Recurring Appointments and the Appointment Waitlist

Recurring appointments

A standing appointment — every four weeks, every second Tuesday — is a series, not a stack of copies.

That distinction matters when you change one:

• Change this occurrence — moves one visit. The rest of the series stays put.
• Change the series — moves everything from here on.

Check which you are doing before you save, especially when cancelling. Cancelling a series because the client cannot make one Tuesday is a mistake you will hear about a month later.

Recurring bookings are the most valuable thing a service business has. The reports know it: there are trend metrics for Recurring Appointments, Recurring Series, Recurring Share and both projected and completed recurring revenue. Recurring Share — the proportion of your book that repeats — is a better health indicator than revenue for most shops.

The appointment waitlist

When nothing is available, Show Join Waitlist Button (Appointment Settings) offers the client a place on the waitlist rather than a dead end.

If a slot opens up — a cancellation, a rescheduled appointment — the people waiting can be offered it. That turns a cancellation from lost revenue into a filled chair.

Appointment Waitlist Notifications in Communications is what makes it work. A waitlist nobody is told about is a list.

Appointment Waitlist History is the report: who joined, and what happened to them. A long waitlist that never converts means either you are not offering the slots or you need more capacity.

Not the same as the walk-in waitlist

Two different queues:

• The appointment waitlist is about future availability: "tell me if something frees up".
• The walk-in waitlist is about today: "I am here now, how long?"

See Run the walk-in waitlist for the second.

Filling gaps automatically

Fill Schedule Gaps finds short holes between bookings and offers them as extra slots. Prefer Aligned Gap Slots decides whether those slots line up with your normal increments or start at the earliest possible moment.

Between the waitlist and gap filling, most of the capacity a shop loses to cancellations is recoverable — but only if both are on, and only if the notifications reach people.