Book a flu jab or collection time at a pharmacy
Quick summary
- Most of the volume is hours, a named box, or tonight's duty. A time is the smaller job.
- If you book anything, name the types you already run: a flu jab, an injection, a measurement, a cream to collect.
- A caller who asks “can I come now” often wants the hours, not the next free jab.
- “When will my cream be ready?” is a note. It is not a time the assistant invents.
- It checks the calendar you already use before it offers a time. No book, no time.
- If you do not book those things, do not give it a book. An empty diary with a helpful tone invents a time you then take back.
TL;DR
The counter is full. Most people on the line want a named tin, the hours, or tonight's duty. A few want a flu jab in season, a measurement you actually offer, or a time to collect a compounded cream. The person who would write that time down is sealing a bag. An assistant that hears every sentence as a booking will put a stock caller into a jab, invent a ready-time for a cream you have not finished, or offer Thursday to someone who only asked if you are open. It checks the calendar you already use before it offers a time, books only the types you named, and texts the confirmation. Everything else is a note. It will not give a dose or a substitute.
Key takeaways
- Name each bookable type with its real length before anything goes live — jab, injection, measurement, cream collection.
- If you do not book those things, do not connect a diary. An empty book will invent a time.
- Treat “can I come now”, hours, duty, and “do you have this box” as notes, not as the next free time.
- “When will my cream be ready?” stays a note with a name. The assistant does not invent the hour it will be done.
- A move is one change on the same type. A flu jab is not swapped for a measurement because Thursday looked empty.
- Confirm by SMS at the moment of booking, in the language of the call. No book, no text.
Most of the volume is not a time
The queue is at the glass. You are matching a script to a box. The phone starts with the same three questions it always starts with: do you have this tin, are you open, are you on duty tonight. Those are not bookings. They are facts you already entered, or a note.
A few callers want a time. In season, a flu jab. An injection you actually give. A blood-pressure measurement if that is a service you run. A time to collect a compounded cream so they do not stand in the evening queue. That is the smaller job. It is also the job that goes wrong if the assistant treats the whole line as a diary.
The person who would write the time down cannot leave the till. Both hands are on the box. An assistant that answers every line at once can take the booking, or the request, while the bag stays sealed. An assistant that offers the first free line it can see will put a parent who wanted Aptamil into a jab, tell someone their cream is ready at four, or give Thursday to a caller who only asked whether you close at midday.
A patient who believes they have 10:20 for a flu jab, when 10:20 is a measurement or nothing at all, will wait at the counter and the morning will run late. A caller who believes the cream is done at four will stand in your queue for a jar you have not finished.
What they mean by a time
“I need a time this week” is one sentence on this telephone. In a pharmacy it is rarely one job.
A flu jab is not a measurement. An injection is not a cream collection. A collection is not a reason to invent when the cream will be done. If two of you give jabs, their lists are not the same list. A parent who says it is for their daughter is giving you the person who belongs on the book, not a footnote.
Some callers do not want a time at all. They want the named tin. They want the afternoon close. They want tonight’s duty. They want to know if the e-prescription is ready — which the assistant must not say. They have a cough and they use the same words the jab callers use.
If the assistant hears every one of those sentences as a free time, you spend the morning moving people. The stock caller goes into a jab and the next two people wait at the glass. The cream question becomes 16:00. The hours caller is told they have Thursday. The person who asked what to take is offered a measurement.
Check that the time is free before you offer it. Offer only a type you named, at a length you set. If the request is for a box, the hours, duty, a pickup, or a phrase you forbade, stop offering times.
The types you already run — if you run them
Teach the assistant the types the way you teach a new person at the till.
Flu jab. Injection. Measurement. Cream collection. That is the whole list for most shops that book anything. Each type has a length that comes from last season’s book, not from a default. The assistant may book the types you already let the till book without asking you. Everything else is a callback with a complete note: name, what they asked for, in their words.
If those names do not exist, the assistant will do what a new hire does and put the caller in the first empty time it can see. That is how a stock question becomes a jab, and how a cream collection goes onto a measurement line.
If you do not book those things, stop here. Do not connect a diary. Tell it, in the notes, that you do not take times. An assistant with an empty calendar and a helpful tone will invent a Thursday you then have to take back.
Most callers still want hours, a named box, or tonight’s duty. Keep those paths first. A time is the exception.
“Can I come now” is usually the hours
Same-day times look empty in the software. They are not empty in the shop. You are spending the evening deciding who can be squeezed in for a jab, and who should just come to the counter for a box.
A caller who says “can I come now” often wants to know if you are open, or if you are on duty, or if the named tin is on the list. Give those facts. Do not hear “now” as the next free jab.
