How to Automate Your Appointment Intake Form in 5 Steps

One of the best tools for automating your entire appointment booking process is creating a standard client intake form. If you need extra information when clients book appointments with you, automating and customizing your intake forms will make your business more efficient.

Pairing your Squarespace website with Acuity Scheduling unlocks powerful and customizable forms. You can completely tailor forms to your business, so you have all of the information you need to give clients the best experience. For example: 

• Stylists can have clients upload inspo images. 

• Life coaches can ask about short- and long-term goals. 

• Petsitters can get their clients’ home addresses.

1. Decide what to ask

Start by brainstorming a list of things you want to know about your clients. This might be: 

• Their birthday (so you can send them a coupon)

• Their dog’s name

• Whether they have allergies

• Documents you need them to upload, and more 

Try to focus on details that will make their experience better and allow you to jump into your time together more quickly.

Next, group your questions based on which kinds of appointments they go with. For example, a handyman might have some questions they want to ask each time someone books (“What’s your address?”) and some that are specific to individual appointment types (“Is there an outdoor spigot I can use with my pressure washer?”). Each group of questions will be a separate form, which you can assign to specific appointment types.

With Acuity, you always ask clients for their name, phone number, and address when they book. To collect more information or create forms for different appointment types create a custom form to add to the booking flow.

See how one entrepreneur uses custom forms for her salon

2. Set up forms for new clients

You may want to ask brand new clients a separate list of questions that don’t apply to your returning clients. For example, an acupuncturist might want to know if the client has undergone acupuncture before or a personal trainer might want to know the client’s overall fitness goals. Or you might want to know how the client found your business.

You may find it helpful to create a separate appointment type for new clients. After you create an appointment type for new clients, create a form that includes new client questions and set it to display whenever the new client appointment type is booked.

Depending on how your business works, you can run these new client appointments like a typical meeting or  offer specialized first-visit appointments or new client consultations. A therapist might want a slightly longer intake session, where they can explore the client’s goals and preferred modalities, while a gym might offer a free 30-minute consultation that includes a rundown of available classes and a tour of the facility.

Get more tips for onboarding your clients

3. Think about presentation

Next, decide how you want your questions to be set up for clients. After the standard fields for name and contact information, can your additional questions be grouped into sections? For example, a wedding photographer might separate their booking form into sections for basic questions, wedding details, background about the couple, and preferred aesthetic.

Acuity users can use those decisions to guide the title and description fields of your new forms. Your title and description will appear above your form’s questions. This creates a sort of visual break, separating your custom forms from the name, phone number, and email address fields. If you’re prioritizing a streamlined look for your brand, you might leave these fields blank to create one continuous flow of questions.

Your appointment booking calendar and forms can be integrated into your website. That way, you can style the page to match your brand colors and fonts. Plus, it’ll be easier for potential clients to jump from learning about you and your services to the booking page.

Learn more about the latest Acuity features

4. Create your forms and decide when they display

Once you have the basic structure of your intake forms figured out, you can set them up and attach them to different appointment types. If you’re going to give your form a name and description, start with that information. Next, add the questions you’ll want your clients to answer.

For automated, hands-off appointment booking, put your appointment calendar on a dedicated page of your website. From there, you can customize the page to match your brand and provide any extra information customers might want before booking with you, like your cancellation policy. Depending on your scheduling software, you can attach different intake forms to each of your appointment types so customers get a seamless experience.

Acuity users can use the “Show this form when scheduling” field to select which appointment types get each form. Once you click “Save Form” or “Save Question and Form,” your new form will be live in your scheduler.

5. View client answers

Acuity automatically adds client responses to the details of the appointment they’ve booked. As their appointment approaches, open the appointment details to review their answers and prep for their session.

Remember that you can always adjust your forms over time. If common questions or details come up in your client meetings or you find yourself going back after meetings to ask the same question, that’s often a signal to add it to your forms. The more prep you can build into the automated client onboarding process, the more productive your valuable time with your clients can be. 

Ready to start automating your appointment booking?