Hey Jane community,
Do you have a pain in your neck? Hear (phones) ringing in your ears? Do you get an instant headache when a client cancels an appointment? Then you may be experiencing Waitlist Management Syndrome. 😉
Don’t worry, though, Jane’s got your cure…
Introducing: Wait List Notifications! 🎉
Dive into the Jane guide to learn about managing your Wait Lists! >
Here’s a quick overview
👀 When an appointment is deleted, cancelled, no-showed, or moved, Jane will scan the Wait List and hold that spot for all of your eligible wait-listed clients (clients whose preferences and availability fit within that new opening).
💪 When you click on the spot being held, Jane will give you some options:
- Send a notification to all those clients at once
- Release the spot back to the general public
- Book a specific client into that spot with a single click
🚀 If you choose to enable automatic Wait List Notifications, Jane will send out an SMS and/or an email notification (based on your clients’ notification preferences) to all of those clients for you and they can book on a first-come-first-serve basis!
⏳ If there are no takers after a notification has been sent out, that spot will automatically be opened back up for the general public to book into after a customizable amount of time.
Want to dive a little deeper?
Members of our amazing community group have shown us that seeing how someone else uses a feature can be really helpful. So, we’ve explored some of the ways Wait List Notifications could be put to work below. We think there’s so much to be learned from every scenario, but feel free to hop into whichever one resonates with you the most.
Click the ▶ to expand the scenario you’d like to explore!
▶ 👋 Meet Zoey: an RMT running a solo practice
🚫 Let’s look at her day without Wait List Notifications:
Zoey arrives at work and checks her Schedule. She’s happy to see that she has a full day of back-to-back sessions ahead of her.
Just before her third client of the day walks in, Zoey notices a new opening in the afternoon. She checks her email to find that her client isn’t feeling well and had to cancel. Shoot!
After looking through her Wait List, she figures out that two of the six clients might be able to come in during that time. She doesn’t have time to call them now, so it will have to wait until Lunch.
During her break, she makes the phone calls but they go to voicemail, so she leaves messages for both. She adds a break to her Schedule to stop someone else from booking online and then takes a few quick bites before her next client arrives.
💬 Let’s see what it might look like if Zoey was using Wait List Notifications:
When Zoey glances at her Schedule between clients, she notices a new black appointment block has appeared in the afternoon. Realizing this means someone has cancelled, she clicks on the placeholder and sees that 2 Wait List clients might be available during that time.
Zoey knows they would both would appreciate a session, so she clicks the button to send them a notification. She has Jane set to release the spot back to Online Booking if neither of them responds within an hour, so she knows she won’t have to do anything more.
Her next client walks in, and she’s able to focus knowing her Schedule might be filled by lunch. During her lunch break, she sees that one of her clients has booked in! Happily, she pulls out her sandwich and catches up on a bit of charting.
🚀 Let’s see what it might look like if Zoey enabled automatic Wait List Notifications:
When Zoey notices the black appointment block on her Schedule, she clicks to see if Jane has notified anyone on her Wait List yet. Because her client cancelled less than 24 hours before the appointment, she can see that Jane sent messages to the 2 Wait List clients (whose preferences fit that spot) 15 minutes after the cancellation. She goes back to her charting, knowing Jane will release the appointment back to Online Booking within the hour if neither of them replies.
When she checks later, Zoey can see that the cancellation has been filled by one of her Wait List clients. She sits back and enjoys her lunch.
▶ 👋 Meet Taylor: an Office Manager in a multidisciplinary practice
🚫 Let’s look at his day without Wait List Notifications:
Taylor arrives at the clinic and opens Jane to check how everyone’s Schedule is looking for the next couple of days. He sees that there are a few new openings. Knowing that a couple of the practitioners were hoping to bring in clients from their Wait Lists, he makes a mental note to start reaching out to them when he has a moment.
An hour later, he goes to check the Schedule again and notices that a couple of those spots have filled up with new clients! Shoot. He quickly adds Breaks to the remaining spots to block them off from Online Booking and starts searching through the first practitioner’s Wait List to see who might be available.
