When it comes to creating a successful business, it is important for you to stay ahead of the curve. To do this, you have to be efficient with everything you do. One of the most effective ways to be more efficient with your work is to use online scheduling for appointments. This can save valuable time each day that you can spend on the things that matter most to you.
Tips on common issues & solutions
Scheduling with multiple people is even more time-consuming. When proposing appointment times, offer 2-3 options your potential customers are likely to be happy with, especially if the meeting involves more than one participant.
Paper calendars get messy and are hard to keep organized. An online service takes the stress out of appointment scheduling for both you and your clients. See how Olympic Silver medalist Paul Wylie coordinates appointments for skating lessons.
Phone tag is time-consuming. Online scheduling eliminates the awkward phone tag with clients during business hours. If your customers have the option to schedule with you 24 hours a day, seven days a week, they’re likely to use your service more often. Genius Tip: Tools such as SignUpGenius are perfect for easy appointment booking? Need a more robust Enterprise scheduling tool? Check out TimeTap – a solution trusted by major corporations.
Clients cancel at the last minute. Consider including your cancellation and no-show policy in the descriptive text of your sign up, so your clients will know your policies prior to scheduling an appointment. With our sign up locking feature, you can lock slots based upon dates to prevent last minute cancellations.
You have too much information in too many places. A reliable calendar system will make your schedule accessible whether you are at a desk or on the move. Consider using a calendar that links with your computer and smartphone.You need a better system to keep track of payments. You can collect payments for appointments at the same time that people sign up using SignUpGenius. This helps to simplify record-keeping and ensure timely payment for services.
The details get lost in communication. Make sure clients know what to expect and are prepared for the appointment by using our custom notification feature to generate an automated email with a custom message from you, after clients reserve a spot on your sign up. These notifications are a great place to share essential details such as items to bring and parking information.
No shows happen. No shows are frustrating and result in lost time and revenue for small business owners, so ensure you have a consistent reminder system in place. Genius Tip: SignUpGenius helps to keep people accountable by sending automatic reminders for appointments and meetings, and you can customize reminders via text and email.
Clients worry about security and privacy when scheduling. When creating your sign up, you can customize privacy settings to choose the right level of security. For instance, you can hide the names of clients when they sign up for appointments. Check out this genius hack to learn more about hiding names on sign ups.
Rescheduling is a chore. Say you sent a text or email reminder and an individual still didn’t show. Make it easy for them to reschedule by posting open appointments slots that they can choose from.
Set up photo sessions for clients with an online sign up. View an Example
Taking Scheduling to the next level
Make it easy to schedule and check appointments on the go. An online schedule means your clients can sign up from any device user-friendly technology. Individuals can also check the sign up at any time to see their responsibilities. Encourage clients to install SignUpGenius mobile on their device for an even easier experience.
Choose a strategic time for your sign up schedule to go live. Consider when your clients are more likely to be available, such as early evening, so they are more likely to check their schedules and book an appointment. Genius Tip: SignUpGenius Premium offers a start/stop feature that allows you to set when a sign will open and close.
Share your calendar in several places. Once your online sign up has gone live, you can post your sign up link on your own website, social media accounts and client newsletter. Place in a prominent spot for easy accessibility.
Have clients fill out paperwork ahead of time. If your clients need to fill out forms or sign a waiver, sending them ahead of time makes the check-in process quicker at appointment time. Genius Tip: You can add an attachment to your sign ups with SignUpGenius Premium.
Sync up. Streamline your scheduling process so your calendar is updated automatically. SignUpGenius Premium offers a calendar syncing feature so all appointments booked on your sign ups are added to your personal digital calendar.
Simplify your sign ups. Help clients easily see available slots on your sign ups so they can reserve their appointment quickly. Genius Tip: You have the option to hide past dates with SignUpGenius Premium, enabling a user-friendly view for appointment makers.
Crunch the numbers. Easily check how many appointments are filled and available on the reports and stats page of your sign up. You can also track how many people visit your sign up.
Explore your options. Know what opportunities are best for your scheduling needs. SignUpGenius Premium has several convenient levels featuring advanced features such as assigning multiple administrators, designing custom sign ups and organizing multiple sign ups with a tabbed layout.
Get the word out. After appointments, consider sending clients home with a coupon to share with friends or family and offer incentives for referrals.
Show your gratitude. Send a follow-up email from your sign up account to thank clients after their appointments. This thoughtful gesture will build a connection with your clients and help you develop meaningful relationships with them.
Using Paid and Free Meeting Scheduling Apps
Ready for more advanced features? Check out these paid options. Each tool includes the following features:
- Meeting scheduling tool that can be viewed, managed, and edited by multiple users and administrators
- Multiple calendar views
- Contact information can be gathered from those who book meetings
Acuity Scheduling
Acuity Scheduling makes it easy to book appointments with clients and prospects. It’s an online assistant where prospects, customers, and clients can see your real-time availability and book their own appointments. The tool allows you to send customized confirmations that reflect your branding. And appointment reminders and follow-up messages can be sent via email or text message.
Price: $14/month for 1 calendar (Emerging), $23/month for 6 calendars (Growing), $45/month for 36 calendars (Powerhouse)
YouCanBook.me
Connect your Google Calendar or iCloud calendar to set your availability to create a booking grid and start booking meetings. Share the booking grid on your website, Facebook page, or via email. Add custom styling, use unlimited fields, and manage your bookings using advanced tools.
Price: $10/calendar/month
HoneyBook
HoneyBook allows you to manage bookings throughout the entire sales process. You can book initial meetings with prospects and even send proposals, contracts, and invoices when they’re ready. It helps you manage your clients and HoneyBook integrates with other tools like Gmail, Google Calendar, and more.
