Fillers, peels, laser — Pabau holds the records, diaries, consent forms, and billing together for clinics across the UK, Europe, and beyond. What it can't do is answer the 9pm "lip filler Friday?" text while your practitioners are mid-procedure in sterile gloves. Three hours later the reply goes out to someone booked across town — at £150–£400 a missed session, a few of those a month runs £20–45k a year out the door. Link Pabau to WhatsApp through Susan and the front desk never closes: greeted in seconds, patch-test checked, priced from the menu, diary-checked, deposit banked, consent forms sent. Nobody leaves the treatment room.
⚡ Key Takeaways
- Greeting, pricing answers, and slot confirmation happen in live Pabau diaries — 24/7, no staff touched. Patch tests and medical prerequisites get verified before slots lock, not discovered at the door. Deposits clear over Stripe before confirmation, killing ghost bookings. Consent forms and aftercare travel by chat automatically. And cancellations re-sell to the waitlist inside five minutes.
Manual handling fails four predictable ways. Web portals demand logins and six-step forms on phones — most bail past 60%. Treatment blocks mean hours of unread messages while high-intent leads cool. Undeposited bookings no-show 15–20%, each empty hour worth hundreds. And nearly half of aesthetics interest lands 8–11pm, straight onto closed desks and dead inboxes.
Five minutes, no developers:
Manual chat versus web portal versus chat-run: replies took two to five hours around shifts, or instant-but-empty forms — now seconds, conversational, always. Completion ran low on back-and-forth, or 35–40% through drop-off — now 85%+ in chat. Patch checks were manual staff work, or absent — now automatic prerequisite gates. Deposits were transfers and invoices, or portal-only — now one tap in chat. Interruptions buzzed mid-procedure, or portals asked nothing — now zero, intake fully automatic. Consent lived on paper and email links, or portal downloads — now WhatsApp delivery ahead of every visit. Cancellations meant social-media begging, or nothing — now waitlist broadcast, refilled inside five minutes. No-shows ran 15–20% or 8–12% — now under 2% with deposits and two-way reminders.
As a receptionist it covers the arc. Live diary dispatch across rooms and practitioners — checked, double-booking-proofed, booked direct. Patch-gated treatments — 48-hour test booked first, treatment slots stay locked till it's done. Deposits — dynamic links, slots confirmed only on verified payment. Cancellations — "3pm dermal fillers with Dr Sarah opened today, reply YES" — chairs refilled before gaps register. Aftercare — swelling and sun guidance at two hours, review ask at twenty-four, rankings compounding.
Related: appointment automation, clinic deposits, Fresha, Cliniko — clinics, salons, plumbers.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
Medical data over chat — compliant?
Strictly consent-first, encrypted at rest and in transit, isolated per practice. Anything clinical travels by secure portal link, never raw chat.
Bookings and availability — truly live?
Direct API: live diaries, no double-booking, appointments created instantly. What the patient sees is what Pabau holds.
Deposits in chat?
Stripe links: Apple Pay, Google Pay, card. Slot confirms on verified payment. Simple.
The genuinely clinical question?
Practitioner territory, always. Patient gets honesty plus a handoff; staff get pinged on WhatsApp with everything attached.