openchair
Sign InStart Free Trial

Bookings

Smart Waitlist & Gap Filling

Smart Waitlist & Gap Filling

Capture customer demand when you are fully booked, then fill cancellation gaps by sending targeted offers to the right customers — ranked by AI for revenue, fit, and churn risk.

Overview

The Smart Waitlist lets you:

  • Collect customer requests with service, staff, date, and time preferences
  • Share a public waitlist link so customers can join online without calling
  • Detect gaps in your schedule and match them to waiting customers
  • Send personalised booking offers via SMS or email
  • Use AI-powered ranking to prioritise the best candidates for each gap (PRO)
  • Send offers in smart waves that escalate automatically if earlier candidates do not respond (PRO)
  • Track waitlist performance — conversion rate, recovered revenue, and lost revenue

Note

The waitlist is available on all plans. AI-powered ranking (Smart Fill), automatic offer mode, and smart wave strategy require a PRO subscription.

Accessing the Waitlist

On web: Click Waitlist in the sidebar.

On mobile: Open the More menu (≡), then tap Waitlist.

The waitlist page shows:

  • Key metrics — pending request count and conversion rate
  • Status filter buttons — Pending, Offered, Fulfilled, Expired, Cancelled
  • Active entries — each showing customer name, service, time preference, price, and age (e.g., "2d ago")

When the waitlist is empty, the page shows: "Your waitlist is empty — Share your waitlist link to let customers join, or add a request manually."

Adding a Customer to the Waitlist

On Web

  1. Click Add Request (Plus icon) at the top of the waitlist page
  2. Enter the customer's name, email, and optionally phone number
  3. Select the service they want
  4. Optionally choose a preferred staff member
  5. Set their availability:
    • Date range (from/to) or specific dates
    • Time preference — Any, Morning, Afternoon, or Evening
  6. Add any notes (e.g., "Needs Saturday morning only")
  7. Click Add to Waitlist

On Mobile

  1. Tap Add to Waitlist on the waitlist screen
  2. Enter the customer's Name and Phone (both required), and optionally Email
  3. Select the service
  4. Choose a time preference — Any, Morning, Afternoon, or Evening
  5. Optionally set preferred dates (from/to)
  6. Add any notes
  7. Toggle Send confirmation to notify the customer they have been added
  8. Tap Add to Waitlist

Tip

The more specific the availability preferences, the better the matching. A request for "Morning" on a date range is more likely to match a gap than "Any time" with no dates.

Sharing Your Public Waitlist Link

Customers can join the waitlist themselves without calling. To share the link:

  1. Click More (three-dot menu) on the waitlist page
  2. Click Copy waitlist link
  3. Share the link on your website, social media, or in messages

A toast confirms: "Waitlist link copied to clipboard".

When customers visit the link, they see a form titled "Priority Waitlist" with the message: "Fully booked? Join our waitlist and we'll let you know when a matching spot opens up." They enter their name, email, phone, service preference, time preference, and optional staff preference.

How Matching Works

When a gap opens in your schedule (e.g., a cancellation), you can match it against waiting customers:

  1. The system checks all Pending entries
  2. Entries are filtered by:
    • Service — matches the gap's service (if specified)
    • Staff preference — matches the gap's staff member, or entries with no staff preference
    • Time of day — morning (before 12 PM), afternoon (12 PM–5 PM), or evening (after 5 PM)
    • Date range — overlaps with the customer's preferred dates
  3. Up to 12 matching candidates are returned

Filling a Gap with Smart Fill

Smart Fill uses AI to rank waitlist candidates by revenue potential, churn risk, and fit quality.

On Web

  1. Click Smart Fill (Sparkles icon) at the top of the waitlist page
  2. Select a gap slot — the modal shows suggested gaps auto-detected from your schedule, or use the manual selector to set a custom date, time, and duration
  3. Choose a sending strategy:
    • Single — send all offers at once (FREE)
    • Smart — send in escalating waves (PRO) — top 3 first, then next batch if no response
  4. Click Find Matches
  5. Review the AI-ranked candidates — each shows:
    • Match score (0–100)
    • Badges — High Value, Churn Risk, Perfect Fit, Partial Fit, Urgent, VIP, New Client
    • Reasoning — a short explanation of why they ranked this way
    • AI recommendation — highlighted at the top in a yellow banner
  6. Click Send Offers to notify the top matches
  7. Confirm: "Confirm sending [N] notifications?"

