Can my AI book appointments for customers?

Yes. Your AI reads the same calendar your booking page reads, offers times you are genuinely free, and books the one the customer picks. It only ever says an appointment is booked when it really is.

Where it can book

Four places: on the phone, by text, on WhatsApp and in the chat window on your website. It is the same calendar and the same rules in all four, so a customer who starts a text and finishes on the phone is never offered a time that has gone.

It cannot book by email, and it never says it will. Email replies are the one place an appointment still has to be arranged by a person.

Before it will book anything

The same two settings the booking page needs, and until they are set your AI does not offer times at all. See How do customers book an appointment with me online?

1. How many jobs you can run at once. If you let customers choose who does the job, this is your team's weekly schedules instead of a number: the AI can only book somebody who has working hours. See How do I let customers choose who they see?
2. When customers may book. This starts as the same hours you are open.

On the phone there is a third switch. Under Calls, then Voice, turn on "Book appointments" so the assistant handles appointments during a call at all. See How do I get the AI to answer my phone?

Until booking is set up, a caller who asks for an appointment is handled the way they always were: the AI takes their name, number and the time they would like, and somebody rings them back to agree it.

How a booking actually goes

1. The customer says they want an appointment.
2. The AI looks up your real open times. It never invents one.
3. It offers two or three of them and the customer picks.
4. It asks for their name, then books it.
5. It reads the booked time back.

If you let customers choose who does the job, the AI books the person the customer asks for, if that person is free at that time. If they are not free, it books nothing, says so, and offers that person's next open times or whoever else is free. If the name fits nobody on your team, or more than one person, it asks who they mean rather than guessing.

When the customer does not ask for anyone, the AI does not make them pick. It books whoever is free at that time, the person with the fewest bookings that day, and tells the customer who it is. The confirmation email names them too. If nobody is free at the time the customer asks for, the AI says so and offers times when somebody is.

If somebody else takes that exact time in the seconds in between, the AI says so straight away and offers the times that are still open. Nobody is told an appointment exists when it does not.

If a booking cannot be saved at all, the AI says that too. On a call it asks the customer to ring you directly; in a chat it brings a person in. It never quietly turns a failure into a promise.

The confirmation

When we already have the customer's email address, a booking made in a chat sends the same confirmation your booking page sends: your logo, your colours, the time, and a link to change or cancel it.

On a phone call there is usually no email address on file, so no confirmation is sent. Caller ID tells us the number somebody is calling from, not who they are, so we do not email an appointment to a record we matched on a phone number alone. Read the time back to the caller and they have what they need.

When there is an email on file and your reminder switch is on, a reminder follows closer to the appointment, the same as on a booking made through your own booking page. See How do I remind customers about their appointment?

When a customer wants to change or cancel

Your AI does not move or cancel an appointment itself. When a customer in a text, WhatsApp or website chat asks to, it sends them the same change-or-cancel link their confirmation carries, for their next upcoming booking, and tells them it is on its way.

The link always goes to the email or phone number already on that customer's record, never to an address somebody types into the chat. On a text conversation it is texted; everywhere else it is emailed when we have an email, and texted when we only have a number.

• No upcoming booking on their record: the AI says it could not find one and brings in your team.
• No email or phone on their record: the AI asks for one, and does not send anything yet.

What it will not do

• It will not move or cancel an appointment itself. It sends the customer the link to do it, as above.
• It will not book by email, on Messenger or on Instagram.
• It will not take a deposit or a payment when it books.