Taking appointments online.
WHAT THEY NEED
Availability management Time zone handling, if you serve customers elsewhere Confirmation emails Reminder emails, which depend on cron Cancellation and rescheduling Sometimes payment
THE OPTIONS
A booking plugin for your content system A dedicated booking application A hosted service, which removes the maintenance
WHAT TO CHECK
That reminder emails actually send, which requires a working cron job. On our servers WordPress needs a real cron job, since HTTP wp-cron is blocked. That confirmation emails arrive, which requires SMTP configured properly That double bookings are prevented That the interface works on a phone
THE COMMON FAILURE
Bookings taken and reminders never sent, because cron was never configured. Customers miss appointments and blame you.
Test the full cycle before relying on it: book, receive confirmation, wait for the reminder.
FOR SIMPLE NEEDS
A contact form and a phone call is frequently more reliable than a booking system nobody maintains.
