Increase your earnings by quickly filling in last-minute cancellations. Take complete control over how you set your waitlist rules and maximize your appointment schedule with Vagaro's expanded and automated Waitlist feature.
You have four waitlist options to choose from:
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You Pick: Select a customer from the waitlist and book them into an open slot
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Money Maker: Automatically notify the customer who has the highest-paid appointment
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First in Line: Automatically notify the first customer on the waitlist
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Instant Book: Automatically notify all customers on the waitlist. The first to book gets the appointment
This article will cover the following:
Related Article: Create a Waitlist - Vagaro Pro app
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Navigate to → → .
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Scroll down to the Waitlist section.
You'll be able to choose from four Waitlist types:
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You Pick: Manually select a customer from a waitlist and add them to an opening slot on the calendar from your Notification Panel when your schedule is full and a customer cancels.
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Money Maker: An automatic notification is sent to the customer with the highest-paid appointment on the waitlist. If that customer does not respond within the period you set, the opening is offered to the next highest-paid appointment.
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First in Line: An automatic notification is sent to the first customer on the waitlist. If that customer doesn't respond within the period you set, a notification goes to the customer who is next in line.
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Instant Book: An automatic notification is sent to all wait-list customers. The first to book gets the appointment.
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Note
For any waitlist type, you can set Customers Can Add to Waitlist on or off. When turned on (green), customers using your online booking page can add themselves to a waitlist if they can't find the appointment time they want.
Manually select a customer from the waitlist and add them to an open slot on the calendar.
Example: Let's say Sara, one of your employees, gets an account notification that five waitlist appointments can fill a 120-minute slot.
Sara would manually add the customer by selecting the Add Now button from the Notification Panel. This prompts the system to notify the customer, confirming they got the appointment.
To set You Pick as your waitlist type, tap it in the Waitlist section and then tap Save.
The customer with the highest-paid appointment on the waitlist is automatically offered the opening slot first. If a customer does not respond within the period you set (Time to Respond), the opening is offered to the next highest-paid appointment.
You can set the response period in the fields under Time to Respond for days, hours, and minutes.
Example: Let's say we have these five waitlisted appointments for a 60-minute opening in the calendar:
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Wendy - $30 haircut / 30 minutes
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Helen - $40 haircut / 30 minutes
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Doris - $285 haircut / 150 minutes
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Jodi - $40 haircut / 30 minutes
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Gretchen - $85 haircut / 60 minutes
The earliest available time goes to Gretchen because she has the highest-paid appointment that fits into the time slot.
Although Doris has the highest-paid appointment, the duration of her service is too long and does not fit within the available time.
To set up Money Maker as your waitlist type:
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Select Money Maker.
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In Time to Respond, set how long the customer has to respond before the appointment is offered to the next customer on the list.
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Click Save.
With First in Line, an automatic notification is sent to the first customer on the waitlist. If a customer does not respond within the period you set (Time to Respond), the opening is offered to the next customer in line.
You can set the response period in the fields under Time to Respond for days, hours, and minutes.
Example: Let's say Wendy was the first to be added to the waitlist. She receives the first notification. If Wendy does not respond within the period you set, the appointment will be offered to the next customer in line. At this point, both Wendy and the second customer can book the appointment.
To set up First in Line as your waitlist type:
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Click First in Line.
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In Time to Respond, set how long the customer has to respond before the appointment is offered to the next customer on the list.
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Click Save.
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Navigate to your Calendar page.
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Click any empty spot on the day you want, and then click Add to Waitlist.
On the Add to Waitlist screen, fill in the following as needed:
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Select the Service.
You can add up to 3 services here. Once you've added the first, click +Add Service to add more.
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Select Employee.
The default is the employee whose calendar you are showing, but you can select additional employees or use Select All to include all employees who offer the selected service.
Note
If you have multiple services selected, you will have to make individual employee selections for each.
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Add an Appointment Note, if wanted.
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Select up to 5 dates.
Select a date from the pop-up calendar and then a time range (Anytime, Morning, Afternoon, or Evening).
Click +Add Waitlist Date & Time to add more.
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Select the Customer to add to the waitlist.
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You can remove additional services and date/time entries by clicking the X next to an entry.
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Click Add to Waitlist when you've configured the entries as needed.
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Click the bell icon at the top of the screen.
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Find the Waitlist notification option. Then click View.
