Booking Assistant: the guide
The Booking Assistant takes bookings from your booking page, chat and email into your Google Calendar, then confirms, reminds and handles changes by text and email.
Who it’s for
- Appointment businesses with a team: physios, clinics, salons, groomers, tutors and studios
- Trades who book quote visits and call-outs
- Owners and front desks who take bookings by phone, text and email today
Bookings come in by phone, text, email and Facebook, the diary lives in someone's head or a paper book, and no-shows cost an hour each time.
Why businesses use it
- Customers book a free time themselves, from a page with your name and colours, without an account
- Your Google Calendar stays the diary: it checks it again before every booking, so nothing is booked twice
- A text and an email straight away and a reminder two days before, with C to confirm and R to change, which cuts no-shows
- You approve requests, or let it book free times that fit your rules
- Changes come back to you as a single line to approve, with the customer's time kept until a new one is picked
- One price for the whole team, with the texts included
What it does
- A booking page
- Your own page, with your services, prices and people. Customers pick a service, who they'd like to see or anyone, a free time, and give a name and a mobile or email. It works on a phone and needs no account.
- Checks your calendar
- Each person's free times come from their hours, your rules and their Google calendars right now. The calendar is read again right before anything is booked.
- Asks you first, or books on its own
- Every booking can be a request you approve, or it books free times that fit your rules. Any service can be set to always ask first. A request holds its time for four working hours, and the customer is told when they'll hear by.
- Confirms and reminds
- A text and an email as soon as it's booked, and a reminder two days before: reply C to confirm, or R to change or cancel. You can add a second reminder two hours before.
- Handles changes
- R sends the customer a link to pick a new time or cancel. Their booking stays put until they do. You can move or cancel anything from the Schedule, and the customer is told.
- A waitlist
- Customers who can't find a time can join the waitlist. When a time frees up, it offers it to the right person for you to send.
- Quote visits for trades
- Trades' customers book a quote visit in an arrival window at their address. Travel time is kept between visits.
- Bookings from chat and email
- Live chat can book for you, and booking emails forwarded to your booking address are read and turned into requests.
How it works
A customer books
On your page, in Live chat, or by an email to your booking address. They pick a free time, and it's held for them.
You approve, or it's booked
Asking first, it's a request under Needs you with Approve, Offer other times and Decline. Booking on its own, it goes straight into the person's calendar.
They're told
A text and an email with the time and a link to change or cancel.
Two days before
A reminder asks them to reply C to confirm or R to change. C marks it Confirmed on your Schedule.
If they need to change
R sends the change link. Their time stays booked until they pick a new one, which moves it, or cancel, which frees it for the waitlist.
On the day
Your Schedule shows everyone's day with each booking's status. Anyone who didn't come can be marked as a no-show.
Setting it up, about 20 minutes
Calendar
Connect Google Calendar, and pick where each person's bookings go and which calendars show when they're busy.
Your work
Appointments at your place, or visits to customers with an area and arrival windows.
People
Who can be booked, and their days and hours.
Services
What can be booked, how long it takes, the price, who does it and whether it always asks first.
Messages
The confirmation and reminders, your cancellation policy, and whether to ask before booking.
Go live
How it books, your page address and your mobile, then a test booking to your own mobile. Nothing is live until it arrives.
How it uses the AI control centre
Every Buildloop assistant works off your AI control centre, which holds your company details, knowledge and settings, trains each assistant and passes what one learns to the others. The more it knows about your business the more accurate every assistant is, and each one you add makes the others stronger.
Your AI control centre keeps what it knows about your business in Content Sections you can open, check and add to, with what's missing shown. Each says whether it's for customers, staff or both. You start with About the business, Products and services, Pricing, Payments, Opening hours, Contact details, Locations and service areas, Booking and ordering, Delivery and collection, Returns, refunds and warranty, Terms and policies, Common questions, Staff knowledge, Other, and can add, rename or remove them; the AI suggests sections from what it reads. How we talk, Rules and Suppliers are kept beside them.
It reads
- Your hours, booking policies and common questions, so Live chat answers booking questions the same way
- How we talk and Rules, for the words of every text and email
It adds
- Your services, people, hours and how far ahead people can book, as Booking and Opening hours notes for you to check
- Your cancellation policy, as a Terms and policies note
What it connects to
- Google Calendar
- Needed. Each person's busy times, and the bookings it writes, moves and cancels.
- Text messages
- Needed. Confirmations, reminders and replies, sent in your business's name from Buildloop's one number.
- Needed. Confirmations and changes by email, and booking emails forwarded to your booking address.
- Live chat
- Optional, coming. Bookings made in your website chat.
- Outlook calendar
- Optional, coming. For businesses whose diary is in Microsoft 365.
What a person approves
- Every booking waits for a person to approve it, unless you let it book free times that fit your rules
- Services set to Always ask me first always wait, whatever the setting
- Moving or cancelling a booking, and declining a request, waits for a person, who sees the text first
- Offering a freed time to the waitlist waits for a person, unless you let it go on its own
- A booking deleted in Google Calendar comes to you before the customer is told anything
Price
NZ$79 a month, including 300 texts a month, then NZ$0.26 for each text after that. Cancel any time. Plus a one-off set-up and configuration fee, agreed after a short call about your business. Every account also has the AI control centre, NZ$49 a month, once for all its assistants.
What it doesn’t do
- Google Calendar only for now; Outlook is coming
- No deposits or payments when booking yet
- No classes or group bookings
- Texts go to New Zealand and Australian mobiles only
- It never starts a booking from a text that didn't answer one of its own
Your data
- Bookings, customers and their answers are stored in Sydney, Australia, and only people in your business can open them
- For a health business, texts, email subjects and calendar titles never name the service or the customer's answers
- The words of texts are deleted after 90 days; the record that one was sent is kept
- Anyone who replies STOP gets no more texts from any business using Buildloop's number
- Customers' details are never used to train the AI model
Questions
Do my customers need an account?
No. They give a name and a mobile or an email, and get a link to change or cancel.
Will it double-book?
It reads each person's Google calendars right before anything is booked, moved or cancelled, and won't book a time that has become busy since it was offered.
Who do the texts come from?
Buildloop's one texting number, with your business's name at the start of every text. Replies come back to your Booking Assistant.
What counts as a text?
Each text as the carriers bill it: up to 160 plain characters. Confirmations and reminders are usually one.
Can it book more than one person's diary?
Yes, every person you add, for the one price. Customers can pick someone or Anyone.
What about trades?
Your customers book a quote visit in an arrival window at their address, inside your area, with travel time kept between visits.
How do I start?
Get started and tell us about your business. Set-up is connecting Google Calendar, your people and hours, your services and the messages.