AI agents (MCP)
Bookings and services with an AI agent
Booking setup is fiddly work — services, durations, opening hours, exceptions, extras, seasonal prices — and it is exactly the kind of thing an agent is good at, because you can describe it in a paragraph instead of filling in twenty forms.
Describing the setup
Say it the way you would say it to a new employee:
We're a two-chair barbershop. Cut is 30 minutes at €28, cut and beard is 45 minutes at €42, kids' cut is 20 minutes at €18. Open Tuesday to Saturday, 9 to 6, closed for lunch 1 to 1:30. Two barbers, both can do everything.
The agent turns that into services, resources (the two barbers) and an availability pattern. Then you refine:
Add a Sunday, 10 to 2, but only one barber.
Block the whole of week 30 — we're closed for holidays.
Add-ons and pricing rules — not the same thing
These two get confused constantly, and choosing the wrong one gives you the wrong prices. The difference is simple once stated:
An add-on is an extra the customer chooses and pays for on top. A hot towel finish at €5. Breakfast with the room. A child seat with the bike. It is priced per booking, per unit or per night, and it only appears while it is active.
A pricing rule changes what the service itself costs on given dates. It replaces the base price — it does not add to it. A room at €120 with a summer rule of €160 costs €160 in summer, not €280.
So:
Add a hot towel finish for €5.
is an add-on, and:
Charge €160 a night in July and August.
is a pricing rule. If a price comes out wrong, this is the first thing to check.
When rules overlap, the higher-priority one wins, and dates matching no rule fall back to the base price.
Managing bookings
The agent can list, read, create, reschedule, cancel and move bookings through their statuses:
What's booked for tomorrow?
Move the 2pm cut on Thursday to 4pm and let me know if that clashes.
Cancel booking 88 — they called to say they can't make it.
One thing to know: bookings an agent makes are made as the owner, which means the minimum-notice window is bypassed. If your site refuses public bookings less than two hours ahead, the agent can still book one in for you in half an hour. That is correct for an owner tool — you should be able to take a phone booking for this afternoon — but do not use agent bookings to test what a customer would experience.
Availability checks the agent runs are advisory. The real check happens when the booking is actually made, so a slot can still be taken between asking and booking.
What stays in the owner interface
Deposits and payment configuration for bookings stay with you, since they are tied to your payment provider setup. Refunds are never available to an agent; a cancellation with a refund follows whatever cancellation policy the service already has.