An appointment waitlist: turning a cancellation back into a booking

A cancellation in a quiet week is a relief. A cancellation on a day that was full is a direct loss, because customers wanted that hour and were told there was no room. A waitlist connects the two without anyone picking up a phone.

Why a day-level list beats a slot-level one

Someone who asks for Tuesday at exactly 14:00 will almost never get a match. Someone who said "Tuesday afternoon" matches any cancellation in that window. So people join for a day and a time band rather than a single point in the calendar — which multiplies the chance a cancellation finds anyone at all.

The claim window is the part that decides it

When a slot frees, the offer goes to the next person on the list — but it cannot stay open forever, because while it does the hour is stuck. So the offer expires: in Sagarnu the default is two hours, and when it lapses the offer moves on automatically and that customer returns to the list.

• Too short — people miss offers during their working day and give up on the list.
• Too long — a single hour sits frozen for half a day while it could have been filled.
• A cancellation the evening before a morning appointment deserves a shorter window than one two weeks out.

In Sagarnu the waitlist is off by default and switched on per business. Once it is on, customers join from the booking page themselves and a cancellation — theirs or yours — sends the offer automatically, in order. There is also a manual mode, where no offers are sent and you place people from the admin page yourself. What the booking page looks like.

Common questions