Spa Booking on WhatsApp With Therapist, Room and Deposit
This recipe takes a booking request on WhatsApp, Instagram or Messenger from first message to confirmed slot: the treatment, the therapist, a free room, a deposit and the confirmation. It works from the Google Calendars many spas already keep for their therapists. It is the first workflow most spas automate, and the one the others build on. Part of the spa and wellness workflows.
What happens today
A customer messages at 10.40pm: “Hi, do you have a slot for a 90-minute massage tomorrow after 7pm? I’d prefer a female therapist.”. Nobody sees it until the desk opens at 10am. The receptionist checks the calendar, replies with two times, and waits. The customer replies at lunch. One time has gone. The receptionist asks for a deposit by bank transfer and a screenshot, and the customer says they will do it later. By evening there is a booking with no deposit, or no booking at all.
Each step needs a person, and each wait gives the customer a reason to book somewhere that answered first.
The flow that works
- The customer says what they want, in their own words. AeroChat works out the treatment, length, preferred time and therapist preference, and asks only for what is missing.
- It asks one short screening question about pregnancy and medical conditions. A yes goes to a therapist (see the contraindication handover).
- It checks your therapists’ Google Calendars and your room calendars for times when a matching therapist and a room are both free, and offers up to three.
- The customer picks one. AeroChat sends a deposit link in the chat.
- When the payment is confirmed, it adds the booking to the therapist’s calendar and the room calendar, logs it in your bookings Sheet, and sends the confirmation with the address and your cancellation policy.
The slot is booked only after the deposit is paid. That keeps your calendars free of unpaid holds.
The recipe
Copy this into AeroChat
When a customer asks to book a treatment, follow these steps.
- Find out which treatment they want, how long, and the day and time they prefer. If they are not sure, suggest a treatment from our treatment menu based on what they tell you, for example a deep tissue massage for shoulder tension.
- Ask whether they want a particular therapist, or a female or male therapist.
- Ask: “Before we book, are you pregnant, or do you have any medical condition, injury or recent surgery we should know about?” If the answer is yes, do not book. Collect the details and hand the conversation to a therapist.
- Check our therapists’ Google Calendars and our room calendars for times when a matching therapist and a treatment room are both free for the full treatment plus 15 minutes to turn the room around (example). Only offer times within our opening hours, for example 10am to 10pm with the last booking at 8.30pm. Offer up to three times closest to what they asked for.
- When they choose a time, send a deposit payment link. Example amounts: US$30 for treatments up to 60 minutes and US$50 for longer ones. Tell them the booking is confirmed once the deposit is paid and that the deposit is taken off their final bill.
- When the payment is confirmed, check the time is still free. Add the booking to the therapist’s calendar and the room calendar with the customer’s name, phone number and treatment, and add a row to our bookings Sheet with the date, time, treatment, therapist, customer name, phone number and deposit paid. If the time has gone, offer the next three closest times and keep the deposit for the new booking.
- Send a confirmation with the treatment, therapist, date and time, our address, a reminder to arrive 10 minutes early, and our cancellation policy. Example policy: free changes up to 24 hours before, deposit kept for changes after that.
Only quote treatments, prices and durations from our treatment menu. Never give a discount. If they do not pay, do not create the booking. If they ask anything you cannot answer from our menu or policies, tell them a team member will reply and hand over. Reply in the customer’s language.
Change the example amounts, opening hours, turnaround time, cancellation policy and screening question to your own before you paste it.
What to connect
- Your treatment menu and policies. Upload your price list, durations, address, parking notes and cancellation policy to the AeroChat knowledge base. The recipe reads its answers from these.
- Google Calendar. Give each therapist their own Google Calendar, and each treatment room one too, so a free time means a free therapist and a free room. Note each therapist’s gender in the calendar’s description if customers can ask for a female or male therapist.
- Spa and salon booking software, if your spa runs on it. A solo therapist or a small studio can run on Google Calendar. Larger spas usually book through spa and salon software instead. Zenoti, Phorest and Mindbody each publish an API for appointments, so AeroChat can check availability and make, move or cancel bookings there in place of Google Calendar. Describe your system in the recipe and paste in its API key.
- Your bookings Sheet. A Google Sheet with one row per booking. It gives your team one list to check, and the reminder and follow-up workflows use it.
- How AeroChat reaches them. Connect your Google account when AeroChat asks. It sets up the connection to your calendars and bookings Sheet from the recipe, and you approve the access.
- Payments. Airwallex is built in: connect your Airwallex account and AeroChat sends the payment link and confirms the payment. Money settles directly into your Airwallex balance, and AeroChat never sees card numbers. If you already take payments with HitPay or Stripe, both connect through their APIs with your API key. Payment links are included from the Growth plan.
After you paste the recipe, AeroChat builds the workflow as a draft and shows a checklist: connect your Google account, connect payments, upload the menu, then switch it on. If it built a connection from a system’s public documentation, the checklist asks you to check it once against the current docs.
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
- Which treatments need a deposit, and how much.
- Your cancellation window and whether a deposit is refundable.
- Whether customers can request a named therapist, or only female or male.
- How far ahead customers can book, and how many times to offer.
- The screening question, and which answers go to a therapist.
AeroChat follows these as written. It does not offer a price, a discount or a time your calendars have not shown as free.
The result to expect
Requests that arrive after closing get a booking and a deposit that night, instead of a reply the next morning. The deposit protects the slot, because a customer who has paid to hold it has a reason to turn up or to tell you when they cannot. Your front desk stops relaying times back and forth and handles the conversations that need judgment.
Measure it with your own numbers: bookings made outside opening hours, and the share of bookings with a deposit paid, for a month before and after you start. In the first week, read a sample of the booking chats in the inbox and adjust the recipe where a reply was not how you would put it.
Next: no-show reduction and rescheduling and cancellation. See also payment link.
Take your first booking in chat
Paste the recipe, connect your Google Calendar and Airwallex, and message your own number asking for a massage tomorrow evening.
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