Keep same-day times closed to the assistant until you have watched a week of the safer types and still want this. Even then, a symptom on your short list must win. “Anything today” plus a cough is not a same-day request. It is a note for the pharmacist.
If you open same-day times at all, they must be their own type, blocked from every other use, and read after the first week. Most shops should not open them.
The cream is not a time until it is done
“When will my cream be ready?” is the sentence that most often becomes a fake booking.
You know when the prepared cream is done. The assistant does not. An hour offered on that call is an hour you have not agreed. They arrive. The jar is still being made. They wait in the evening queue. The next three people wait behind them.
The inbound job is a note: name, what they called it, a number. You ring them when the jar is actually done. On this call, there is no time to offer.
A collection time — “come at 18:30 so you do not queue” — is only a booking if you already run that type, and only after the cream is marked done by a person. Do not let the assistant pair an invented ready-hour with a collection time and call it one visit.
If they ask whether they should put something else on until the cream is done, that is a substitute. The assistant takes a note. It does not name another jar.
Pickup is a request, not a booked dispense
Someone wants to collect an e-prescription. They have an AMKA, or a barcode, or a name. They ask for a time so they do not queue.
That is still a pickup note. It is not a dispense, and it is not a reason to put them on the jab list.
The assistant takes the name as they said it, the AMKA or the barcode as they read it, and a number. It reads those back. It does not say the medicine is ready. It does not say the e-prescription has been issued. It does not say there is a bag waiting. That check is yours, on the screen.
If you run a collection window for bags you have already prepared, that is a type you created, and only for names a person has marked ready. If you do not run that, there is no time to offer. They come when you are open. The assistant can say the hours.
A new patient who wants a jab and also wants a pickup is two jobs. Book the jab if that type is open. Take the pickup as a note. Do not write one time and hope both are done.
Saturday morning, two children, one phone
Flu season. A parent rings from the pavement with two names. The people who will sit for the jab are the children. The name on each time is the child’s, not the adult holding the phone.
If the assistant writes the parent, both children arrive and the notes are on the wrong line. Ask for each child’s name. Read it back. Keep the parent’s number as the number to call.
Two siblings are two times, or a paired type you created because you already run Saturday that way. They are not one jab stretched to twenty minutes at a till that still has a queue. If you have not set up a pairing, take both names and let the counter place them.
A child who needs a jab and a parent who then asks what to give for a temperature is two jobs. Book the jab if that type is open. The temperature is a note for the pharmacist. Do not let the second question ride on the first time.
Moving one time, cancelling one time
Find the existing item, release it, place the new one, same type. That order is the only one that does not block the person with their own jab. Split into cancel and then book, and they are told they cannot have Saturday because Friday is still in the book.
A cancellation the shop hears about the day before is a time the next jab list can use. Let people cancel through the assistant. Write it back immediately. A cancellation that lives only in a transcript cannot be offered to the next caller.
A person who missed Tuesday’s jab and now wants Wednesday’s last same-day time is not a move. That Wednesday time is one you are still handing out today. A human looks. The assistant takes the request.
Do not let a move turn a jab into a measurement because the measurement line had a gap. Different types stay different types.
If the calendar does not answer
If the calendar cannot be reached, the assistant takes a callback. It does not guess a Thursday. A time the person believes in and the shop has no record of is worse than no booking at all. They will arrive. You will not be free. The till will spend the next hour moving the people who were already in that hour.
The same rule applies when every time of that type is taken. Say so. Take a callback. Do not offer a measurement because the jab list is full, unless you named a type that may go to either.
When it does book, it confirms by SMS at the moment of booking, in the language of the call. That removes the second call that begins “did I actually get the 10:20?” The SMS names the person who will be seen, the type, and the time. For a child, it names the child, not the parent who placed the call. It answers in 70+ languages. The SMS follows the language of the call.
The SMS confirms the time. It does not confirm a dose. It does not confirm that a cream is ready. It does not confirm that a box is in the drawer unless that box was the subject of a stock list check, which is a different path.
What it must not treat as a booking
A named tin is stock. The list, or a note. Not a jab.
“Are you open now?” and the afternoon close are hours. The two times you entered. Not a measurement.
Tonight’s duty is today’s line. Not a collection time.
A cough, a temperature, “what is strongest”, “what else is there” are pharmacist questions. Write them down. Do not finish the sentence by offering 10:20. A symptom is not a reason to open the diary.
If the named tin is missing, do not book a collection for another jar, and do not name that jar. The next sentence is a note, or come to the counter.
Phrases you marked urgent stop the booking. The assistant rings the phone you named. It does not say “I have 12:10” over those words.
Keep doses out of the booking notes. A number sitting next to a jab type will get read out as if it belonged to the time.
