How booking works

Your receptionist can book appointments for you on calls and on your website chat, and by text on the Core plan. This article explains how it picks the times it offers, what happens when a customer wants a time that is taken, and where the appointment shows up.

How your receptionist finds open times

When a customer asks for an appointment, your receptionist looks for openings and reads them out or lists them. What counts as an opening depends on your calendar:

• Google Calendar connected: it offers times that are free on your calendar during your booking hours. Unless different hours were set up for your account, these are Monday to Friday from 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. in your business time zone. They are separate from your business hours. To ask for different booking hours, open Support and select Submit a ticket.
• Calendly connected: it offers the times your Calendly event type has open.
• No calendar connected: it asks the customer for the day and time they prefer and tells them you will confirm.

In every case it skips days and time windows you have blocked, and it does not book a time less than 90 minutes away. Appointments are usually one hour long.

What your receptionist needs to book

It asks for the customer's name, a phone number and the day and time. On a call it can use the number the customer is calling from.

When the time a customer wants is not open

Your receptionist says that time is not available and helps the customer find another one. It does not tell the customer that you are closed or give out your schedule. It treats the time the same way as one that is already booked.

A customer can also ask your receptionist to move or cancel an appointment they already have.

Where the appointment shows up

• On the Calendar page in the portal, in the list for that day, once you have a calendar connected. Select an appointment to see when it is, the service, the phone number, the address and any notes. Each one shows a status: Confirmed, Reminder sent or Needs confirming.
• On your connected calendar, if you have one.
• By email, to the addresses shown under Settings › Notifications › Email recipients.

The customer gets a confirmation text when the Confirmation automatic message is on. See "Appointment reminders" for that message and the ones that follow.

Adding an appointment yourself

The web portal does not have a way to add an appointment by hand today. Appointments come from your receptionist or from your connected calendar.