Set up & manage your
online bookings

Picture this.

You want to book a service online.

The top rated business has glowing reviews, but you'll need to call to book your appointment. Would you still choose them?

If you said no, you're not alone.

94% of people prefer to book with businesses that let them schedule their appointments online.

I'm Ernesto, a bookings product education specialist, and throughout this course we'll go over all of the ways you can set up and manage seamless booking experiences for your clients.

In this lesson, we'll get you started by setting up your services.

Let's jump right in.

You might've created a site with a template that has bookings already built in, but if not, it's pretty simple to add them.

Here's how you'll do it.

Here in the Editor, I'll open up my Add Elements menu and head right into bookings.

You can add as many of these options to your site and you'll be ready to follow along.

I created this site for a nail salon to guide you through this course, and I've already added some services here.

All of my services, my appointments, classes and courses, live on this page.

They each have an image, title, price and description. To add and manage my services, I'll head over to my bookings menu in my site's Dashboard.

I can get there by clicking on my business from the left bar and choosing Wix Bookings.

And lastly, manage services. Here in my Dashboard.

I can see all the services I've already created, add new services and manage things like my settings, payments and booking calendar.

To start, let's add a new service together.

So I'll have all of these pre-built templates here, but for now I'm going to build an appointment from scratch.

I'll keep the service type as an appointment and then fill in all of this information.

You want your title to be straightforward and easy to understand, so I'll go super simple and just call it Manicure.

And I'll add a catchy tagline as well.

Then when you're writing a description, keep in mind the keywords your clients might search for when they're looking for your service on Google.

So for me that might be nails, cuticles or polish.

So I'll add my description right here.

Then for your image, you can search your Wix Media Gallery, but it's always best to use your own high-quality photos if you have them.

I have my own picture, so I'll just add that here.

If you've already added your business address in your site settings, that'll automatically show up here.

And if it makes sense for your service, you can also host virtual sessions, right from your Dashboard.

Now I'll add my duration and some buffer time between appointments, so I'll make this 45 minutes and add 15 minutes for my buffer time.

Now let's talk pricing.

We have a few options here.

Fixed price, that'll charge the same amount for everyone who books, no fee, which means you won't display or charge any fees on your site, varied prices, which lets you set a few rates for each service like a discount for kids or an up-charge for VIP bookings.

And last but not least, custom pricing, which lets you set a range for what you'll charge.

For now, I'll keep this fixed at 45 dollars.

And then I'll choose whether I want to get paid online, in person, or either one or if I want my clients to pay a deposit ahead of time and the rest in person.

I'll stick to entire amount online for now.

For now, we'll skip this memberships and packages section.

We'll talk about all of your payment options in another lesson. Under availability, I'll pick which staff members will offer this service.

So I'll uncheck this first staff member, and now my clients won't be able to book them from this service.

Then I can add a cover image and a gallery and change up any of these other settings, like whether I'll automatically accept bookings for this appointment or if I want my clients to fill out a form before they book.

Now let's take a quick look at our overview at the top of this page and under display settings, I'll make sure I'll add my new service to my site and app and then click Save.

Let's say I offer more than just one-on-one appointments. With classes, I can offer one-time sessions that can be booked by more than one client at a time.

For my salon, that might be group manicures for a birthday party or event, or maybe a weekly workshop.

We can add these classes the same way I added an appointment, either using a template or starting from scratch.

Let's take a look at a class I've already added to my site.

Everything here is pretty much the same as an appointment, except a few key things. Down on the bottom of my service details I can set a maximum number of participants.

Another important difference is how classes are scheduled. For appointments, clients can choose any available time on my staff members calendars, but for classes they'll only be able to join sessions at the set times that I put on my calendar.

Basically, I determine exactly when, how long and how often I'll offer my classes.

So under schedule, I choose to offer this class weekly with no end date.

So it's a routine part of my salon's weekly schedule.

My clients will be able to see these sessions on my site and reserve their spot. And down my additional settings, I can allow groups to book under one reservation, which is great for hosting events.

And a quick note.

Once a class fills up, you can let clients join a waitlist, but we'll look at that in another lesson.

For classes where you want clients to meet more than once, like a monthly educational program or a ten week training challenge, you can create one course with multiple sessions that your clients can book all at once.

Let's check out the course I created for my site.

Setting up a course really is almost identical to a class since I'll choose exactly when I'll offer these sessions.

But here I'll schedule all of my sessions for one course upfront.

I set this course to meet once a week for 13 weeks, all hosted by the same staff member.

But I know this time might not work for every client, so I can add another group of sessions to my calendar.

Here's how I'd do that.

First, I can choose who will be leading the course, or I can add a new staff member right from here.

I'll just add myself here to show you how.

And now I'll just set this to repeat weekly.

And before we finish up, I can decide whether clients can join my course after the session meets. This could work for things like weekly fitness sessions, but for a course like mine that'll follow a structure or a curriculum, let's leave this off. And now your clients can book your services without ever picking up the phone.

So that's an overview on how clients can schedule their own sessions.

Next, we'll talk about how you and your staff can manage your own schedules and availability.

That's where we'll pick it up on our next lesson. I'll see you there.