A cancelled slot needs a plan before it happens
When someone cancels a morning appointment at a med spa, the room sits empty unless someone else takes it. Calling down a paper list rarely works in time, because the people on it are busy and miss the call.
Most of the tools below can send the alert on their own. The catch is that three things have to be set before the cancellation: the waitlist type, the order the slot is offered in, and the client's yes to texts. Below is how five tools handle each one, as each vendor's own pages describe them. Screens change, so check each setting on your own screen as you go.
The three orders a waitlist can offer a slot in
Fresha's priority setting names three orders: First in line notifies clients in order, Highest value puts high-value appointments first, and Offer to all notifies everyone and gives the slot to whoever books first.
Acuity Scheduling's waitlist works like offer to all: waitlisted clients get a text when a matching appointment opens, and the first one to finish booking gets it. Vagaro's four options have their own names, among them First in Line and Money Maker. Read Vagaro's own description of each before you assume it matches Fresha's.
Which order to pick is a judgment call. First in line is fair to the person who waited longest, and it works when the opening is days away. Offer to all suits a slot that opens tonight for tomorrow morning, when nobody has time to wait on one person's reply. Highest value makes sense when a long appointment would otherwise sit empty, but it can feel unfair to someone who has waited weeks for a short one.
Square Appointments: two switches
Square puts the waitlist in Online Booking settings, under Waitlist.
- Turn on Enable Waitlist on your online booking site.
- Turn on Send my clients a notification when an opening occurs.
- Join your own waitlist from your phone, then cancel a test booking and see what arrives, and how.
The first switch applies to all your locations at once, so if you run two locations, both get a waitlist. The first switch lets people join, and the second one is what sends the alert.
Fresha: waitlist type, then priority
Fresha asks two questions. The first is the waitlist type: You pick, where staff review and book clients by hand, or Automatically book, where Fresha notifies clients when a slot opens. If you want no phone calls, choose Automatically book.
The second is priority, the three orders above: First in line, Highest value or Offer to all. When Fresha notifies automatically and the first client does not book within the set timeframe, it moves on and notifies the next client in line.
Look at how long that timeframe is on your screen. A long wait is fine for an opening next week and can sink one for tomorrow morning.
Vagaro: pick one of four waitlist options
Vagaro offers four waitlist options, named You Pick, Money Maker, First in Line and Instant Book.
The names hint at what each option does, but the description in your own Vagaro settings is the one to trust. Read all four before you pick. If one of them books a client into the slot without a reply, make sure the booking rules on your page are ones you are happy for someone to accept without talking to your front desk.
Acuity Scheduling: texts go only to people who said yes
Acuity Scheduling's waitlist is on the Standard and Premium plans, for one-on-one appointments, with texting turned on. Clients join from your booking page and agree to receive text alerts as they join.
When a matching appointment opens, the waitlisted clients get a text, and the first one to finish booking gets the slot. You also decide how close to the appointment time a waitlist booking is accepted.
Set that cutoff to the time your room really needs to turn over. A booking that lands minutes before a slot you cannot get ready for is worse than an empty slot.
Boulevard: a list your front desk books by hand
Boulevard's waitlist works differently. When a client joins, the business gets an alert on its Dashboard, and staff book the client from the list with the Book option on each line. That keeps a person in the loop, so name who checks the waitlist after each cancellation, and when.
Boulevard also has a separate automated campaign called Last-Minute Openings. It looks two days ahead and texts and emails clients when open availability passes a threshold you set. That is not the waitlist. It answers a thin day, not one empty slot.
The consent the text needs
A waitlist text goes to someone who asked to hear about an opening, and the moment they join is the moment to ask for their yes to texts. Acuity Scheduling builds this in, since clients agree to receive text alerts when they join. In the other tools, open your waitlist sign-up as a client would and check that it asks.
Boulevard's Last-Minute Openings campaign texts and emails clients. Check who is on the list it sends to before you turn it on. Whether a given text counts as marketing is a question for your lawyer, not your booking tool.
What to do
- Pick one offer order for your med spa this week: first in line, highest value or offer to all.
- In Square Appointments, turn on Enable Waitlist on your online booking site and Send my clients a notification when an opening occurs.
- In Fresha, set the waitlist type to Automatically book and choose a priority.
- In Vagaro, read the description of all four waitlist options on your own screen, then pick one.
- In Acuity Scheduling, check that you are on Standard or Premium and that texting is on.
- In Boulevard, name the person who checks the waitlist and books from it after every cancellation.
- Join your own waitlist from your phone, cancel a test booking, and time how long the alert takes.
- Check that your waitlist sign-up asks for a yes to texts.
- For more on booking pages, see websites for med spas. If you want the waitlist tied into the rest of your front desk, the automations page shows what can be built, and you own the code and the accounts from the first day.