API is configured in the Customer API section: documentation, key management, and 30-day usage statistics all live there.

Which one to choose

The criterion is simple — where your customers are:

• No website of your own — turn on the customer portal. It’s a ready-made branded app, nothing to build.
• Your customers live in Telegram — connect the bot. Minimum effort, maximum touchpoints.
• You have a website with traffic — embed the Customer Data API and show the balance and history where the customer already is.

These aren’t competing channels — they complement each other. You can enable the portal and the bot at the same time: the customer picks whichever is more convenient — and sees the same data in both places.

The bottom line

Every time a customer finds the answer themselves — that’s one less question for your staff at the counter and one more reason for the customer to come back. Balance, history, notifications — all of it works without staff involvement: the system shows customers their data, reminds them about you, and brings new customers into the CRM.

Self-service in Turborent takes an evening to set up: enable the portal, add the bot, issue an API key. After that, customers serve themselves — and you focus on rentals, not on answering the same questions.