Online client booking: how to set it up in an evening

What online booking is and why it helps

Online booking is a page or a button where the client sees your services, prices and free times and books by themselves. The booking lands in the calendar at once, and the stylist or receptionist gets a notification.

What it gives you compared with booking through Direct or by phone:

• It works while you are busy or asleep. A client books at 11 pm instead of waiting for an answer until morning, so they don’t go to whoever answers first.
• No back-and-forth. Nobody has to ask “when suits you?” and juggle times over five messages.
• No double bookings. Free time is worked out from the schedule and the service’s duration, so two clients never land on the same hour.
• Everything in one place. Bookings from your website, Instagram and Google Maps end up in one calendar.

What to prepare first

Setup takes an evening if you gather four things beforehand:

1. A list of services with durations and prices. Use real durations, including cleanup and preparation: if colouring takes 2.5 hours and the booking says 2, the schedule slips before lunch.
2. Who does what. Which staff do which services, so nobody books a manicure with the barber.
3. Working hours. Each person’s hours, days off, holidays and special days for the coming month.
4. Booking rules. How far ahead clients can book, how much time you need between clients and how late a visit can be cancelled.

The price list can come from whatever you already have: a spreadsheet, a photo of the price board or an Instagram post.

Where clients book

Booking works best where clients already look for you. That usually means three places:

• Your website. A “Book now” button or a widget with prices and free times. Tilda, WordPress, Wix and other site builders let you paste it in as code.
• A booking page if you have no website. A page of its own with services, prices and a calendar. Its link goes in your Instagram bio, and its QR code on your sign, business cards or the salon mirror.
• Google Maps. Your Google Business Profile can carry a booking link, seen by people who find you on the map.

Use the same link everywhere. Then every booking ends up in one calendar.

Setting it up in an evening, step by step

1. Add your services. Categories, names, durations and prices. If one service comes in different lengths, like a short and a long haircut, make several variants.
2. Add your staff and their schedules. Who works, on which days and hours, and which services they do.
3. Set up notifications. New bookings should arrive where you will see them at once: in Telegram or an app on your phone.
4. Publish booking. Put the button on your site, and the link in Instagram and your Google Business Profile.
5. Book yourself. Walk the client’s path on a phone: pick a service and a time, confirm. Check that the booking is in the calendar and the notification arrived.

For a week after launch, watch what clients book and where they stop. Most often you will adjust the duration of a few services and the schedule.

How to cut no-shows

Booking online is easy, which also makes a booking easier to forget. What helps:

• A reminder the day before. A short message a day ahead with the time and address. If a reminder didn’t get through, write or call by hand.
• Easy cancelling. When cancelling is easy, clients cancel instead of simply not turning up, and someone else has time to take the slot.
• Confirming new clients. You can keep a first visit as “new” and confirm it with a message or a call.
• Visit history. Mark who didn’t come. If someone misses a second time, confirm their next booking separately or ask for a deposit on a long service.

An AI receptionist: booking in a chat, 24/7

Not every client wants to hunt for a time in a calendar: many write “anything on Saturday?”. An AI receptionist can answer that: a chat on your site or booking page that takes prices and free times from your CRM.

What to check when you choose one:

• it answers only from your data and doesn’t make up prices;
• it books only after the client has confirmed the service, day and time;
• it can’t book two people for the same time;
• it hands the conversation to a person when it doesn’t know the answer;
• it gives no medical or other advice you wouldn’t give yourself.

The AI receptionist in Plugix CRM works exactly like that: it answers on your site and booking page, and the booking shows up in the calendar at once and reaches you in Telegram.

What online booking costs

Online booking usually comes as part of a service-booking CRM rather than on its own. The price depends on the number of staff or workstations and on what the plan includes: reminders, a booking page, analytics, an AI assistant. There are free plans with limits too, usually for one person and a small number of bookings.

In Plugix CRM, online booking is part of the CRM: the website widget, the booking page, reminders and the Telegram bot. The booking CRM costs from €19 a month, or from €129 with the AI receptionist. How online booking works in Plugix.

Common mistakes

• Durations from the price list instead of real ones. Clients book back to back, staff fall behind and the next clients wait.
• A schedule nobody updates. A stylist is on holiday but still open for booking, and a client comes for nothing.
• A hidden link. Booking exists, but it isn’t visible in Instagram, in Google Maps or on the first screen of the site.
• Bookings arriving in several places. Some in Direct, some in the calendar, some by phone. One calendar for everything ends double bookings.
• No reminders. No-shows eat hours other clients could have taken.

Questions

Sources

1. Google Business Profile Help: manage your local business links (bookings) support.google.com/business/answer/6218037
2. Instagram Help: add a website to your Instagram profile help.instagram.com/362497417173378
3. Plugix: online booking and Plugix CRM prices plugix.ai/online-booking