Web developers: booking recurring support sessions

Turn scattered change requests into support sessions at set times: a recurring slot each week or month for clients on a maintenance arrangement, booked by you in advance, plus a short ad-hoc session on your page for one-off requests. Ask clients to send their list before each session, say what a session covers and what counts as a project, and keep urgent fixes for real emergencies. Clients know when their changes will be done, and your build days stop being interrupted by small requests.

A text change here, a new page there, a plugin update on Friday afternoon: small requests add up and break your focus. Grouping them into a known slot gives clients a predictable rhythm and gives you blocks of build time. It also makes support easy to price, since you're selling time rather than guessing the size of each request.

On Book, each service has a name, a price and an optional description shown on your public page, and each slot belongs to one service, sits within one day and has its own capacity.

Durations and prices are examples: set your own.

For clients on a monthly arrangement, agree a fixed day and time, such as the first Tuesday morning of each month, then create the slots and book the client in yourself straight away. First and last name are required, email and phone optional; enter their email so they receive a confirmation with a calendar file for each session. Slots repeat each week on the weekdays you choose until an end date; for a monthly rhythm, add each date individually or book a few months ahead at once.

With five or six maintenance clients, give each a fixed session on a different morning or afternoon, and keep at least two full days a week free of support for project work. If two clients want the same slot, offer the next one rather than squeezing sessions together: a two-hour session that starts late runs into the next client's time. One support service shared by all clients works, since the booking name tells you whose session it is.

Say plainly in each description what's included and what isn't:

Ask clients to email their list two days before the session, so you can prepare and flag anything too big to fit.

A site that's down or a checkout that fails can't wait for next month. Say in the description what counts as urgent, how to reach you, and whether urgent work is charged differently. Keep the ad-hoc fix session for non-urgent one-offs, and don't let it become a back door for everything that couldn't wait a week.

Every few months, step back from small fixes and look at the site with the client: traffic, speed, what's working, what they want next. Book a short review call yourself in the quarterly review service, and use it to plan larger changes as separate projects. It keeps the relationship about the client's goals, not only their change list.

Book doesn't track hours used against a monthly allowance, so keep a simple log of your own: client, date, time spent and what was done. Share it with the summary after each session. If a client regularly runs over, suggest a longer session or a project quote for the larger items.

Clients can't move bookings online: they contact you, and you move the session from your bookings list and confirm it yourself, since Book doesn't email clients about changes. Before your own holidays, move or skip the sessions that fall inside them and tell each client. Book doesn't take payments, so say how sessions are billed. Your bookings sync with Google, iPhone or Mac calendars. Book costs €5/month, everything included: unlimited services and bookings, no commission, no contract.