Walk-ins and bookings in the same chair

This is general guidance, not legal advice. Follow your product manufacturer's instructions and check with your insurer and professional body for your own situation. There is no official source for this guide: everything below is practical suggestion, not a rule.

The problem

Walk-ins are part of how many barbers work. Bookings are how regulars plan their week. Put both into the same chair without a plan and each starts to eat the other: someone waits twenty minutes past a booked time because a walk-in ran long, or a walk-in is turned away while the chair sits empty.

Bookable hours and walk-in hours

The simplest fix is to split your opening hours into two kinds:

• Bookable hours: times clients can reserve online.
• Walk-in hours: times you keep free on purpose, and say so.

We could not find a trustworthy, citable figure for the right split, so we will not invent one. Use a method:

1. Count, for a few typical weeks, how many walk-ins you really take, and at what times of day and week.
2. Keep those times free of online bookings. Quiet times can be bookable, busy walk-in times should not be.
3. Leave a buffer after the last booked cut before a walk-in window, and the other way round, so a long cut does not push everyone back.
4. Review the split after a month or two and move the boundary if the pattern has changed.

Say it where people will see it: on your booking page, your door and your profile. "Bookings until 12, walk-ins from 12 to 4" is clearer than a general "walk-ins welcome".

Running the chair

A walk-in who arrives while you have a booking within the next half hour should be told honestly how long the wait is, or offered a later time. Decide your rule once and use it with everyone. A practical approach is that if a booked client arrives, they go first. That is the point of booking, and many owners find it keeps regulars confident in it.

No-shows

A booked slot that nobody turns up for is a gap you could have given to a walk-in. Decide what you will do and write it down in one place: how long you hold a slot after the start time, and what happens to any deposit. Keep the wording friendly and the same for everyone. Allow for genuine emergencies. Our guide on cancellation policies covers the wording in more detail.

What a waiting list can and cannot do

A waiting list is a record of people who would like a time if one becomes free. It can tell them when a slot opens. It cannot guarantee anyone a place, make a client turn up, or replace a clear cancellation rule. Be honest with people about that when they join, and remember that, in practice, a short notice message to several people can lead to more than one reply, so decide in advance how you will handle that.

A waiting list is not the same as a walk-in queue. It does not manage the line of people sitting in your shop.

How we help

You choose the hours clients can book online, so you can keep time free for walk-ins. There is no walk-in queue: you see walk-ins as you do now. If you want a walk-in on record, add him as a client with his email address and record the visit, and what he paid, on his card. When someone cancels or moves, everyone on your waiting list who can make that day is emailed the free times straight away, and texted too if they asked and you have texts switched on. The first to book gets it. See our page for barbers.

Do this next

1. Count your walk-ins for two typical weeks and note the times.
2. Mark your bookable and walk-in hours, with a buffer between them.
3. Write one sentence for your booking page and door that states the split.
4. Write your no-show and waiting list rules in a few lines, and use them the same way each time.

Sources

• Your own diary and till records for two typical weeks
• Your insurer's and trade body's guidance on your terms of trade (check your own)

Last checked 22 October 2026. General guidance, not legal or tax advice.

Read next

• Setting rebooking gaps for fills and infills

  A rebooking gap is the time you expect between one appointment and the next, and a sensible one depends on the treatment, not on a rule of thumb.

  3 min read

• Booking long colour appointments and processing time

  A colour appointment is mostly waiting, so the way you quote it and block it decides whether your day runs on time.

  3 min read

• Booking a tattoo over several sessions: quotes, deposits and what to put in writing

  A bigger piece is really a small project, and it goes better when the plan, the money and the gaps between sessions are written down before the first one.

  3 min read