He starts calling and emailing clients whenever he has a spare moment, but between greeting, taking payment, and answering incoming emails and calls, he only manages to book 1 Wait List client by the end of the day.
💬 Let’s see what it might look like if Taylor was using Wait List Notifications:
Taylor opens up Jane and sees multiple black appointment blocks indicating cancelled appointments that are being held for Wait List clients. Taylor has set Jane to hold cancellation spots for 3-5 hours, depending on how short notice they are.
When he clicks on the first block, he sees that 2 clients will fit into that spot. He knows the practitioner would be happy to see either so he clicks the button that will have Jane send a notification to both.
For the next block, he sees there are three clients but knows one was in a lot of pain this week. He reaches out to them directly and is able to click the ‘Book Appointment’ button next to their name when he hears they’re available.
He continues like this throughout his day whenever he has time, and by the end of the day, he’s booked in 4 Wait List clients and the rest of the openings have been released to Online Booking.
🚀 Let’s see what it might look like if Taylor enabled automatic Wait List Notifications:
He notices a few black appointment blocks on the Schedule that are holding recently cancelled spots for Wait List clients. For the ones today, he checks and sees that Jane has already sent out notices to everyone on the Wait List whose preferences fit within the available time.
For the ones tomorrow and the next day, he notes that some of the notifications have been sent out, and some are still within the 2-hour countdown that Jane gives him. He knows that, for one of those, there’s a specific client that the practitioner would like to see. He books them in and sends them a quick follow-up email telling them to feel free to cancel if it doesn’t work for them.
He continues to go about his day, noticing that some Wait List clients are booking into those time slots online and receiving calls from others who weren’t able to.
By the end of the day, he’s booked in 4 Wait List clients and reassured several more that they’ll be notified whenever a new opening comes up.
▶ 👋 Meet Yuki: a Front Desk Admin in a chiro clinic
🚫 Let’s look at their day without Wait List Notifications:
Yuki arrives in the morning and opens up Jane. There are already 20 new emails in the inbox and a few voicemails to check. Yuki thinks there might be a few new cancellations on the Schedule, but they’ll need to check the emails to be sure.
Once Yuki makes it through all the messages, it’s time to start sifting through the chiros’ Wait Lists to see who could fill those spots. Yuki carefully writes down the clients who will fit into each spot so they can start making calls and sending emails.
💬 Let’s see what it might look like if they were using Wait List Notifications:
Yuki opens up Jane first thing in the morning and sees a few new black appointment blocks on the Schedule. They click on the first one to check out how many Wait List clients will fit into that spot based on appointment preferences. None of the clients on the list stick out to Yuki as needing an adjustment more than any other, so they happily click to have Jane send a notification to all. Yuki knows that if none of the Wait List clients respond after 2 hours, Jane will release that spot back to Online Booking.
The next Wait List appointment block shows 2 clients: one of which has been calling daily trying to get an appointment. Yuki picks up the phone and gives him a quick call. He’s able to make it in this afternoon! Pleased, Yuki clicks the Book Appointment button next to his name.
🚀 Let’s see what it might look like if they enabled automatic Wait List Notifications:
Yuki starts their day by checking Jane and notices a few black appointment blocks. Clicking into them, Yuki can see that notifications have already been sent to the 4 clients whose preferences fit for the cancellation today. Those clients have another hour of exclusive access to that spot, and then Jane will open it up to everyone.
For tomorrow afternoon’s cancellation, Yuki can see that the notifications won’t go out for another 30 minutes. There’s a specific Wait List client who Yuki knows would really appreciate an adjustment, so Yuki cancels the notification to release that spot and quickly adds a break over it to hide it from the Online Booking site. They leave a voicemail for that client and, if they don’t hear back in the next couple of hours, they’ll use their favourite trick of booking a fake appointment in that spot and cancelling it so Jane will send out an automatic notification to the Wait List clients whose preferences match that spot.
We hope reading those scenarios has given you some ideas for how you can customize your Wait List Notifications to best suit you and your clients. As always, if you’d like to chat through how Wait List Notifications could work for your unique practice, please don’t hesitate to reach out!
We always love hearing from you,
The Jane team 💙