The mail assistant for appointments

Updated on 2026-10-24

Mails van klanten over hun afspraak worden nagekeken. U krijgt een voorstel en een antwoord; u bevestigt, en het antwoord verstuurt u zelf of laat u HairConnect versturen. (Mails from customers about their appointment are checked. You get a proposal and a reply; you confirm, and you send the reply yourself or let HairConnect send it.)

Instellingen → Koppelingen → Communicatie → Mailassistent voor afspraken → Instellen (Settings → Integrations → Communication → Mail assistant for appointments → Configure). Only the owner can do this.

What it does

A customer mails "I have to cancel my appointment tomorrow, could it be next Tuesday or Wednesday?". The mail assistant:

1. finds the customer by her email address, and her upcoming appointment;
2. reads what she asks: cancel, reschedule, a new appointment, or something else;
3. when rescheduling: looks for a free moment on the requested days. The haircut stays with whoever does it now; a colouring may go to any employee who can do it. If those days are full, it proposes the first free moment after them;
4. prepares a proposal and a draft reply under Klanten → Mails over afspraken (Customers → Mails about appointments).

Nothing changes in the calendar and nothing is sent until an employee presses Bevestigen (Confirm). After confirming, the button Antwoord openen in uw mailprogramma (Open reply in your mail program) opens the reply in your own mail program; you send it yourself, from the salon's mailbox. If you let HairConnect send the reply (see below), it leaves right after confirming.

If it is unclear what the customer asks, if no customer has that address when cancelling or rescheduling, or if several appointments fit: there is only a notice, without a button to carry anything out.

Even with a notice, the customer is shown when her email address is on exactly one customer card.

Rather another day. If a customer writes that she already booked ("online I provisionally booked Wednesday 4 November at 11") but would rather come on another day ("preferably Saturday 31/10"), that is rescheduling: the proposal moves the booked appointment to that day.

The appointment arrives after the mail. If the appointment only reaches HairConnect later (for example an online booking that comes in through Optios), the mail assistant looks at the notice again as soon as that appointment is there, once per new appointment and without having the mail read again. Even then it becomes at most a proposal that you confirm.

An email about more than one person. If a customer writes about herself and someone else ("we have to cancel Ilse's and my appointment on Saturday; Ilse already rebooked online on 7/11 at 12:45, could I join?"), the mail assistant also looks at the customer records of the people the email names (first within her family, via the contact person, then by first and last name) and at appointments on another record whose note carries her name. The proposal can then have several steps, which you confirm together with Bevestigen: annuleren en inplannen (Confirm: cancel and schedule):

1. cancel the shared appointment;
2. a new appointment for the sender at the same time as the other person, in the reverse order: if the other starts with the colour, she starts with the haircut, and the other way round. A small overlap at the hairdresser with the tail of a previous customer (up to a quarter of an hour) is no reason to move; the proposal mentions it. If the same time is not possible, the free moment as close to it as possible. The treatment is her share of the cancelled appointment, or otherwise what she had last time; the haircut goes to whoever cut her hair last time.

If the second step can no longer be done when you confirm, nothing is cancelled either. If a name matches two records, there is a notice naming both, and you choose. If the other person's new appointment is not in HairConnect yet, the notice waits until it is.

A new appointment

If the customer asks for an appointment that does not exist yet ("could I come for a haircut with Kris next Tuesday?"), the mail assistant prepares a proposal for that too, with the button Bevestigen: inplannen (Confirm: schedule).

1. What. HairConnect looks up the treatment, as the customer words it, in your online offer, the same way Hairlien does on the booking page: first the packages from your menus, then the individual services. If it fits more than one package, the package the customer had the previous times wins. If several remain, or nothing fits, there is a notice listing the options, and you schedule it yourself.
2. With whom. The employee the customer names, if that employee has the service on their profile. Otherwise whoever cut the customer's hair last time, even if the service is not on that employee's profile. Otherwise the first free employee who can do the service. A colouring may go to any employee who can do it.
3. When. The first free moment on the requested days and hours. If there is no room, or the customer named no day, the first free moment in the fourteen days after that; the reply says so.

