Set Lead Times for a Specific Service

You can specify at a service level the minimum and maximum lead times for bookings, rescheduling, and cancellations.

By TIMIFY

Updated 26 July, 2024

Here is what you need to know:

This setting is available for TIMIFY Enterprise plans.
Service Lead Times can be set for individual companies, as well as for the Branch Manager.

You already have the option of setting a Lead Time for all your services, which allows you to manage the parameters of how far in advance customers can book, reschedule, or cancel an appointment.

However, this isn't enough if you have services with vastly different preparation times, e.g., shopping parties for groups and last-minute bookings.

With the introduction of Service Lead Times, you can set a different Lead Time for each Service, giving you much more precise control over your bookings, reschedulings, and cancellations.

Article structure:

1. Where Can I Set Service Lead Times

2. Online Cancellation and Rescheduling Lead Time

3. Using Service Lead Times From the Branch Manager

4. FAQ

1. Where Can I Set Service Lead Times?

You can set the Service Level Lead Time by going to Management -> Services (or Global Management -> Services if you are inside the Branch Manager), editing the service for which you wish to change the Lead Times (or creating it from scratch), and then clicking on the Advanced tab.

By clicking on "Override account settings", you can specify how far in advance of today's date (or - in the case of Minimum Lead time - from what time onwards) you want customers to be able to book online.

These settings will take priority over your company settings regarding the Lead Time once you save them.

2. Online Cancellation and Rescheduling Lead Time

With this setting, you can specify if a customer can cancel or reschedule their appointment and in what timeframe before the start they can do that. That way, you can give yourself more time to react to cancellations or reschedulings.

This works by sending the customer a confirmation email for their booking, which includes a link to cancel or reschedule. The link will be valid until the lead time you have given (e.g., 1 hour before the booking starts).

ℹ️ Note: If you don’t turn on the Enable booking modification link toggle, your customers won’t receive a cancel or reschedule button in their emails.

If you haven’t turned on the confirmation email from the Settings -> System Notifications menu, the customer will not receive the link and will not be able to cancel/reschedule.

3. Using Service Lead Times From the Branch Manager

If you want to set the Lead Time from the Branch Manager, then the process is similar: Go to Global Management -> Services and click the Advanced tab. There, you will have the same options as you do on a company level.

By applying these settings, you can overwrite the Global Service Settings at the branch level, and this is how it will look like:

ℹ️ There are some specifics that you need to be aware of. If you go to Global Settings -> Permissions and then see that Overwrite Global Services (or just the attributes for Maximum/Minimum Lead Time) is disabled, you won't be able to edit the Lead Time for this service inside your Branches.