Booking Issues with Square Appointments

[Rebel]

The title of this thread has been edited by a Square Moderator from the original: Booking Issues

There is a big problem, costing service-based businesses money, with Online Booking. I have spoken to Square customer service about it to no avail. I pay for more Square options to make it more sophisticated so I’m shocked this is an issue:

My clients book a variety of time-based services. I need them to book back-to-back. Choosing 15min, 30min or 60min increments was leaving me huge empty gaps so I switched to “based on service time”. This works “better” but not much!

Example;

I’m open 7:30am-12pm (lunch) 1pm-6:15pm

If a client needs a 1hr20min MORNING time slot, and no one else is booked anywhere in the whole morning, the booking system will only show 8am available. They should be able to book at 7:30am or 9:30am. There’s plenty of time (yes, I factored in any extra time I allowed afterward in the service settings) There IS time from 9:30am-12 for 2 plus hours! 
The only time 9:30am is given as an option is, if another client has booked 7:30am for a service in that same morning. Only THEN is 9:30 shown as an opening. 

Why was 9:30am unavailable on a wide open morning, but available if someone booked a 7:30am? 

This same issue also happens in the afternoon.

Square, you need to make the booking availability more sophisticated. This is losing me money when clients are limited to one single odd early morning hour. There IS enough time for late mornings to be shown as open.

Second issue:

For each service we add a little time for clean up built into the service settings. 5-10min each. When a client books multiple services in ONE appointment, you should not add the cleanup time for all of the items. They get ONE total appointment and clean-up is done at one time. This is causing booking issues because of how much excessive time is being added to one appointment. They are limited to openings that  can squeeze in all that extra unnecessary time.  We need an alternate SINGLE “extra time” option for multiple services to avoid this.

Customer service tried everything and was defeated to sending a request for a new features. These should be standard features, especially for paying customers. 

[_Violet]

Hi @Rebel - Thank you for sharing your detailed feedback on the Online Booking system. I understand how crucial seamless booking is for service-based businesses like yours, and apologize for the inconvenience this has caused you.

It's clear that the inability to offer back-to-back bookings and optimal time slot suggestions, even when there's availability, is impacting your business flow. Your example highlights how bookings should consider all available time slots to maximize your schedule’s efficiency. Additionally, you've identified a vital concern regarding the addition of extra clean-up time for multiple services within a single appointment. The added time should be consolidated to avoid limiting the availability of appointment slots.

We appreciate that you've escalated these issues to our Support Team and that they forwarded your requests for new features. Your feedback is invaluable, and I've shared with our product team to highlight these areas for improvement. If their team provides more insight that I can share, I will be sure to follow up with you here. In the meantime, if you haven't already, please keep an eye on our Product Updates page for any new features and improvements.

Thank you for your patience and for being a valued Square customer.

[Vg2]

I came here to say the same thing. I’m having the exact same issues. My haircuts are 45 minute time slots. It only show I’m available in 2 weeks when I have 2 45 minute openings before then. Absolutely frustrating! I’m hoping we can get some answers.