Website development with appointment booking

How online booking works

The client picks a service, and the site shows the slots that are free with the staff member or in the room that offers it. Once they confirm, the slot is taken and you get a notification. That is also how the booking app for a hair salon works, one of our web apps, in which every staff member has their own calendar and services.

The price is fixed, agreed in advance and stated in the written quote, with no hourly billing. A simple website is usually done in 1–2 weeks, larger projects take longer, and the exact timeline is in the quote.

Rules to set before the build

A calendar is only as good as the rules behind it. Before the quote, we ask how long each service takes and whether it needs a break afterwards, who provides which service, how far ahead people can book, how late an appointment can be canceled and which days are not offered.

The second question is whether an appointment counts as soon as the client picks it or only once you confirm it. The same answers also determine what the site stores about the client: we ask only for what you need for the appointment, usually a name, a phone number or email, and the service.

Calendar, inquiry or phone call

Not every business needs a calendar. The Villa Bella Vista apartments site in Divčibare has an inquiry form with dates, the number of guests and the preferred apartment, and every important place on the site says that an inquiry is not a confirmed booking. The owner checks availability and confirms the dates personally.

For Diamond Lux on Kopaonik, the owner chose phone calls and Viber, with no form and no calendar. For one apartment and an owner who answers the phone, that is reasonable; for ten units and two people running them, it would not be.

Golden Pets Hotel and Medica Centar deliberately have no online booking: before taking in a dog, the boarding kennel has to ask about the breed, habits and health record, and the practice does not want the reason for a visit stored in the website's database. We suggest a calendar when it actually saves you time.