Learn about the processes of dispatching and approving appointments as well as their different options.
Booxi offers a lot of flexibility when it comes to appointments dispatch and approval.
As seen in the previous topic, staff selection is a setting that can be configured at the service level. You might be willing to offer your customers the choice to select a specific staff or also allow them to have no preference.
Here are the different options regarding staff selection.
Personnel Selection
Online Personnel Selection
Personnel Selection
Each service will be assigned to the staff selected by the client in the Booking Widget as shown below.
No Personnel Selection
Each service will be automatically assigned to an associated member of staff, available at that time and with the least appointments on the day the appointment is booked on. In the Booking Widget, staff selection will be skipped as shown below.
No Preference + Personnel Selection
Provide your customers the option to choose a specific member of staff or let a member of staff be automatically assigned. In the Booking Widget, clients can choose a member of staff or select "No Preference" as shown below.
Now that the customer has selected a service, selected a time slot or shared his preferred availability, the approval process can begin.
Appointment Approval
At the merchant level, Booxi offers four modes of approval , automatic approval, automatic approval after a delay, automatic approval after online payment completed and manual approval. Based on the approval mode selected, customer communication flow and staff approval will vary.
Automatic Appointment Approval
When automatic appointment approval is selected, all incoming appointment requests are automatically approved and booked per the selection made in the Booking Widget. The client receives a confirmation email as soon as the process is complete.
Automatic Approval After a Delay
This feature allows the associated staff to respond to an appointment request within a defined period of time (between 1 and 90 minutes). This mode is useful for merchants with changing schedules. If no response or action is taken before the delay expires, the appointment is automatically approved. The delay is customizable per merchant. The client first receives a message stating that the merchant has been notified of the appointment request. Once the appointment is confirmed or after the delay expires, the client will receive a second email that confirms the appointment. The associated staff will be notified by email or may receive an alert.
Automatic (after online payment completed)
When this setting is enabled, scheduled appointments (i.e. with date/time and staff defined) requiring online payment will only be automatically approved once the required payment is successfully completed; until then, it will be listed as “Request awaiting your approval”. In addition, clients will only receive a confirmation message if the payment is complete, not otherwise.
When the "auto-cancel unpaid booking" setting is enabled, appointments requiring payment will be cancelled regardless of their current status (even if previously approved).
For services whose online payment method is “Capture card info”, submission of card information is considered successful completion of payment.
Manual Approval
For merchants that need to keep control over their booking schedule and oversight over their staff workload, under manual approval mode all incoming appointment requests must be manually approved by the associated staff. The client receives a confirmation email once the appointment is manually approved. The associated staff will be notified by email or may receive an alert.
Important Note
If a merchant decides not to display availability online or if a client provides his own availability, a manual dispatch of the appointment request will take place independently of the approval mode selected.