Walk-in management for barbershops
SalonSync handles walk-ins alongside booked appointments: somebody arriving without a booking joins the same live queue, gets a wait estimate, and takes a chair when one frees. A walk-in and an appointment can never be given the same barber at the same time.
Most barbershop work is not booked. Somebody walks in, and whoever is on the desk has to pick a chair without wrecking the appointments already in the diary. SalonSync makes that decision and asks you to confirm it.
A sample shop: every name and figure below is invented.
Why walk-ins are the hard part
Choosing a chair is arithmetic
Whose queue is shortest, who has a booking in twenty minutes, who is on a break, whose cut is running over. Doing that in your head while somebody stands in front of you is where walk-ins go wrong.
Walk-ins eat booked appointments
A thirty-minute cut squeezed into a twenty-minute gap makes the next client late, and the one after that, until the whole afternoon is behind.
The same barber gets everything
With no rule, unassigned work goes to whoever is easiest to name — usually whoever is first in the list. That is somebody else's takings.
Nobody knows what was promised
A verbal “about ten minutes” is written down nowhere, so nobody else on the desk can honour it.
How SalonSync places a walk-in
One recommendation, with its reason
The desk is offered a chair, a time, and why: free now, soonest available, or how many are ahead. Alternatives sit underneath. Nothing has to be worked out.
- It agrees with the booking it precedes
- It cannot offer a chair that is not free
Work spreads across the team
Chairs that are equally free are ordered least-busy-first, so unassigned walk-ins do not pile onto whoever happens to sort first.
- It never says “now” when it isn't
- One tap to confirm
Questions about walk-ins
How does SalonSync choose which barber?
Among the chairs that can genuinely take the visit, the least busy today comes first, then the shop's own ordering of its team. It is the same rule used to resolve a booking where nobody named a barber.
Can I override the recommendation?
Yes. “Pick the chair and time myself” opens the normal barber and time pickers, and a chair tapped on the floor board arrives already selected.
Will a walk-in overrun a booked appointment?
No. The offer is checked against a block long enough for the services chosen, against that barber's real hours and breaks, so a walk-in is never offered a gap it does not fit.
What if every barber is busy?
You are told the soonest each one could start, and how many people are already ahead on each chair, rather than a flat “no availability”. If nobody can take it today, the page says what each chair is actually doing.
Do I need the client's phone number for a walk-in?
Yes. A booking needs a name and a number, and the number is what the tracking link and any reminder are sent to.
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