How to let your customers book time or appointments for your service

The pain: every appointment that doesn't book itself costs you a phone call. Customers want your service, but booking means calling during your busiest hours, leaving a voicemail, or waiting for you to answer a text — and some fraction of them simply give up and book elsewhere.

The Blinko way: the Book Time automation puts a booking button in front of every customer, and turns their requests into DMs you handle on your schedule.

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  Go to the Engage tab and tap [+]
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  Select automations and choose "Book time" to activate it
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  That's it — a "Book time" button automatically appears on your business's screen in every customer's app
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  Customers tap it to request a time for their service appointment
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  Every request arrives as a DM, with the requesting customer's information attached

Picture a massage therapist: a follower browsing her spot at 10pm — exactly when she'd never answer a call — taps Book Time and requests Saturday morning. The request is waiting in her DMs with the customer's details when she checks her phone between sessions. She confirms in the same thread; no phone tag, no lost booking.

You can also offer booking proactively, two ways: send the Book Time automation to a specific customer inside a DM conversation — a client asks "any chance you can fit me in this week?", you attach Book Time in your reply and they pick a slot. Or broadcast it to all your customers: a stylist with a Thursday cancellation sends "A slot just opened up this Thursday" with the Book Time button attached, and the fastest tap fills the gap (see "Blinko DM: direct messaging between your business and customers" and "Blinko Local app: the Engage tab").