The waiting list

A cancelled appointment is the most expensive thing that happens in a week: the hour is already paid for in rent and insurance, and at two days’ notice there is rarely time to sell it again by hand.

The waiting list does that selling for you. Keep a list of who wants a space and when they could take one, and the moment a booking is cancelled everyone who could use that slot is told at once. First to accept gets it; everyone else stays on the list for next time.

Why everyone at once

Asking one person and waiting for a reply is how a Tuesday slot is still empty on Tuesday. Two people can accept in the same second, so the acceptance is settled properly behind the scenes — exactly one person gets the booking and the other is told plainly that it has gone. Nobody is ever given an appointment that belongs to somebody else.

Getting names onto it

Three ways. Your clients can add themselves in the customer app: Book › Waiting list, where they choose the service, the pet, the dates and the days they could do. The app also offers it on the Availability and Book screens (“Can’t find a time that suits?”), and you are emailed each time someone joins. You can add someone from this screen yourself. Or put [pc_waitlist_join] on a page of your website so people who are not clients yet can join. The website switch below affects only that public form; your own clients can always join from their app.

In the app a client sees what they are waiting for, can take themselves off, and, when a space is on offer, gets a Claim the space button there as well as in the email.

The waiting list screen

The screen is a board. The left side lists everyone waiting, with what they want, the days and dates they can do, their note, and how to reach them. The right side is a week of your diary. Pick someone and every free time that suits them lights up in green. These are the same free times the booking screens would offer, for their treatment and their dog, on the days they said they could do. Days they cannot do are shaded.

Drag them onto a green gap, or click one, and a window opens with a message already written. Choose Book it in and tell them to confirm the booking straight away, take them off the list, and email them the appointment details with every treatment and its time. Or choose Offer it to send them the time without booking it. You can change the wording first, copy it to send another way, or ring them from the same window. Each card also has Email all free times, Contacted and Remove. Use First free time to jump to the week of the first gap that suits them.

Editing an entry. Each card has Edit. You can change the name, email, phone, what they want, which pet, their from and until dates, the days they can do and their note. Any time clears the dates and days in one click. To offer a time outside what they asked for without changing their entry, tick Ignore their dates and days above the week. Every free time then shows, on every day, for as long as it is ticked.

In the staff app

The home screen shows a Waiting list card when anyone is waiting. It is also a quick action and a row under More. It lists everyone, with a Times free tab for the people who have free times that suit them in the next three weeks. Each person shows their email and phone (tap to email or ring) and those times. Email these times sends the times to them in one tap.

What happens to the cancelled booking

Nothing. It stays cancelled, and whoever accepts gets a new booking in the same slot. That matters because the original may have an invoice, a deposit or a refund attached to it, and quietly changing whose appointment it was would attach somebody else’s money to it.

The new booking arrives as pending rather than confirmed — it came in without anyone at your end looking at it, so it waits for you.

Example

A Thursday afternoon groom cancels on Tuesday night. Four people on the list could do Thursdays; all four get a text at 9am. One taps the link at 9:04 and the slot is full again before the kettle has boiled.

FAQ

Will people get pestered?
Only when a space genuinely comes up that they said they could take. Somebody who ticked Tuesdays is never contacted about a Thursday — that is the quickest way to teach people your messages are worth ignoring.

What if nobody takes it?
The offer lapses after the number of hours you set here, and everyone goes back on the list for next time. Nothing is lost.

What if two people accept at once?
One gets it. The other is told straight away that it has gone and stays on the list. They are never both told they have it.

Can somebody who is not a client yet join?
Yes, through the website form. Their name, email and phone are kept on the list and the booking is created for them if they accept — you can turn them into a proper client record afterwards.

Does the person who cancelled get offered their own slot back?
No. That would be a strange message to receive.