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Look busy to clients when they book online AKA Fog of war

If your calendar is rather empty and you'd like clients not to see that when they book an appointment with you, consider using Bookem's Look busy / Fog of war feature.

It cleverly reduces the number of available booking slots that your clients can see when they book online, but without limiting the total amount of bookings you can take per day.

This feature is designed to help control the perception of your business' demand and availability.

  • When clients see a completely open schedule, they may get the wrong impression about your business. It might appear that you're not in high demand.

  • Alternatively, you might want to show only a certain number of available slots per day. This is where the 'Fog of War' feature comes in handy.

How Fog of War works

Fog of War allows you to set a maximum and a minimum number of slots that are visible to the public on any particular day. For instance, if you set the maximum at 4 and the minimum at 1, the system will display between 1 and 4 available slots to a potential client, even if you have more slots available. This number is randomised each day to make your availability appear more organic. If a client books one of these slots, another slot will open up, maintaining the number of visible slots.

This continues as long as you have actual availability on that day. It's important to note that the 'Fog of War' feature is not designed to limit the number of bookings you can take, but only to limit the number of available slots the public sees at any one time.

Here's an example of how your public client booking page might look before enabling Fog of War:

How to enable Fog of War

1. Go to Settings > General Preferences

2. Scroll down to 'Look busy, AKA Fog of War' and toggle it to on

3. Now, set your preferred maximum and minimum booking slots per day and click 'save'

Remember: Fog of War only applies to public bookings. You can still add appointments to your diary yourself. By using Fog of War, you can manage your business' public image, creating an impression of consistent demand and availability.

Here's an example what your public client booking page will look like after activating Fog of War with maximum of 4 slots and a minimum of 1:

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