Appointment types: different lengths for different appointments
Appointment types
Most businesses book more than one kind of appointment. A quick showing is not a listing presentation; a hygiene visit is not a new-patient exam. Appointment types let you name the kinds you book. When you have two or more, your assistant asks a caller which kind they want and records it on the booking.
If you do nothing
Nothing changes. Until you add a type, every appointment uses the single appointment length on your Calendar page, exactly as it does today. The line under the heading tells you which length is in use right now.
That is deliberate. Your appointment length decides which times your assistant offers a lead, so we do not change it for you based on your industry — you choose.
Adding types
On Settings → Appointment types:
- If you have no types yet, you will see a button offering common starting points for your industry. These are researched suggestions, not rules — a real-estate agent is offered showing / buyer consultation / listing appointment, a dental practice new patient / hygiene / emergency. Add them and change whatever you like.
- Or press Add a type and build your own.
For each type you set:
- Name — in English and in Spanish. These are your words; leads hear them, so name them the way you would say them out loud.
- Minutes — how long the appointment itself runs.
- Gap after — time you want left free afterwards. This is where drive time between showings or turnover between chairs belongs.
- Default — the one type used when nothing more specific is known. Only one type can be the default.
Press Save appointment types when you are done.
Good to know
- You can have up to 12 types. Lengths run from 5 to 480 minutes.
- Renaming a type is safe. Each type keeps a short internal id, so changing the name it shows does not disturb anything already booked.
- Removing a type does not touch appointments that are already on the calendar.
What it does today
- On a phone call, when you have two or more types, your assistant asks which kind of appointment the caller wants and records that type on the booking.
- The type decides which checklist items go out. If you keep a checklist under What each appointment needs and use the 5-day or 7-day reminder, that reminder lists the items for every appointment plus the items for the booked type.
What this does not do yet
- The times offered still use your single appointment length. The minutes and gap you set on a type are stored and shown here, but the times your assistant offers, and the time a booking holds on your calendar, still use the one appointment length on your Calendar page. Set that length to suit the kind you book most.
- The online booking chat after hours does not ask for a type; those bookings are untyped.
- Reminders do not name the type.