A toast confirms: "Notified [N] matches."

On Mobile

  1. Tap Fill a Gap (Sparkles icon) on the waitlist screen
  2. Set the Available from and Available until times
  3. Choose the sending strategy — All at once or Smart waves (PRO)
  4. Tap Find & Rank Matches
  5. Review the ranked candidates with scores, badges, and reasoning
  6. Tap Notify Top [N] Matches
  7. Confirm: "This will send SMS notifications to [N] clients. This action cannot be undone."

AI Ranking Criteria (PRO)

The AI scores each candidate (0–100) based on:

Factor Weight Description
Churn risk Highest Customers with no booking in 90+ days get priority — re-engagement opportunity
Revenue opportunity High Service price and upsell history
Fit quality High How well the service duration matches the gap (±15 minutes = perfect fit)
Urgency Medium Keywords in notes like "wedding", "event", "ASAP"
Customer value Medium Total lifetime spend and booking count
Recency Low How long the customer has been waiting

AI Badges

Badge Meaning
High Value Service price over $100 or total spend over $500
Churn Risk No booking in 90+ days or no booking history
Perfect Fit Service duration matches the gap within 15 minutes
Partial Fit Service duration is 30+ minutes shorter than the gap
Urgent Notes contain urgency keywords (wedding, event, ASAP)
VIP 10+ bookings or $1,000+ lifetime spend
New Client No previous bookings at the venue

Sending an Offer Manually

You can send an offer to any individual waitlist entry without using Smart Fill.

On Web

  1. Click a waitlist entry to open its detail sheet
  2. In the Matching Openings section, tap an available slot
  3. Choose a contact channel — Email or SMS
  4. Review and edit the message (pre-populated with the customer's name and service)
  5. Click Send Offer

On Mobile

  1. Tap a waitlist entry to open the detail screen
  2. The Available openings card shows matching slots (e.g., "Today - 2:00 PM - Sarah")
  3. Tap a slot to open the Send Offer sheet
  4. Select a team member
  5. Set the start time
  6. Choose Send via — SMS or Email
  7. Review the message
  8. Tap Send Offer

When an offer is sent:

  • The entry status changes from Pending to Offered
  • A 10-minute exclusive hold is placed on the time slot — no other customer can book it during this window
  • The customer receives an SMS or email with a booking link

What the Customer Sees

The customer receives a message with a link to a booking offer page. The page shows:

  • The venue name, service, staff member, date, and time
  • An "Accept This Time" button
  • An expiry notice

If the customer taps Accept This Time:

  1. The booking is created automatically
  2. The waitlist entry status changes to Fulfilled
  3. The customer receives a booking confirmation
  4. Any other offers for the same gap are cancelled automatically

If the offer expires without a response, the entry reverts to Pending and can be offered again.

Releasing a Hold

If you change your mind after sending an offer, you can release the hold:

On web: Open the entry detail sheet and click Release Hold.

On mobile: Open the entry detail screen and tap Release Hold. A confirmation appears: "This will release the active hold for [name]. The offer will no longer be reserved and the time slot will become available again." Tap Release Hold to confirm, or Keep Hold to cancel.

The entry reverts to Pending status and the time slot becomes available for other bookings.

Smart Waves (PRO)

Instead of sending all offers at once, smart waves escalate outreach gradually:

Wave Candidates Expiry Description
Wave 1 Top 3 4 hours Highest-ranked candidates get first offer
Wave 2 Next 4 2 hours Activated if Wave 1 produces no acceptance
Wave 3 Remaining 1 hour Final wave with shortest window

Wave advancement is automatic — when all offers in a wave expire or are cancelled without acceptance, the next wave activates. You can monitor wave progress in the Recent Notifications card on the waitlist page.

Offer Expiry

Offers expire after a configurable window (default: 24 hours). When an offer expires:

  • The time slot hold is released
  • The entry reverts to Pending (can be offered again)
  • A last-chance notification is sent to the customer 2 hours before expiry

Smart wave offers have shorter expiry windows (4 hours, 2 hours, 1 hour per wave).

