Take bookings through the Front Desk

The Front Desk can book, move and cancel appointments for your customers in Bookings. It offers only times that are really free, holds the chosen time for a moment, and books nothing until the customer says "yes" in a new message.

Before you start

• Set up Bookings with your services, staff and opening hours, and switch on online bookings. See set up Bookings.
• On WhatsApp, tick Take bookings here (the online booking page's rules apply) in Front desk settings. On the web chat and e-mail, the team's AI mode must let the Front Desk answer (see let the Front Desk answer e-mail and web chat).
• For deposits, connect your organisation's payment account in Settings → Payments (see Settings → Payments).

How a booking goes

1. The customer asks for a time. The Front Desk offers free times from Bookings, each with its date and time zone, for example "2026-10-29 23:30 (UTC+03:00)".
2. The customer picks one. The Front Desk holds it for up to two minutes, so nobody else takes it meanwhile.
3. The Front Desk asks for the confirmation: "To confirm your booking on …, reply YES. Nothing is booked until you do."
4. The customer answers YES in a new message. Only then is the booking written in Bookings, once, and the customer gets "Your booking on … is confirmed" with the booking number.
5. The booking appears in Bookings like any other, with its reminders.

Deposits

When a service asks for a deposit, the Front Desk sends the customer a payment link from your own payment account: "To hold your booking on …, please pay the deposit here: …".

• Paid in time: the booking is confirmed and the deposit is recorded on it.
• Paid after the hold ran out: nothing is booked automatically. The customer is told that the team will refund it or arrange a new time, and the Front desk exceptions page shows A deposit arrived after its hold expired. Choose Refund the deposit (paid back once, through the same payment provider) or Book it again if the time is still free.

Good to know

• A "yes" is needed every time. A yes given for 10:00 cannot confirm a change to 11:00; the Front Desk asks again (fd_confirmation_stale). On e-mail, a "yes" quoted from an older message never counts.
• Held times run out. If the customer answers after the hold, the Front Desk offers to look for another time (fd_hold_expired).
• Clock changes. A time that does not exist on that day is refused with the times before and after it; a time that happens twice is offered twice, each with its UTC offset (fd_time_not_local).
• Moving a booking books the new time first, then cancels the old one. If the old one cannot be cancelled, the customer keeps the new time and the exceptions page shows A moved booking kept its old time; reminders for the old time are not sent.
• Not sure it went through? The customer hears "We are still checking whether your booking went through", the time stays blocked, and Kluvan checks again by itself. Nothing is booked twice.
• Who the customer is. The Front Desk finds the customer in your records by phone number or e-mail, never by name, or creates the customer. Moving or cancelling an existing booking needs a customer the channel can confirm.
• Customers you blocked in Bookings cannot book through the Front Desk: they hear that a member of the team will help, and the conversation goes to your team.
• Payment providers. Deposits work with the payment account connected in Settings → Payments (Paymob today). Stripe is in early access and appears there once Kluvan's Stripe connection opens.
• Google Calendar is coming soon. Reading your staff's busy time from Google Calendar and writing Front Desk bookings into it is built but not yet available: Kluvan's Google sign-in still has to open.