Setting business hours and booking slots that actually work

Availability settings look simple — hours plus slot length — but they encode how your business actually runs. An hour spent thinking about them prevents a week of awkward bookings.

Hours: what you're really setting

Your opening hours do two jobs at once: they're what the assistant tells callers ("we're open 8–6 weekdays") and the outer bound for bookings. They should reflect when work can happen, not when you're theoretically around.

• If you do quotes/admin till 8pm but don't take jobs, don't extend bookable hours — extend the stated hours in your FAQs instead.
• Saturday mornings count — the highest-intent window of the week for many trades.
• Lunch: split the day into two intervals (8–12:30, 1:30–6) rather than booking jobs into your sandwich.

Slot duration: the subtle one

Slot length is the granularity for offered times, and each service can have its own duration. The trap: setting slots too short.

• A 45-minute job with 30-minute slots can book back-to-back with zero travel time → you're late all day.
• Build in buffer: either set service durations honestly-long (include drive time) or use longer slot intervals for job types that move around.
• Salons and clinics: slots often ARE the business — set them to your real appointment grid.

Lead time

How soon can someone book? Twenty minutes' notice for a tradesman across town is chaos; 2 hours is usually the sweet spot for trade call-outs, and same-day for salons. Set it in Settings.

The Google Calendar interaction

With calendar connected, slots are offered only where your diary's actually free — but your hours still bound the search. Classic mistake: forgetting to extend Saturday hours, so the assistant never offers the slot callers most want.

Reviewing it works

After a week, check the bookings view: are jobs landing at sensible times with travel room? Tighten or loosen durations accordingly. The goal is an assistant that books like you would — including the breathing room you'd give yourself.