Waitlist Metrics

The waitlist page displays key performance indicators:

Metric Description
Pending Number of active waitlist entries awaiting an offer
Conversion Percentage of all waitlist entries that converted to bookings
Potential Revenue Total service value of all pending entries

AI Insights (PRO)

The Waitlist Insights card shows AI-powered analysis of the last 30 days:

  • Recovered — total revenue from fulfilled waitlist entries (shown in green)
  • Lost — total revenue from expired entries that were never fulfilled (shown in red)
  • Pattern analysis: top requested services, time preference breakdown, average days to fulfilment
  • Actionable insights categorised as Warning, Opportunity, Pattern, or Action

The insights card also appears on the Intelligence page.

Entry Statuses

Status Meaning
Pending Waiting for an offer — actively matched against gaps
Offered An offer has been sent — time slot is on hold
Fulfilled Customer accepted an offer and the booking was created
Expired All offers expired without acceptance
Cancelled Manually removed from the waitlist

Valid transitions:

  • Pending → Offered, Fulfilled, Expired, Cancelled
  • Offered → Fulfilled, Expired, Cancelled, Pending (via release)
  • Expired → Pending (can be re-offered)
  • Fulfilled and Cancelled are terminal

Waitlist Settings

On Web

Click More (three-dot menu) → Settings on the waitlist page.

On Mobile

Tap the settings gear icon in the waitlist screen header, or navigate to Waitlist → Settings.

Settings

Setting Options Default Tier
Enable customer waitlist On / Off On FREE
How long should offers stay open? 4 hours, 8 hours, 24 hours, 48 hours, 72 hours 24 hours FREE
When an opening appears Manual — I'll decide who to offer / Auto — Automatically send offers to matching waitlist Manual Auto = PRO
Send offers in waves or all at once? Single — Send all at once / Smart — Escalating waves Single Smart = PRO

The wave strategy setting only appears when automatic mode is selected.

A toast confirms: "Waitlist settings saved".

Earlier Availability (Customer Opt-In)

When a customer books an appointment 14 or more days in the future, they can opt in to be notified if an earlier slot opens up. This creates a waitlist entry linked to their existing booking.

The customer can opt in:

  • From the booking confirmation screen (after booking online)
  • From a link in their confirmation email

Their original booking remains confirmed. If an earlier slot opens, the venue can offer it to them.

On the booking detail sheet, linked entries show a "Waitlisted for earlier" badge.

Calendar Integration

The waitlist integrates with the calendar sidebar on web:

  • Ready to contact — entries with matching gaps in the current schedule
  • Waiting for opening — entries with no current match
  • On hold — offers sent, waiting for customer response

Each entry card in the sidebar shows the customer name, service, duration, and top matching gap slots as chips (e.g., "Mon 24 - 2:00 PM - Sarah").

Platform Differences

Feature Web Mobile
Waitlist page Sidebar nav → Waitlist More menu → Waitlist
Add request Dialog (two-step) Full screen
Smart Fill Modal with suggested gaps Sheet with manual time pickers
Send individual offer Detail sheet inline Detail screen → Send Offer sheet
Release hold Detail sheet Detail screen → Release Hold sheet
Settings Sheet (from More menu) Dedicated settings screen
AI Insights card Inline on waitlist page Inline on waitlist screen
Recent Notifications Card on waitlist page Card on waitlist screen
Calendar sidebar integration Yes No
Copy waitlist link Yes Yes
Create Flash Deal Yes (More menu) Yes (button on waitlist screen)

Troubleshooting

Issue Solution
No matches found when filling a gap Check that pending entries have overlapping date ranges and compatible time preferences. Entries with very narrow availability may not match.
Customer did not receive the offer Verify the customer's phone number or email address. For NZ venues, SMS is not available — offers are sent via email only. Check your wallet balance (offers cost a small amount from your Sparks wallet).
Offer expired before customer responded The default expiry is 24 hours. You can adjust this in Waitlist settings → How long should offers stay open? Consider using smart waves (PRO) to escalate to more candidates automatically.
"Smart Fill" button shows a lock icon Smart Fill with AI ranking requires a PRO subscription. On the FREE plan, you can still send offers manually to individual entries.
Waitlist link not working for customers Check that the waitlist is enabled in Waitlist settings → Enable customer waitlist. The link is your venue URL with /waitlist appended.
Entry stuck in "Offered" status The customer may not have responded yet. You can Release Hold to revert the entry to Pending and free up the time slot, then re-offer or offer to another customer.
Smart waves not activating the next wave Wave advancement is checked when you view the Recent Notifications card. Open the waitlist page to trigger advancement. If all offers in the current wave have expired, the next wave will activate.

Related Articles

Last updated: March 2026