Online appointment booking: clients pick a service and time

A salon administrator spends half the day answering one question: “When do you have a free slot?” A client who decides to book at ten in the evening can't get through and goes to a competitor that offers online appointment booking on its website.

Online booking is a widget window where the client picks a service, a specialist and a free time slot on their own. Busy time comes from the CRM, and the booking arrives as a lead — a request card — with the visit date and an assignee. Nobody has to call back to agree on the time.

Online booking is part of the widget and is included in the “CRM + Telephony + Automation” plan and higher, at no extra cost. It works inside the same system as the CRM, so you don't need a separate booking app or an integration with one. An automated sales funnel will remind the client about the visit — with an SMS or a call from the voice bot the day before the appointment.

Watch the two-minute video, and below you will find step-by-step setup.

Why businesses need it

• Clinic, beauty salon, car service: each specialist has their own schedule linked to a CRM employee. Bookings are spread across the staff automatically, with no double bookings.
• Renovation and furniture: a “Book” button on the thank-you page after a quiz. The person books a measurement visit while their interest is still hot.
• A doctor or a stylist on video: a “Booking” button right under the video message. Watched it, trusted them, booked.
• Administrator: booking checks free time by itself and won't let two people book the same slot. Hours are freed up for the clients who are already in the salon.
• Business owner: the CRM immediately shows the service, price, specialist, visit date and time. The manager doesn't have to ask the client anything again.

How online appointment booking works on a website

On the website, the client goes through the steps: “Choose a service” → “Choose a specialist” → “Date and time” → “Your details” → “You are booked!”. They can choose “Any specialist”, and at the end they can add the visit to Google Calendar.

Free time is calculated like this: the specialist's working hours minus breaks. Then their CRM leads with a “Stage date” and the bookings made through the widget are subtracted. The “Stage date” is a CRM field with the visit date and time. Right before the booking is made, the time is checked once again.

The booking arrives as a “Booking: <service>” lead in the funnel stage set for the service. A funnel stage is a step of the sale in the CRM. The “Stage date” is the visit time, and the assignee is the linked employee. The comment contains the service, price, specialist, date and time in Moscow time (MSK), the client's name, phone and comment, and the page they booked from.

How to add online booking to your website

1. 1
   Turn on booking

   “Widget” → “Edit” → “Online booking” → the “Enabled” toggle.
2. 2
   Add services

   On the “Services” tab, click “Add a service”. Fill in “Name”, “Funnel stage for bookings” (required), “Duration”, “Price, ₽” and “Who provides it”.
3. 3
   Add specialists

   On the “Specialists” tab, set the “Photo”, “CRM employee”, “Name”, “Position”, “Services”, “Working days”, hours and “Breaks”.
4. 4
   Set the rules

   On the “Settings” tab, choose “Book ahead for, days”, “Not earlier than in, hours”, “Time grid” and “One booking per client”.
5. 5
   Check it

   Open the “See it as a client” preview. It shows the booking window with real busy time from the CRM.
6. 6
   Add the button

   Click “‘Online booking’ button in the widget”, then “Save changes”.

Busy time from the CRM

Link a specialist to an employee in the “CRM employee” field. Then that employee's leads with a “Stage date” in the service's stage take up time, and new bookings are assigned to them. A lead created outside of booking takes 60 minutes by default. You can change this in the “A CRM lead takes, min” field.

If you select a CRM employee in the “Who provides it” field, they immediately become a specialist with a Mon–Fri 10:00 AM–7:00 PM schedule.

Booking settings

• “Book ahead for, days” — how many days the client sees, from 1 to 60, 14 by default.
• “Not earlier than in, hours” — time to prepare for the visit, 2 by default.
• “Time grid” — 15 min, 30 min, 1 hour or by service length.
• “One booking per client” — until the visit takes place, the same phone and device can't book again.
• Also here: the “Default funnel stage” for new services, “Window title”, “Text after booking”, “Language” and “Color”.

Where clients can book from

• The widget's “Online booking” button. You can set its “Service” and “Specialist” right away — then the client goes straight to choosing a time.
• The “Booking” button under the video in the video widget for your website.
• The “Book” button on the thank-you page after a website quiz. The name and phone are filled in from the quiz.

How to send appointment reminders

By default, after booking the client sees the text “We are waiting for you. We will remind you before the visit.” Booking itself doesn't send reminders — an autofunnel does that based on the “Stage date”:

1. 1
   Create an autofunnel

   In the “Autofunnels” section. In the launch conditions, choose “Funnel stage” — the service's stage — and “Stage date” → “Before” → 1 day.
2. 2
   Add a reminder

   The “Send SMS” block with the address and visit time. Or a call from the voice bot — the “Call the client / voice message” block. You can follow it with an “IVR menu” — a voice menu where the client says “yes” or “reschedule”.
3. 3
   Launch

   Click “Save” and “Launch”.

An SMS costs from $0.0748 depending on the carrier; Beeline and MegaFon have their own rates.

Read also: Automated sales funnel: how the CRM texts, calls and reminds clients, How to set up Telegram lead notifications and SMS to clients, CRM pipeline stages: set up your sales funnel and client alerts