Appointedd's booking technology offers first-in-class timezone functionality to support every business. But if you work in just one timezone e.g. if you run distillery tours, barber services, events, or styling appointments, you'll find here the two steps we recommend taking to ensure that your business, your staff, and your customers book and have all communications sent in the right timezone.
1. Default your online booking tools to your own timezone
When your customer arrives on your booking tools, their timezone is automatically detected from the timezone of their device. So for your business, we want to ensure that regardless of where they are (e.g. if they're on holiday in a different timezone or if they're booking your tourist services from their home country) they book your services in your local timezone.
Log in to Appointedd at app.appointedd.com
Hover over the Booking tools tab and select Customize your booking flow
Locate the setting Default customer timezone in booking tools (if you don't see this under the Date and time section, toggle off Automatically detect customer timezone in booking tools)
From the dropdown, select your local timezone
If you're unsure of your local timezone, you can find it in your Setup > Customize business settings.
2. Disable calendar events from confirmation emails
Booking confirmation emails sent to the customer when their booking is made will include a calendar event. This event is automatically added as a pending event to their calendar:
The customer's calendar will recognize the time of the event and add the event to their calendar at the appropriate time for that timezone. However, this can cause confusion for a customer booking from a different timezone.
For example
A customer who lives in New York (EST) books a distillery tour for their holiday in 2 weeks time in Edinburgh (GMT). The tour runs at 4pm in Edinburgh so the booking is added to the customers calendar for 11am because the customer's calendar is in EST
Depending on your business and your customers, you may want to continue sending the customer the calendar event! But if you prefer, you can disable the sending of calendar events:
Hover over the Email & SMS tab
Select Manage email confirmations
Locate the setting Send customers ics calendar file in emails
Flip the slider to OFF.
If you have any feedback we would love to hear it 👂