If you need to temporarily close your practice for an unforeseeable period of time, but still want to ensure that clients can book with you for future dates during your closure, we've provided some tips below! This article will include tips for adjusting your Availability, informing clients of changes to your operating hours, temporarily pausing any automated emails that are running behind the scenes, and making changes to appointments that are already on the Schedule.
Step 1: Block the days you are normally available. Note: We do not recommend that you remove Availability or disable Online Booking, as clients will not be able to book future dates that are not blocked off.
- Create Repeating Blocked Time (Single Staff Practice)
- Editing Repeating Blocked Time (Single Staff Practice)
- Create Repeating Blocked Time (Multi-Staff Practice)
- Editing Repeating Blocked Time (Multi-Staff Practice)
Step 2: Ensure your Online Booking Rules allow clients to book beyond the time you are currently closed (if applicable)
- Under Settings > Online Booking Rules > Choose How many days into the future can appointments be booked? from the dropdown menu:
- 30 Days if you want no online availability to show past 30 days from the current date.
- 60 Days if you want no online availability to show past 60 days from the current date.
- 90 Days (default) if you want no online availability to show past 90 days from the current date.
- 180 Days if you want no online availability to show past 180 days from the current date.
- 360 Days if you want no online availability to show past 360 days from the current date.
- Unlimited if you don’t want to limit online availability.
Step 3: If you want new clients to be able to find and book with your business while you're away, and continue a strong web presence in Google Search, ensure you have the following Online Booking Rules enabled:
- Enable your MassageBook Business Listing in the Search Directory
- Enable Online Booking from prospective clients visiting the Search Directory
- Turn on Reserve with Google so clients can book from your Google My Business page
- Accept MassageBook Gift Cards from new clients
Step 4: Modify the Tagline or About section of your MassageBook Business Website so that clients know you are still taking appointments and they can still book appointments by searching for available times on X date or later.
Step 5: Offer a Promotion on Gift Certificates or Services that can be redeemed when your office reopens.
- Sell Gift Certificates at a Discounted Rate (Video)
- Sell Gift Certificates at a Discount Rate (Text)
- Sell Services at a Discounted Rate (Video)
- Sell Services at a Discounted Rate
Step 6: Consider sending an Email Campaign to your existing clients letting them know about your temporary Schedule changes, Promotions and Specials you might be running, and that future dates are still available for booking.
- Build a Campaign from an Existing Template
- Design and Build your Own Template
- Sharing a Promotion through an Email Campaign (Video)
Step 7: If you need to close suddenly and have appointments that you need to cancel, you can view a report of canceled clients, tag them in your Client List, and send an email targeted specifically to them:
- Canceling an Appointment
- Viewing All Canceled Appointments in your Sales Reports
- Tagging Canceled Clients
- Sending an Email Campaign to Tagged Clients