Price: $9/ month (Starter), $34/month (Unlimited), $390/year (Unlimited Annual)
Bookeo Appointments
If you’re looking for a tool that provides appointment setting and advanced tracking for how your meeting contacts move through the sales pipeline, Bookeo Appointments is the tool for you. This platform automatically updates your schedule in real-time for optimal booking and integrates directly with HubSpot to keep your contact list up-to-date based on booking reservations.
Price: $14.95 per user/month (Solo), $29.95 per user/month (Small), $39.95 per user /month (Standard), $79.95 per user/month (Large)
GenBook
For small businesses that need to schedule several meetings and manage multiple calendars, GenBook offers an affordable scheduling app and booking solution. This app is great for small to medium size businesses looking to consolidate customer reviews, client management, and payments all from one app.
Price: $25/month for 1 user, $49/month for 2 – 5 users, $83/month for 6 – 12 users
Doodle
Price: Free (Basic), $6.95 one user/month (Starter), $44.75 for 5 users/month (Team), contact for enterprise pricing.
Create meeting polls to send to clients and prospects, suggest meeting dates and times, and allow voting on dates that work all with Doodle’s free version. While the free version might be helpful enough for most individuals, you’ll need to upgrade to the premium pricing tier to remove ads from your polls, set a deadline for the poll, and collect contact information from meeting guests.
The paid version of Doodle’s scheduling software helps you find a time to meet that works for all attendees. The meeting host suggests meeting times, invites participants to indicate their availability, then the meeting host picks a final time. When the time is finalized, a calendar event is added to the host and meeting invitees’ calendars. Plus, there’s a dashboard feature where you can manage all the meetings you have.
Calendly
Price: Free (Basic), $8 per user/month (Premium), $12 per user/month (Pro)
The free version of Calendly allows you to connect one calendar, book unlimited meetings, create a custom Calendly link, and send out automatic email notifications and reminders to invitees who book with you.
The paid version of Calendly provides multiple meeting types like one-on-one, round-robin, collective, and group meetings. It’s great for teams and provides team pages, metrics and reporting, and administrative features to manage bookings.
Arrangr
Price: Free (Basic), $10/month (Pro), $29.99/month (Pro Plus)
Arrangr is an intelligent scheduling platform that allows users to book a meeting in under 30 seconds. In addition to helping users find the best agreed upon time to meet, Arrangr seeks to prevent all meeting miscommunication by letting contacts determine places and ways to meet all within the platform. Bonus: Arrangr is a part of the HubSpot ecosystem, so you can launch and send invitations to contacts from directly within HubSpot.
Rallly
Price: Free
Rallly (with three Ls) is an appointment scheduler with classic polling functionality where the members of your group can vote on the best times for the meeting or event. It also supports chat and messaging within the interface so that meeting attendees can discuss the best time to connect.
Woven
Price: Free (Basic), $15/month (Premium)
Woven allows you to sync all of your calendars to get a complete picture of your availability. Its scheduling features are extensive, including a poller, scheduling links, and availability sharing.
CalendarHero
Price: Free (Basic), $8/mo (Pro), $12/mo (Team)
CalendarHero offers all the common meeting scheduler features such as scheduling links and internal group scheduling. However, its advantage is the powerful connections it has with your tech stack and its notification system and smart time settings for meeting buffers so you never run late to another meeting.
ScheduleOnce
Price: $0/month (Solo), $9 per user/month (Teams), contact for enterprise pricing.
ScheduleOnce is a comprehensive tool that allows you to create nearly any scheduling scenario you can think of. Everything from group sessions to one-on-one calls, to in-person meetings, can be booked through ScheduleOnce. You can also directly connect ScheduleOnce with your website, email provider, and payment system.
Forget the back-and-forth and choose the meeting scheduler that makes the most sense for your situation. Using scheduling and booking software can save so much time, increasing your productivity on the tasks that actually matter.
Chili Piper
Price: $0/month (Free), $15 per user/month (Spicy), $25 per user/month (Hot).
Chili Piper is a meeting lifecycle automation platform that helps sales teams connect with buyers throughout the customer lifecycle. Chili Piper does a couple of things well: scheduling multi-person meetings at once and sending email times via email. Now, we know we mentioned that back-and-forth emails to schedule meetings isn’t the most efficient, but Chili Piper’s scheduling widget is the exception to this rule. Rather than sending your prospect to a landing page with your calendar, you can place convenient buttons at the end of an email to get a meeting booked in one click.
Appointy
Price: $0/month (Free), $19.99 per user/month (Growth), $49.99 per user/month (Professional), $79.99 per user/month (Enterprise).
If you’re running a brick-and-mortar business that needs to maintain social distancing, Appointy is the app for you. Appointy goes beyond scheduling meetings as it manages occupancy, too. Whether you need to schedule consultations, classes, or appointments, Appointy will ensure your business meets regulations with every appointment.
16. Visibook
Price: $0/month (Free), $6.99/month (Basic), $13.99/month (Standard), $19.99/month (Unlimited).
Appointment reminders and calendar synchronization are among the basic must-haves Visibook offers in their scheduling app, but their platform offers much more. If you accept deposits or booking fees from customers before confirming appointments, Visibook supports this feature with payment processing integration. For a more consultative approach to your meetings, you can chat with customers through email or text message and keep all that correspondence in one place.
Conclusion
Online scheduling can save valuable time each day that you can spend on the things that matter most to you. These days, it seems like everyone is always on the go. Busy schedules can make it difficult to work around busy lives, and never-ending to-do lists can make it hard to find time for leisure. The truth is, there are plenty of ways to work smarter instead of harder (especially when it comes to scheduling client appointments). It might seem a little overwhelming at first, but once you’ve got the tools down—and a system in place—you’ll have more time in your week for what matters most: bringing home the bacon.