Slot-fill suggestions live on an individual appointment's detail page — open the appointment from your calendar — and the panel only shows up once that appointment has been canceled or marked as a no-show, since that's the moment the slot is actually open again. It looks at your active waitlist and your shop's recent inbound texts, and returns up to three candidates worth reaching out to first, each with a short reason and a ready-to-edit text message. None of these three AI picks get sent on their own — you review each one and either send the text yourself with one click or copy it to send manually. (Canceling or no-showing the appointment already triggers a separate, automatic notice to your top waitlist match, with no review step — see "Things to know" below for how that's different from this panel.)
Finding someone to fill the slot
On a canceled or no-show appointment, a "This slot just opened up" panel offers a "Find someone" button. Clicking it pulls your current waitlist and recent inbound texts and returns up to three ranked candidates. Each one shows the customer's name and phone number (when known), a badge showing whether they came from your waitlist or your inbox, a one-line reason (something like "On waitlist for Ceramic Coating"), and a draft text you can edit right in the box before doing anything with it. For a candidate with a linked customer record and a phone number, "Send this text" fires the message immediately using whatever text is on screen at that moment. For an inbox lead with no linked customer record, there's nothing to send it *to* automatically, so you get a "Copy" button instead and a note that it's an anonymous lead to paste into your own messaging tool. A "Re-rank" button lets you pull a fresh set of suggestions without leaving the page.
How the shortlist gets picked
The candidates come from two pools: customers currently on your waitlist, and people who've texted your shop in roughly the last two weeks asking something that sounds like a booking or availability question. From that pool, the AI weighs the kind of factors a good front-desk person would — matching the customer's requested service to the one that just opened up, customers who've said they're flexible on dates, people whose stated availability actually covers the new slot, and people who've been waiting longer over people who just joined. It also favors a real name and phone number over an anonymous text, and skips anything that reads like spam or an unrelated message. From there it writes a short, casual one-line text for each pick — naming the service and time and inviting a quick "reply YES" — without promising anything you don't actually have open.
Things to know
- Separate from this panel: the moment you cancel or mark an appointment a no-show, SalesThumb already sends its own automatic notice — a text (or an email if there's no phone on file) to the single oldest matching person on your waitlist, with no review step, on every plan. That's a simpler, always-on system, not the AI feature described here — this panel's three ranked suggestions are an extra, opt-in shortlist you pull up and act on yourself; using it (or not) doesn't turn that automatic notice on or off.
- Plan requirement: this requires the Growth plan or above. It sits alongside SalesThumb's other Growth-and-up AI tools on the plan comparison page and isn't included on Basic or Starter.
- Stub mode: if the workspace doesn't have AI configured, you still get real candidates pulled from your actual waitlist — just ranked by a simple built-in rule instead of AI, with a generic templated text (something like "Hey [name] — a spot just opened up for [service] [time]. Want it? Reply YES to grab it.") instead of an AI-drafted one. A small note at the bottom of the panel tells you whether you're looking at a live AI ranking or the fallback.
- If neither pool has anything to offer — nobody on the waitlist and no recent texts that read as booking-related — the panel just says there's nothing good to suggest right now, rather than forcing a pick.
- It always tops out at three suggestions, even when more decent candidates exist. It's built to be a fast shortlist, not a full waitlist dump.
- A suggestion pulled from an inbound text with no linked customer record can't be sent with one click — copy the draft and send it from wherever you normally text customers.
- Re-running "Re-rank" pulls a fresh shortlist without leaving the page. If someone you already sent a text to (via the one-click "Send this text" button) shows up again, their card is marked "Sent" and stays disabled for the rest of that visit, so you won't double-text them by accident. That protection resets if you leave the appointment page and come back later, and it doesn't cover anonymous leads you handled with "Copy" — the app has no way to know whether you actually sent that one, so double-check those yourself.
Frequently asked questions
Q: Does this text people on its own?
A: Not this panel — every suggestion here is something you review first, and you click "Send this text" yourself or copy the draft to send manually. Separately, canceling or no-showing the appointment already sends its own automatic text (or email) to your top waitlist match, with no review step — that's a different, always-on part of SalesThumb, not one of these AI suggestions.
Q: What plan do I need to use this?
A: The Growth plan or above. It's not included on Basic or Starter.
Q: Where do the suggested customers come from?
A: Two places: people currently on your waitlist, and people who've texted your shop in roughly the last two weeks asking something that sounds like a booking or availability question.
Q: What happens if AI isn't set up for my shop (stub mode)?
A: You still get real candidates pulled from your actual waitlist, just ranked by a simple built-in rule instead of AI, and each comes with a generic template text instead of an AI-drafted one. The panel tells you at the bottom which one you're looking at.
Q: Can I edit the suggested text before sending it?
A: Yes. Each suggestion comes with an editable text box — change the wording however you like before you send or copy it.
Q: Why do I only ever see 3 suggestions?
A: It's capped at three by design — meant to be a quick shortlist you can act on fast, not a full dump of everyone who might be interested.