Hours still have to be said on a booking call
A person who books a Saturday jab still needs to know whether you are open Saturday morning only. A person who books an evening measurement still needs the evening open. Do not let the diary smooth the week into “we close at eight.”
If you close at 14:30 and open again at 17:30, a 15:00 jab does not exist. The calendar should already show that. If it does not, the assistant will offer a time at a locked door. Check the hours you entered against the book before the first live morning.
Duty nights are not jab nights unless you said they are. A Sunday caller who wants a flu jab on a night you are only on the rota for urgent supply is a note, not a Sunday time you do not run.
What you set up first
If you book nothing, write that down. Connect no diary. Hours, duty, the stock list, the advice ban. Stop.
If you book anything, four types at most: flu jab, injection, measurement, cream collection. Real lengths from last season. Unlock only the types the till already places without asking you. Keep same-day times, ready-hours, and pickup-as-dispense as callbacks.
SMS on, at the moment of booking. Stock, hours, and duty as notes or as the facts you entered, never as times.
A forward after fifteen to twenty seconds while the counter is staffed, so the people at the glass still get a human when someone is free. An immediate forward once the door is locked.
Read the first fifty bookings by hand. You are looking for a stock caller in a jab, a cream ready-time that nobody marked, a child booked under the parent, and a hours question that received a Thursday. Any one of those is a type you have not finished naming.
Rates live on the pricing section of the home page. They are not repeated here.
AI receptionist, in-house staff, or a call centre
| CITT | In-house | Call centre | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Checks the diary before offering | Yes, against the live calendar | Yes, if they can leave the till | Usually takes a message |
| Flu jab vs a measurement | If you named the types | Yes | Writes “appointment” |
| Stock call treated as a time | Never — list or a note | They can hear it is not a booking | Risk, if the script is generic |
| Cream ready-time | Note for you — no invented hour | You know when it is done | A guessed afternoon |
| Same-day “can I come now” | Hours, or a callback | You decide at the counter | Takes a preference |
| Confirmation | SMS, after the time is in the book | If the till has a free minute | Sometimes |
| Calendar unreachable | Takes a callback | Looks at the paper book | Message only |
What a stock caller in a flu-jab time costs the morning
Worked from these assumptions — change any of them and the answer changes:
- In season you run about 8 flu-jab times on a weekday morning. Put your own count in.
- This example assumes 2 callers a week who only wanted a named box or the hours land in a jab time when the types are not named. Replace 2 with what your own week shows.
- Each collision takes about 12 minutes to unwind at the counter — an apology, a move, a person who came for a jab that is no longer theirs. Use your own figure.
- Counter time is about €12 an hour including employer costs in this example. Use your own figure.
- 2 collisions × 12 minutes = 24 minutes a week of counter recovery.
- 24 minutes × 12 jab weeks ÷ 60 ≈ 5 hours a season.
- 5 × €12 ≈ €60 of counter time, which is the small number.
The large number is the person who came for a jab and found a stock caller in that time — not the €60.
What it costs
CITT is pay as you go: no packages, no minimum, no contract. The current rates — the monthly fee per number and the per-minute rate — are on the pricing section of the home page, which is the only place they are published.
Frequently asked questions
We do not book anything. Should we still connect a diary?
No. Most of your volume is hours, stock, and duty. If you do not take a time for a jab, an injection, a measurement, or a cream collection, do not give the assistant a book. An empty diary and a helpful tone will invent a Thursday you then have to take back. Tell it what you do not offer, in the notes, the way you would tell a new hire.
Can it book a flu jab, or only take a note?
It can book a flu jab if you created that type, with its own length, and you already let the person at the till place those without asking you. If a jab still needs a word from the pharmacist, keep it as a callback. Do not let it drop a jab into the first empty line it can see.
Someone asked “can I come now” — is that a booking?
Usually they want the hours, or whether you are on duty. Give those. A same-day jab or measurement is a time you are still managing while you work. The assistant takes the request and hands it over, unless you opened a same-day type on purpose.
Can it tell them when the compounded cream will be ready?
No. It takes the name and a number. You know when the cream is done. An invented hour sends them to the counter for a jar that is still being made, and they wait in the evening queue. When it is actually ready, that is a callback you start, not a time offered on the inbound call.
Can it move a jab that is already in the book?
Yes, as a single change: find the time, release it, place the new one on the same type. If that is split into cancel and then book, their own jab is still in the book and they are told they cannot have the hour they are trying to take.
What if they ask what they should take, then ask for a time?
The advice request ends the booking path. It writes the words down for the pharmacist. It does not offer a measurement or a jab as a way to finish the call. A symptom is a note. It is not a reason to put them on the diary.
