Square Appointments Processing Time

[Curlers]

I have an issue with the processing time options for services in Square Appointments. 

Clients who come to my hair salon for a cut and colour service will be attended as follows:

1 hours - with a Colourist

30mins - Drying/letting the colour set

30mins - with a Stylist

I was looking to split this into two services; a normal 30min cut service, and a 1 hour 30min colour service. The latter is where the problem is. I was hoping to setup the colour service as:

1 hour - booked with the colourist (initial duration)

30mins - processing time

0 mins - final duration

However, the lowest time available for final duration is 5mins. Can Square please make a value of 0mins available?

[tranguyen]

Hey @Curlers, thank you for sharing this! I will make sure to share this suggestion with our Appointments team as a feature request, but I'd also like to get a bit more information on your setup for the colour service.

Is the 0 mins final duration to ensure the stylists have enough time before the next appointments or? There may be some workaround to help set this up in the meantime so I can definitely have a look further on my end. 

[Curlers]

Hi Tra

The 0 min final duration is for workflow purposes. It is difficult to explain concisely, but basically I would like customers to be able to book a colour service that lasts for 1 hours and 30mins, where the member of staff (Colourist) is only with the customer for the first hour. The remaining 30mins, the processing time, is where the customer is sitting letting the colour set and no staff member is with them at that time. I do not need a final duration. 

I cannot just make the colour service 1 hour and 30mins as this will have a significant effect on how many appointments a Colourist can do per day. By the same token, I also cannot make the service 1 hour as the customer needs to know their appointment is 1 hours 30mins. 

Additionally, If the customer books a colour service AND a cut service, I need that 30mins processing time between both services so neither staff member is unnecessarily booked to that customer. 

This is quite common for busy hair salons, so it would be great to see Square Appointments introduce this feature. I appreciate not every feature request can be done immediately, but is this something you can push the team on? I am from a web development background and know this is a very simple change for them to make. 

Thanks!

[tranguyen]

Thank you for all the information @Curlers, that really helps!

Feature requests can take time for our team to build, and this can be influenced by a number of factors. Customer feedback is one huge piece of the puzzle that impacts prioritisation, but it’s not the only piece. I'll definitely stress the importance of this to our team when sharing your feedback with them but I don't want to promise a date when this is available yet, in case things change.

I'll definitely keep my eyes out for all and any updates or if I see a workaround/other features that will help with what you need. 

[Curlers]

Hi Tranguyen

I hope you are well.

I have noticed today that, when adding an appointments, there is a pop-up: "new: Now assign staff per-service" which is a very welcome addition.

It would be great to see this feature developed further so we can add a processing time between the services. This would be ideal for the subject we discussed on this thread.