There are two types of Waitlisted Appointments:
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Ready Appointments: when Waitlisted appointments become available, they will be listed here
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Customers on Waitlist: these are appointments requests made for days when there is no employee/service availability
The blue bell icon with a customer's name shows that a notification has been sent to the customer and the date and time sent.
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There are 3 options for each waitlist entry: Remove, Call the customer, and Browse Availability.
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Click Remove to remove the customer from the Waitlist.
Confirm in the dialog that displays.
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Click the customer's phone number to contact them directly.
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Click Browse Availability to check for any openings in your schedule and add the waitlisted customer to an appointment.
You can make changes to the service (or add more services), employee, and date.
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Click Search to view available appointments for the selected day.
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Select a Time.
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Make any changes to the Book an Appointment... screen, and then click Book.
You can see that the waitlisted customer has been added to the Calendar.
To restrict an employee's access to the waitlist feature on the notification panel, follow these steps:
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Navigate to → → .
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Select an employee type, click the More (3 vertical dots) menu, and click Edit.
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Scroll down to the following settings:
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Accept Appointment Requests and Waitlists
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Accept Other Employee Appointment Requests and Waitlist
Each has a button marked Modify. Toggle it on or off. Green means that the option has been enabled for the employee.
To learn more about access levels, see Setting Access Levels - Web Version.
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Click Save.
Comments
11 comments
Hi Tonya. If the appointment date passes, the system will automatically remove the customer from the waitlist so there isn't a way to track waitlist appointments once the date passes. Feel free to send a feature request to our development team to add this to the list of projects to work on. To get started, click this link: https://feedback.vagaro.com/forums/915991-feature-requests.
I think this is an awesome feature. If it worked. A waitlist shouldn't have any booking parameters. If someone cancels and there is a waitlist created the waitlist people should automatically be notified. I have my normal booking parameters set at 24 hours, because I dont want a surprise client where I didnt know I had one. But have not been able to use the waitlist when someone cancels day of or day before. That's when you need those spots filled. Please fix that.
Hi Shyne. Customers are notified about waitlisted appointments when cancellations happen. Are you still having issues? I see that you emailed our support team and one of our agents replied. Please review the email when you get a chance. Thanks.
I love the waitlist feature but I wish it gave clients an option to waitlist in general not only for specific dates. I only allow online booking 6 weeks in advance and when those weeks are booked clients want to waitlist for new openings but currently an only waitlist for 5 days. Clients often choose dates that I'm not in the salon limiting their chance of being alerted.
Hi Stephanie... I see what you mean. Are you aware that the "Sorry, they're booked" message can now include the business's phone number to encourage clients to call in if they can't book the appointment they want online? Set this switch on the Online Appointment Rules page to enable this new feature:
I understand that this doesn't match what you're talking about. If you want to have our dev team consider your request, please add it as a feature request: https://feedback.vagaro.com/forums/915991-feature-requests
Hope that helps!
Do clients get an email notification that they've been added to the waitlist? I have a lot of people who have added themselves to the waitlist for a class that's coming up and they have been calling to ask if they actually were added to the waitlist because they didn't get an email confirmation.
Hi Georgia. Yes, your clients should get an email notification, confirming that they have been added to the waitlist; however, please ensure that your clients are set to receive notifications. Navigate to customers' profiles and check the settings.
When editing customer profiles, you can add or change the settings such as the client being copied on their appointment notification emails and their appointment reminder setting (whether they are receiving notifications through email, text, or push notification).
Our clients do not receive notification when they're added to the waitlist, regardless of their notification settings. It would be very helpful if they did. Is there a setting we should check?
Hi Jessi... the only thing I can think of is this: if the customer added themselves to the waitlist, they would not receive a notification. I can't tell if that's the case here, or not, so I've created a ticket for your issue, and you should hear from support about it.
Donna
So I'm finding that having 5 date options just ends up sending my client to many emails. I've read through most of the feature requests and the most common and asked for option, is a date range for the clients to be notified for, along with the already specific date requests. I'll look at my list and I'll have 1 client listed 5 or more times! Most clients want to be notified of any openings within the week they need or before a specific date.
Another needed feature is giving the client an option to book another appt 1 or more weeks after the appt they booked online. Many barber clients want to set up a series of appts at one time.
Hi, Keri. Thank you for your comment. I've forwarded your comment to our Support Team, and someone will follow up with you shortly to help answer your questions about waitlisting your customers.
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