Serious question, did that Tuesday rush at my shop in Reno teach anyone else about booking gaps?
Last Tuesday I booked 14 cuts back to back between 9am and 6pm with zero breaks, and by the 11th client my clipper hand was shaking so bad I nicked a guy's ear. Turned out my front desk girl double booked because our booking app glitched and merged two slots into one, so I had two guys waiting on one chair for 40 minutes. I lost a regular who tipped $20 every visit because he walked out. Now I leave a 15 minute buffer on every third slot, but I want to know if anyone here has a better fix for booking software that keeps doing this.
Check your booking app's time zone settings first. Mine was set to a different zone and it kept merging appointments that overlapped by a few minutes, which sounds close to what you're dealing with. Also call the software company and make them walk you through your slot rules, because most of them let two people grab the same chair if the buffer is set to zero. Set a hard 10 minute pad on every single slot, not just every third one, and turn off instant booking so your front desk can eyeball it before it locks in.