Take appointment requests for your team to confirm

Some businesses prefer that a person approves every appointment, for example a clinic that needs to check a doctor’s availability first. With the Request appointments skill, the customer picks a preferred time, but nothing is reserved. Your team reviews the request and turns it into a booking.

Note

Install either Request appointments or Book appointments, not both. If you want the agent to reserve times on its own, see Let your agent book appointments in the chat.

Install the skill

Go to Settings, then under AI click Skills. Click Install from gallery, find Request appointments, and click Install skill. The skill has no settings to fill in. As with direct booking, you need at least one active service linked to an active resource.

What your customer experiences

1. The customer asks for an appointment. The agent finds the service and suggests times from the resource’s weekly schedule.
2. The customer picks a time. The agent sends the request and tells the customer clearly that the time is not reserved yet and your team will confirm.
3. The request is added to a ticket for that conversation, so your team can follow up.

Caution

Because nothing is reserved, the times the agent suggests do not take existing bookings into account, and two customers can request the same time. Your team decides which request gets it.

Turn a request into a booking

1. Open the ticket for the conversation. The request shows as a Requested appointment card with the service, resource, date, time, and duration, with a note that the time is not reserved.

2. Click Create booking. The Create booking from request form opens, already filled in from the request.

3. Check the details and change anything you need, for example the time or the resource. The customer comes from the original request and cannot be changed.

4. Click Create Booking.

TODOScreenshot coming soonTicket drawer with the Requested appointment card and the Create booking button

The booking is created with all the usual checks. If the time is no longer free or is outside the resource’s working hours, you are asked to pick another time. Once the booking is created, the card links to it with View booking, and a ticket that was opened just for this request is resolved automatically.

Good to know

• The first person to create the booking wins. If a teammate clicks Create booking on the same request afterwards, they see the booking that already exists instead of a duplicate.
• A request on a closed or cancelled ticket cannot be turned into a booking.
• To create a booking from a request you need permission to update tickets and to create bookings, and the resource must be one you are allowed to manage. If the button does not work for you, ask your account owner.