Take Appointment Bookings on WhatsApp with Google Calendar

This recipe takes an appointment request in chat from the first message to a confirmed event in Google Calendar. It works for any business that keeps its diary in Google Calendar, with one calendar or one per staff member. Part of the Google Calendar integration.

What happens today

A customer messages at 9.30pm asking for a slot on Saturday morning. Nobody reads it until the next day. Someone opens the calendar, types out two times and waits. The customer replies hours later, one time has gone, and the back and forth starts again. Some customers give up and book with whoever answered first.

The flow that works

The customer says what they want and when. AeroChat works out the service, the length and the preferred time, and asks only for what is missing.
It checks your Google Calendar, or the calendar of the staff member they asked for, for a free block long enough for that service.
It offers up to three times closest to what they asked for.
The customer picks one. AeroChat asks for their name and email.
It adds the event to the calendar with the customer’s details and sends a confirmation with the date, time and address.

The recipe

Copy this into AeroChat

When a customer asks to book an appointment, follow these steps.

Find out which service they want and the day and time they prefer. Use our service list for the length of each service, for example 30 minutes for a consultation and 60 minutes for a full session.

If they ask for a particular staff member, use that person’s Google Calendar. If not, check all our staff calendars.

Look for a free block long enough for the service plus 10 minutes between appointments (example), within our opening hours, for example 9am to 6pm Monday to Friday and 9am to 1pm on Saturday. Do not offer times less than 2 hours from now.

Offer up to three times closest to what they asked for, with the staff member’s name.

When they choose a time, ask for their full name and email address. Check the time is still free, then add an event to that calendar with the service as the title and the customer’s name, phone number and email in the description. Add their email as a guest so they get the calendar invitation.

Confirm the service, staff member, date, time and our address. Tell them they can message here to change or cancel.

Only offer services and prices from our service list. If the time they picked has gone, offer the next three closest times. If they ask anything you cannot answer from our service list or policies, tell them a team member will reply and hand over. Reply in the customer’s language.

Change the service lengths, gap between appointments, opening hours and notice period to your own before you paste it.

What to connect

Google Calendar. Connect your Google account when AeroChat asks, and approve access to the calendars you book from. If several people take appointments, give each person their own calendar so a free time means that person is free.
Your service list and policies. Upload your services, lengths, prices, address and cancellation policy to the AeroChat knowledge base. The recipe takes its answers from these.
Payments, if you take a deposit. Airwallex is built in. If you already take payments with Stripe or HitPay, both connect through their APIs with your API key.

After you paste the recipe, AeroChat builds the workflow as a draft and shows a checklist: connect your Google account, upload your service list, then switch it on.

Using a different system? If it has a public API, it connects to AeroChat the same way: describe what you want, paste in its key, and it runs.

Can’t find your tool? Message us in the chat on this page and we’ll tell you how it connects.

What you still decide

Your services and how long each one takes.
Your opening hours and the gap between appointments.
How far ahead customers can book, and the shortest notice you accept.
Whether customers can ask for a named staff member.
Which requests go to a person instead of being booked.

AeroChat follows these as written. It never books a time your calendar shows as busy.

The result to expect

Requests that arrive in the evening or at the weekend get a booking straight away instead of a reply the next working day. Your team stops typing out available times by hand, and the calendar stays the one place to see the day.

Measure it with your own numbers: bookings made outside opening hours, and the time from first message to confirmed booking, for a month before and after you start.

Next: reschedule and cancel from chat.