Restaurants get the online reservation thing right, usually. With other local small businesses, it's very hit or miss and you are better off calling unless you know for sure their online system actually works.

I made an optometrist appointment online recently. Their online calendar showed which dates and times were available, so I picked the closest one which was still a few weeks out. I got an email immediately after and a text message confirmation the day before. When I went in at the correct day and time, the receptionist told me I wasn't anywhere in their system and they had no idea there was even an online appointment form. (Yes it was the correct business and they only had one location.)

My guess is that they recently paid for a website which included online scheduling and integration but someone forgot to flip the switch that sent the appointment to their scheduler.

I've seen that sales funnel (selling to the business, not to you) from the other side, integrating some "request appointment" UI where your click supposedly sets some back-office in motion that asks for an appointment with the business that might in fact never had contact with the intermediary before. Then later the sales squad will drop in arguing that all those appointments are revenue that they might lose if they don't become a customer to the full version of appointment tool.

This is not that bad in the beginning (though certainly not good!), the hopeful customer won't be promised anything before the appointment is actually made. If the presentation is sufficiently clear about the appointment hunt not really being over before confirmation it's not that bad. But even when started in a rather benign form, these things can quickly turn nasty, by skimping on the back office and/or "streamlining" the UI into a presentation that isn't clear at all about nothing being committed yet. And I'd also imagine that unscrupulous competition might be tempted to fake-register with the service in some zero-cost tier, effectively black-holing all appointment request to let the resulting Google/yelp/whatever zero star reviews ruin their competition. Which points us to the deepest tier of darkness, the appointment service knowingly claiming to have made an appointment when they haven't, betting on more of the fallout hitting the small business than themselves and using that to coerce them into buying the service (essentially a darker form of what yelp was famous for).

> Would you prefer to schedule haircuts via a call or an anonymous online form?

Why the hell no?

At worst "an anonymous form" can ask for your mobile number only to remind you about the appointment (if it's not today for example). At best it should be really optional. In both cases there is absolutely zero need for both a login and a password.

I have a local pizza joint working like that - you just punch in what you need, your number with SMS code confirmation and you are in, with your address/es and pizza coins or whatever. And they have your number to contact you if anything is wrong with the order/delivery.

Another one just asks for a number and call back to confirm with an operator.

Why the hell I do need a login, a password and email|Facebook|whatever for a pizza delivery?

I want to pick a particular barber at my shop. They also need to know that I’m not a prankster who books a bunch of time slots with no intention of showing. Providing a mobile number (which needs to be confirmed) is a good way to accomplish both. I don’t get any spam from my shop, and would definitely complain if I did. But right now it’s a system that works really well for both of us.

exactly.

i can make appointments for my country's embassy by picking a time slot and giving them my email address. confirmation then comes by email. no login and password needed.

Neither. I can already schedule in other barbershops, make government appointments, book hotels, purchase food, order guitars online, and several other things, all online and without a login/password. Not anonymous, just doesn't involve an account and a password.

I'd like to do this there, too. I sorta already do: I use "hide my password" for their website and delete it after the appointment.

There are things that work anonymously (or at least pseudonymously) already: pizza delivery or hotel booking. It's not like the data presented at a random registration form has to reflect your government ID. Skipping the login step just saves the hassle, and preserves the win of being able to do things online.

Exactly. Purchasing with a guest login works fine for most shops here.

In this specific case I was talking about it's even worse: I already have to click a link in the email (or answer an SMS) to confirm the appointment. It's ludicrous.

> Would you prefer to schedule haircuts via a call or an anonymous online form?

I 100% prefer to schedule appointments over the phone. That's never gone wrong for me, where scheduling online has gone very wrong quite a lot.