How online bookings work

Introduction

In the next five minutes we're going to walk through the complete customer journey on Bizzly — from creating an account and purchasing a subscription plan, to making their first booking and managing everything online. We'll then flip to the business owner's view and see exactly what lands on their end. Everything you're about to see is live on a real Bizzly site.

Sign up — creating a customer account

Before a customer can make a booking they need an account. Customers can sign up with just their Google account, or create an account with any email address and a password. In this example, the customer opts to use their email address which requires a short verification process before completing the rest of their profile information.

After authenticating, Bizzly asks for a few profile details. First name, last name — nothing unexpected there. Then an address. Street address, town, postcode — this feels like extra effort at sign-up, but it pays off later. If the business offers home visits, this address pre-fills the booking form automatically. The customer types it once, here, and never has to enter it again. For a cleaning business, a dog walking service, or any business that comes to the customer — that's a genuinely useful shortcut.

Bizzly uses the phone number to send SMS reminders before each appointment — a text goes out automatically so clients don't miss their session. Once the form is submitted, the profile is saved and the customer is redirected straight back to the site, signed in and ready to go.

Subscribe — choosing a plan and paying

Once signed in, the customer chooses their subscription plan. This music school offers three tiers: Basic for group lessons at £59 a month, Standard for one private lesson a week at £119 a month, and Pro for two private lessons a week at £219 a month. There's also an annual billing option on every plan if they want to pay upfront.

In this example, the customer picks the Standard plan and clicks Subscribe. They are taken straight to a secure Stripe payment page to enter card details. If a free trial is on offer, the customer will see exactly when the first payment is due before committing to anything.

Once paid, the customer's plan is active immediately and the booking allowance unlocks — this is four private lessons a month, either in person or virtual, ready to book right now.

Selecting a service on your booking page

The customer's plan is now active and they are ready to make their first booking. The customer navigates to the booking section of the music studio's website. First they pick the service they want — in this case a private lesson, but this can be whatever the school offers and what their subscription enables them to book. Services not enabled by the customer's subscription are not bookable. Each service has its own length and location, so this is what filters the calendar down to the right slots.

Picking an available day on the calendar

The calendar only shows days where there's a genuine open slot. Greyed-out dates are either in the past or fully booked. Coloured dates have availability. It's live — the moment a slot gets taken, it disappears for everyone else. Click a date and the available times load straight away.

Choosing a time slot

Slots are grouped by morning, afternoon, and evening so the calendar is easy to scan. Each slot shows the start time and duration. Click the slot you want and it becomes selected — then hit Book to move to the final confirmation step.

Confirming the booking — session allowance, location and recurring

Before the booking is confirmed, the customer sees a full summary — the date, time, and where it's taking place. If the service comes to the customer's location, their home address is already filled in from when they signed up. For virtual sessions, a Google Meet link will be included on the booking after they confirm.

They can also see how many sessions they have left this month on their plan, so there are no surprises. If they've bought any extra one-off sessions on top of their subscription, they can choose which to use here.

If they want to set up a regular slot — weekly or fortnightly — they can do that too, and they'll see the exact dates that'll be reserved before they commit. Once they're happy, they hit Confirm and the slots will be reserved. If any recurring slots fail to be booked, the customer is notified.

Booking confirmed — the customer portal

As soon as the booking is confirmed it appears straight away in their bookings portal — everything they need: the date, time, service, and where it's happening. Past and cancelled bookings are in separate tabs so there's always a full history. And if they need to cancel, they can do it themselves right here — no need to call or message anyone.

Google Calendar sync — the business owner view

That's the customer's side done. Now let's flip to the business owner and see what just landed on their end.

On the business side, the booking appears in Google Calendar the moment it's confirmed — no manual entry needed. You'll see the customer's name, the service, and the location right there in your calendar.

It also shows up in the Bizzly dashboard under Booking Management, where you can see your full schedule across all customers, filter by date or service, and see the status of every booking at a glance.

Get started free

That's the complete booking journey — from a customer signing up and choosing a plan, to making their first booking and having it land straight in your Google Calendar. The customer gets a full booking history in their portal, and there are no phone calls, emails, or spreadsheets for you to manage. Everything you've seen can be set up in as little as 15 minutes using the Bizzly onboarding wizard.

Start your free trial at bizzly.net — the link is in the description. If you found this useful, subscribe for more videos on growing your service business with Bizzly. Thank you for watching.