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Appointments in a conversation

How the bot checks real availability and confirms a booking​

When appointments are available for your business and at least one service is configured, the bot can arrange a booking in chat or send the customer to your public scheduler.

Two ways to book​

The setting Configure > Redirect users to the booking page? selects the usual path:

  • On: the bot can send a link to the booking page, where the customer uses the calendar.
  • Off: the bot checks slots and completes the appointment inside the conversation.

The bot may still offer the scheduler when a visual calendar is easier for the customer.

Booking inside the chat​

  1. The bot identifies the service and asks for a day or time preference.
  2. It checks the service's actual schedule and offers available slots. It does not invent availability.
  3. It asks the business-wide and service-specific Checkout Questions.
  4. If saved customer details match those questions, the bot must ask for explicit permission before reusing them.
  5. It summarizes the appointment and asks the customer to confirm. Before locking in a time, it also checks whether that same customer already has another appointment with you that overlaps it, and refuses the slot rather than creating a conflicting second booking.
  6. A successful real booking receives an appointment number and appears in Appointments.

The customer can also ask the bot to list their appointments, cancel one or move it to another available slot. This list shows only up to the 20 most recent, and by default only appointments still marked Upcoming. The bot also asks for clarification when it cannot safely identify which appointment the customer means.

If you send a customer a link to the booking page and they say in chat that they finished, the bot does not take their word for it. It checks whether a real booking exists behind that exact link before confirming anything, and only then states the confirmed service, date and time — never a guess. If the check fails, the link expired, or more than one link is still open in the conversation, the bot says so and asks instead of claiming a booking happened.

If a customer starts booking a service with the bot in chat but doesn't finish, then completes that same service through the link instead, ReadyChatAI does not create a second appointment — it moves the unfinished chat booking onto the time chosen on the link and confirms that one record. The exception: if the bot had already confirmed the chat booking before the customer used the link, the link creates a separate, new appointment for the new time rather than overwriting the confirmed one.

What the bot does not promise​

The bot does not:

  • create a slot outside the schedule configured for the service
  • guarantee a time before the final confirmation succeeds
  • collect payment for the appointment
  • decide refunds, exceptions or special pricing
  • promise when a staff member will answer

If a customer needs an exception or human help, the bot marks the conversation and notifies your team. It keeps helping until a person replies. That human reply starts the configured pause; every later human message renews it.

Playground appointments are simulations​

The Playground can test slot search, checkout questions and confirmation without blocking a real time. It does not create an appointment, send a real confirmation number or add a row to the Appointments screen.

The Playground always walks through the in-chat booking path, even when Redirect users to the booking page? is turned on — its chat window can't render the clickable booking-link button real channels send. There is no way to preview the actual booking-link message from inside the Playground; test that path on a real channel instead.

Before going live, create a test service, verify its schedule, and try a valid time, an unavailable time, a cancellation and a reschedule.