Online booking: what a salon or a clinic actually needs

For most salons, clinics and repair shops, a booking system built into the website is enough: the client picks a service and an open slot, you get a notification, and the appointment lands in your calendar. Your own mobile app only makes sense once you have clients who come back every month and for whom installing something is worth it. A website with booking starts at 800 KM with me, a mobile app at 2500 KM.

The rest of this post is about how to choose between the two — and what you need to prepare before you switch either one on.

What online booking actually solves

The problem is not that phone calls are bad. The problem is that the call comes at the worst possible moment — while you are mid-job, with your hands in someone's hair or a patient in the chair.

The other half of the problem is timing. A client who works from 8 to 4 cannot ring a salon that is open from 8 to 4. That client either turns up unannounced, or does not turn up at all.

Online booking fixes this by moving the arranging outside working hours. Appointments collect while you are busy and while you are asleep.

Three ways to take bookings

• WhatsApp or messages. Free and immediate. Works while you have a handful of appointments a day and one person answering. It breaks the moment you have two staff and nobody knows who promised what.
• A calendar on your website. The client sees open slots in real time and books directly. No install, no sign-up — a link and that is it. For the large majority of small businesses, this is the right answer.
• Your own mobile app. An icon on the client's phone, reminders, visit history. More expensive and slower to build, but it builds the habit of coming back.

You can have the first two at the same time. The third is worth it only once you know your clients want it.

When your own app pays off

For Frizerski Salon Kenana I built an app for both platforms, iOS and Android. The client picks a service, a stylist and an open slot, tracks their visit history and gets reminders — without phoning the salon. The salon gets every appointment in one place. You can see how it turned out on the project page.

That made sense because the salon has regulars who come in several times a year and book the same kind of service each time. For them the app is not an expense, it is a tool that gets used.

If your clients get in touch once every two years, they will install the app, use it once and delete it. In that case a calendar on the website is the better investment.

What to prepare before switching it on

This is the part most often skipped, and without it the system does not work properly:

• A list of services with durations. A cut is 30 minutes, colour is 90. Without that the calendar does not know how much space to hold.
• Opening hours and breaks. Including the day you are closed and the hours you do not take clients.
• Who does what. If you have several staff, the client should be able to choose — or should not, but that is a decision you make up front.
• A cancellation rule. How far in advance a slot can be cancelled, and what happens when someone does not show.
• Who watches the notifications. One person, one phone, checked every morning. A system nobody looks at is worse than a phone.

Once that exists written down, the technical part is the smallest part of the job.

What next

If you are thinking about booking, write to me and tell me what you do, how many appointments you handle a day, and whether you work alone or with a team. Based on that I will tell you whether you need a calendar on your site or an app — and if I think you do not need an app, I will say so.

Frequently asked

Can booking be added to the website I already have? Sometimes, depending on what it was built with. I will take a look for free and tell you whether adding it is worth it or whether building new is cheaper.

Does the client have to create an account to book? No. For a calendar on the website, a name and a phone number is enough. An account only makes sense if you want visit history and reminders.