WhatsApp for Aesthetic Clinics and Medical Practices: Booking, Deposits and a Careful AI

In an aesthetic clinic or a small medical practice, the enquiry that arrives on WhatsApp at 21:00 is worth more than in most businesses, and it is more delicate. The person asking about a treatment wants a fast, discreet answer, not a form and a callback in two days. The clinic wants that answer to stay within what it is allowed and willing to say, to lead to a consultation before a treatment, and to be backed by a deposit before a valuable slot is held. Convelly is built for exactly that balance: Elly, an AI that answers and books on WhatsApp, Instagram and email, but only inside the rules you write, with a person one switch away. The guide on WhatsApp for clinics and medical practices covers the general approach, and the collection of WhatsApp playbooks by industry shows how it differs from a salon or a gym.

A careful AI, by design

The AI answers as your clinic, not as a general assistant. Three short texts describe who you are, what the AI must and must not do, and how it should sound. Convelly writes them from your website and a few choices, and clinics typically tighten them: "never quote prices for treatments, offer a consultation instead", "keep replies short and professional", "hand over to a person if the customer is upset or asks about a complication". You can edit the texts at any time and go back to an earlier version. Beyond the texts, you choose what the AI may touch at all: customers, deals, bookings, documents, the web. Deciding what your AI is allowed to do is a good place to think that through before you switch it on.

When a conversation moves outside those rules, the AI hands over: it switches itself off for that conversation and passes it to a named team member, who sees the full thread. When the AI should stop and fetch a human lists the situations worth writing into a clinic's rules. Every AI reply is recorded together with what the AI looked at before writing it, and the first AI-written message in a conversation can carry a short "this reply is automated" line, in your wording.

Consultation first, then treatment

Most treatments should not be booked cold. In Convelly's booking calendar, a service can require a companion service, so a consultation is booked before a treatment, or suggested alongside it. Each service has its own "the AI may book this" switch: the AI can book consultations on its own while treatments are booked by your team after the consultation, or the AI can book both and wait for your approval before anything is confirmed. Time before or after each appointment covers preparation and cleanup, treatment rooms and machines are assigned automatically so two treatments never need the same laser at the same time, and each practitioner has their own working hours, days off and personal booking page.

Your own booking questions, per service, collect what you need up front: free text, choices, a file upload, and an "I agree to the terms" checkbox. Limits such as one active appointment per customer keep the calendar honest.

Deposits that fit high-ticket treatments

A missed treatment slot is expensive, and a deposit is the honest way to protect it. Per service you decide: free, paid in full, or a deposit as a fixed amount or a percentage, paid by card through Stripe at booking, in the chat as well as on the booking page, or on site. Remaining balances and cash payments are recorded by staff, and refunds are noted on the booking so the record stays right. The AI knows whether a deposit is still open before it answers, so it can mention it without being asked. Taking payments at booking: deposits, Stripe and refunds walks through choosing the right setting for each treatment.

Reminders with preparation instructions

Reminders go out on WhatsApp, where they are read, in your own wording per service. That is where a clinic puts what the patient needs to know: arrive without make-up, avoid sun for two days before, bring the previous consultation notes. Choose the timing, from a week to fifteen minutes before, and the recipients: the patient, the practitioner, or both. The reminder carries the links to move or cancel within your rules, and a reply lands in your inbox, so "can I come at 15:00 instead?" is handled in the same thread. Video consultations happen inside Convelly, with a screen to test camera and microphone, a waiting room you control, and a link that goes into the reminder automatically.

Documents the AI can look up

Upload your treatment guides, aftercare instructions, price list and FAQs, and the AI looks things up in them when a question comes up, instead of answering from general knowledge. If a question is not covered and your rules do not allow the AI to answer it, it hands over. Only if you allow it does the AI use the web at all.

Private notes and a shared front desk

Your team can leave private notes on a patient, a conversation, a deal or an appointment, with @mentions that notify a colleague. The AI reads those notes before every reply and uses them, but it will never reveal or hint that they exist. Separate inboxes keep the front desk, the treatment team and enquiries apart, each with its own people and reply-time target, and conversations can be handed out in turns or to whoever has the fewest open ones. Internal notes and handoffs shows how a small clinic keeps context between reception and practitioners inside the team inbox.

Consent, blocking and the bin

Each patient's marketing permission for WhatsApp and for email is stored with when and how it was given, and a reply of STOP or a tap on WhatsApp's "stop promotions" button is recorded automatically. Campaigns leave those people out and show you why before you send. Block a contact once and they are blocked everywhere. Deleted conversations wait in a bin for 30 days in case you need them back, and every conversation records who it was assigned to and when it was moved or snoozed. What GDPR actually asks of a business that talks to customers on WhatsApp is the subject of GDPR and WhatsApp Business: what actually applies, and the guide on data privacy and compliance on WhatsApp, without the legalese covers consent records, retention and security in plain words.

Quotes that do not go quiet

A treatment plan with a price is a deal, and a deal has a stage. Move it to "Quote sent" and an automation can wait for a reply; if two days pass in silence, an AI follow-up asks, in the patient's language and within your rules, whether they still want to go ahead, and stops the moment they answer. A completed treatment can trigger a check-in message after a set number of days, and a no-show can start a message with a link to rebook.

Set up with the rules already in place

Convelly reads your website and writes the AI's description of your clinic, its rules and its tone; you tighten the rules, test the AI in a private chat as if you were a patient, connect WhatsApp, Instagram or your business mailbox, and Elly, your assistant, walks you through services, practitioners, rooms and hours. Plans, including the number of services, rooms and people, are on the pricing page, and there is no commission on bookings, ever.