How Customers Book Appointments
Understanding how the booking process looks from your customer's perspective helps you set up your booking types, availability, and page layout in a way that creates a smooth, confidence-inspiring experience. The entire booking flow is designed to be intuitive and frictionless -- customers can go from browsing your page to confirming an appointment in under two minutes.
The flow consists of six steps for paid appointments and five steps for free appointments (which skip the payment step). Here is a detailed walkthrough of each step.
Step 1: Choose a Booking Type
When a customer visits your Leenkies page and scrolls to the Appointments block, they see a set of cards representing your available booking types. Each card displays the booking type's icon, title, description, duration, and price (or "Free" if there is no charge).
The customer browses the available options and clicks on the card for the type of appointment they want to book. If you offer only one booking type, there is still a single card for the customer to select.
This step is where your booking type titles and descriptions do their most important work. Clear, descriptive names help customers immediately understand what each option offers and choose the right one without hesitation.
The Appointments block on a page showing multiple booking type cards that the customer can choose from
Step 2: Select a Date
After choosing a booking type, the customer is presented with a calendar view showing the current month. Each date on the calendar is clearly marked as either available or unavailable:
- Available dates are interactive and can be clicked. These are days where you have at least one open time slot that fits the selected booking type's duration.
- Unavailable dates are visually dimmed and cannot be clicked. A date is unavailable if it falls on a day you have toggled off in your weekly schedule, if a date override blocks it, or if all time slots for that day are already booked or conflicting with calendar events.
The customer clicks on an available date to proceed to time slot selection. They can navigate forward and backward through months to find a date that works for them. Past dates are always shown as unavailable.
The calendar view showing available dates in an interactive state and unavailable dates dimmed out
Step 3: Select a Time Slot
Once the customer selects a date, a list of available time slots appears for that day. Each time slot is displayed in the customer's local timezone -- Leenkies automatically detects the customer's timezone and converts your availability accordingly. This means a customer in Tokyo sees times in JST, a customer in London sees times in GMT, and a customer in Los Angeles sees times in PST, all without anyone needing to manually adjust.
The time slots are calculated based on your availability window for that day and the duration of the selected booking type. Slots that conflict with your existing confirmed appointments or Google Calendar events (if connected) are automatically removed and never shown to the customer.
The customer clicks on the time slot that works best for them. The selected slot is visually highlighted to confirm their choice.
A list of available time slots for the selected date, displayed in the customer's local timezone
Pro Tip: If customers are telling you they cannot find available times, check your availability settings. You may need to expand your hours or add more days to your weekly schedule.
Step 4: Provide Their Information
After selecting a date and time, the customer is asked to fill out a short form with their details:
- Name (required) -- The customer's full name, used in confirmation emails and calendar events.
- Email (required) -- The email address where the customer will receive their confirmation email, appointment details, and any meeting links.
- Notes (optional) -- A free-text field where the customer can add context about what they want to discuss, specific questions they have, or any information that will help you prepare for the session.
The form is intentionally minimal to reduce friction. Customers are not asked for unnecessary information -- just what is needed to confirm the appointment and communicate with them.
The booking form showing fields for name, email, and optional notes
Step 5: Payment (Paid Appointments Only)
If the selected booking type has a price, the customer is taken to a Stripe checkout page after submitting their information. The checkout page displays the booking type name, price, and appointment details so the customer can review everything before paying.
The customer enters their payment information (credit or debit card) and completes the purchase through Stripe's secure checkout. Stripe handles all payment processing, card validation, and security.
30-Minute Reservation Window
When a customer reaches the payment step, the selected time slot is temporarily reserved for 30 minutes. This prevents other customers from booking the same slot while the first customer is completing their payment. If the customer does not complete payment within 30 minutes, the reservation expires and the time slot becomes available again for other customers.
This reservation mechanism ensures that two customers never accidentally pay for the same time slot. It also means that if a customer abandons the checkout process, the slot is not permanently lost -- it automatically reopens after the reservation period.
The Stripe checkout page showing the booking type name, price, and payment form
Free Appointments Skip This Step
If the booking type is free, the entire payment step is skipped. After submitting their information in Step 4, the customer proceeds directly to the confirmation step. There is no checkout page, no payment form, and no reservation window. The appointment is confirmed immediately upon form submission.
Step 6: Confirmation
Once the appointment is confirmed (either after successful payment for paid bookings or immediately after form submission for free bookings), the customer sees a confirmation screen with all of their appointment details:
- Booking type -- The name of the service or session they booked.
- Date and time -- The confirmed appointment date and time, displayed in the customer's timezone.
- Duration -- How long the appointment will last.
- Meeting link -- If Google Meet is enabled for the booking type and you have connected Google Calendar, a Google Meet link is displayed on the confirmation screen. The customer can click this link to join the video call when the appointment time arrives.
Confirmation Emails
In addition to the on-screen confirmation, both parties receive email notifications:
- The customer receives a confirmation email with all appointment details, including the date, time (in their timezone), duration, booking type name, and the Google Meet link (if applicable). This email serves as their reference and reminder for the upcoming appointment.
- You (the provider) receive a notification email letting you know that a new appointment has been booked. This email includes the customer's name, email, any notes they provided, the booking type, date, time, and duration.
If you have connected Google Calendar, a calendar event is also automatically created with both you and the customer as attendees, and the Google Meet link (if enabled) is attached to the event.
The confirmation screen showing the appointment details, meeting link, and a success message
Pro Tip: Encourage customers to add the appointment to their own calendar from the confirmation email. While Leenkies handles everything on your end automatically, a calendar reminder on the customer's side helps reduce no-shows and ensures they arrive on time.
Summary of the Booking Flow
| Step | What Happens | Paid | Free |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Choose a booking type | Yes | Yes |
| 2 | Select a date | Yes | Yes |
| 3 | Select a time slot | Yes | Yes |
| 4 | Provide name, email, notes | Yes | Yes |
| 5 | Complete Stripe payment | Yes | Skipped |
| 6 | See confirmation and receive emails | Yes | Yes |
The entire flow is designed to be completed in a single session. Customers do not need to create an account, log in, or navigate away from your page (except briefly for Stripe checkout on paid bookings). This low-friction approach maximizes conversion and makes it as easy as possible for interested visitors to become booked clients.