Managing Consultation-Led Booking

Consultation-led booking lets clients describe the result they want while your team controls the technical service, timing, provider plan, and commercial recommendation. Directly bookable services can remain available alongside consultation experiences.

Where to find it — Web: Settings → Booking → How clients book. Requests are operated from Inbox. Proposal and amendment operations are available on supported web and native clients; configuration and publication remain web-only.

TL;DR

• Configure customer goals as consultation experiences, then connect the relevant storefront services.
• Preview and test before publishing; test mode creates no request, hold, message, payment, or booking.
• Work every request from Inbox with one request owner and a separately visible next actor.
• Send one immutable recommendation with no more than two protected options.
• A proposal is not a pending booking.
• Material changes after acceptance require an amendment; do not directly rewrite the accepted technical plan.

Configure how clients book

Open Settings → Booking → How clients book on web. The overview distinguishes:

• services clients can book directly;
• consultation experiences used to plan before booking;
• quote-request services; and
• services still using the legacy consultation intake.

Services continue to own price, duration, staff eligibility, resources, locations, and availability. A consultation experience owns the public goal, connected service entries, client questions, request handlers, reply expectation, assignment behaviour, and customer-facing copy.

One experience can serve several storefront services. The team may still recommend any eligible active venue service when preparing the proposal.

Draft, preview, publish, pause, and roll back

1. Create or edit a consultation experience.
2. Add the public title and explanation.
3. Connect the services that should route through it.
4. Configure questions, eligible request handlers, reply expectation, and relevant policies.
5. Preview every storefront destination and run the read-only test.
6. Publish the complete version.

Only publication changes live storefront routing. A failed or conflicting publish leaves the current version unchanged. Pausing restores the previous service-level route for new visitors; open requests, proposals, payment attempts, amendments, and bookings remain intact.

Operate requests from Inbox

Each submitted request creates one Inbox conversation with an authoritative structured brief. Keep these concepts separate:

Field	Meaning
Preferred professional	The client's non-binding preference, or flexibility.
Request owner	The accountable team member handling the request.
Next action	Whether the client or team is expected to respond next.
Booked provider plan	The provider commitment that appears only in an accepted proposal.

Use Internal note for team-only context. Customer-visible replies and internal notes remain separate. Available outcomes include requesting more information, recommending a consultation or patch test, recommending an appointment, and declining safely.

Draft and send a proposal

Choose Recommend appointment from the consultation request. A proposal contains one customer-facing plan and up to two appointment options.

Before sending, confirm:

• exact service plan and duration;
• named or split-provider assignments;
• location and resource requirements;
• fixed price or bounded estimate;
• deposit or card-protection terms;
• customer policies and message;
• complete availability for every option; and
• the displayed expiry and delivery mode.

Send proposal uses the client's eligible preferred channel. During quiet hours, delivery may be scheduled while capacity is protected immediately. Activate and copy link starts expiry immediately and provides a secure link for manual sharing.

Sending validates and protects every option atomically. If one option is no longer available, the proposal remains a draft so the affected time can be replaced.

Proposal lifecycle

Action	Result
Revise	Creates a new immutable revision and releases superseded option holds.
Withdraw	Prevents acceptance and releases protected capacity.
Override protected hold	Manager-only, reasoned action that releases capacity and records an audit event.
Expire	Releases capacity and keeps the request available for follow-up.
Customer asks a question	Keeps the proposal context and returns the next action to the team.
Customer accepts	Creates at most one authoritative booking and consumes only the chosen option.

Proposal holds appear separately from bookings in operational calendars. Connected calendars receive private busy-time semantics rather than consultation details.

Fixed prices, estimates, deposits, and card protection

A bounded estimate requires a minimum, maximum, and explanation. Mandatory plan charges, provider pricing, included allowances, tax, and required fees cannot exceed the accepted maximum without an amendment. Deposits are credits and discounts reduce the ceiling.

Retail, tips, and later client-requested additions must be separately accepted and itemised; they cannot conceal an overage in the proposed plan.

Phase-one amendments may preserve, reduce, or refund an existing deposit or protected amount. They cannot collect or increase one.

Amend an accepted booking

Consultation-origin bookings route material changes through Amend accepted terms. Prepare the complete proposed time, duration, service plan, provider plan, location, maximum, deposit credit or protected amount, and customer-facing reason.

Replacement capacity is held while the original booking stays authoritative. The customer sees an Accepted → Proposed comparison. Acceptance atomically swaps the booking terms and capacity; rejection, expiry, or failure releases only the replacement hold.

If the venue cannot honour the accepted terms, use the unable-to-honour path so cancellation is penalty-free and the consultation deposit is fully refunded.

Roles and platform boundaries

Role or platform	Capability
Owner / Manager on web	Configure, preview, test, publish, pause, and roll back consultation experiences.
Eligible reviewer / Manager	Review requests and draft proposals. Sending depends on the experience's reviewer permission.
Owner / Manager	Override holds, amend commercial terms, and issue consultation-contract refunds with an audit reason.
Supported native app	Review and operate requests, proposals, recovery, and amendments.
Customer web link	Submit requests, reply, review proposals, confirm, recover payment, and respond to amendments without an account.

Consequential actions never queue offline. Safe drafts can be resumed after reconnecting.

Troubleshooting

Issue	What to check
Publish is unavailable	Confirm the production activation gate is enabled and every experience passes readiness checks.
A service still opens legacy intake	Confirm it is connected to the published experience; draft-only changes do not affect live routing.
Proposal activation reports a conflict	Refresh availability and replace the affected option; no partial set of holds is created.
Delivery fails	Use the surfaced manual secure-link action and resolve the owner alert; do not recreate the proposal.
Payment outcome is uncertain	Use the existing recovery action. Never ask the client to repeat payment while provider success is unresolved.
Direct reschedule is unavailable	Consultation-origin material changes require a protected amendment.

Related Articles

• Service Access Modes
• Consultation Forms
• Booking an Appointment Online
• Consultation-Led Booking for Customers