A new customer. If nobody in your customer file has the sender's email address, the proposal shows Nieuwe fiche (New profile) with the name and email address as they appear in the mail. The name comes from the sender or the signature; if the email address spells the name differently, the spelling of the address wins. Phone and address stay empty. If the mail carries no name, there is only a notice.

The profile and the appointment are only created on Bevestigen (Confirm), and together: if the appointment fails, no profile is created either. If a customer with the same email address exists by then, that customer gets the appointment and no second profile is added.

This route sends no confirmation mail and no profile for review: the reply to the mail is the only message. In the calendar the appointment carries the source Via de assistent (Via the assistant).

Letting HairConnect send the reply

The Instellen (Configure) window has the switch Antwoord versturen vanuit HairConnect (Send reply from HairConnect). By default it is off: then everything works as described above.

When it is on, pressing Bevestigen (Confirm) does this:

1. the confirmation window shows the reply. You read it and correct it where needed; the text in the window is what is sent;
2. the calendar changes;
3. HairConnect sends the reply to whoever sent the mail, with your salon's address as sender and your salon address as reply-to address, with "Re:" before the subject, in the same thread as the customer's mail;
4. the message then appears on the customer's record under Berichten (Messages), like any other mail HairConnect sent.

The reply leaves through the mail server that is switched on under Instellingen → Koppelingen (Settings → Integrations): Mail via HairConnect or your own mail server. If neither is on, nothing is sent.

It only says sent once the mail server accepted the mail. If it fails, the change in the calendar stays, and the proposal shows Niet verstuurd (Not sent) in red with the reason. The button Antwoord openen in uw mailprogramma (Open reply in your mail program) is still there: send it from there. A reply is never sent twice, not even if someone presses Confirm twice.

This switch applies only to this reply. Confirmations, reminders, receipts and other messages to customers stay as they are set. This route never sends a text message or a WhatsApp.

What is needed

The switch only turns on when everything is there. If something is missing, the screen says what.

After switching on, the test button shows the forwarding address. In your own mailbox, set a forwarding rule from your salon address to that address. Whether that rule works, HairConnect cannot check until a mail arrives.

Still bookable after the roster

An employee's record has Na het rooster nog intern boekbaar tot (still bookable internally after the roster until). Empty means: only within the roster. If you enter, for example, 18:30 for the owner, the mail assistant may plan him until 18:30, even though his roster ends at 17:00 — not later. Online booking never looks at this: customers do not see that time.

The mail assistant places a colouring so that the colourist's work is done by the time you enter under Instellingen → Online boeken → Kleurwerk (Settings → Online booking → Colour work) (Kleurwerk klaar vóór (colour work done before)), also in that extra room: that room is for the haircut.

Waiting for the regular hairdresser, and the reserve

Since 26 October 2026 the mail assistant does find a place on a busy day. Three things changed:

• The customer may wait. If the regular hairdresser is still with another customer when the colour is rinsed out, the customer waits until he is free — as long as you allow under Instellingen → Online boeken → Plannen door het salon zelf (default 90 minutes). The proposal says how long she waits and when she is done, and a moment without waiting always wins from one with. Before, every service had to follow the previous one immediately, and then a day full of gaps was still "full".
• The haircut stays with whoever always cuts the customer. That comes before whoever happens to be free. Rinsing after the colour stays with the colourist.
• "I have to leave at 2 pm" the assistant reads as the hour by which the customer must be done, not as the desired hour. And when the customer names her treatment in her own words (cut and colouring whole head), the assistant first looks for it in what she had the previous times, before searching the service names.

The reserve. On the days you tick under the same setting, everyone on the team can be booked from the reserve hour for a mail request — also before their roster, or on a day they are not rostered. For example Friday and Saturday from 09:00. Never online.

What goes outside

The text of the mail goes to Anthropic to be read, with the key of your Assistant module. What the assistant read in it is shown with the mail; the reply is built by HairConnect itself from your calendar, not written by the language model.

Confirming does what is on the screen. If the appointment changed in the meantime or the new moment is taken, nothing happens and you see why.