The importance of appointment scheduling
As a business owner or entrepreneur, you may find that your days consist of meeting after meeting. Whether you’re meeting your business partner, a potential client, or even catching up with the team.
With so much going on it can sometimes seem easy to forget about meetings you’d already booked. Although this can be understandable due to how much you have going on, it may not be as understandable to them.
It could potentially lose your the chance of securing that deal, that customer, that partnership. That’s why it’s important that appointment scheduling is a priority within your business.
Being organised in business a critical success factor and being on top of your appointments make up a huge part of that.
Calendar scheduling tools that are there to help you and your business
If you have found that you are starting to get lost when it comes to organising your appointments, don’t worry. There are plenty of useful resources and tools out there to help you.
These useful resources have been designed specifically to help you with your appointment scheduling and to help you become more organised.
Due to there being such a need for this type of kit there is an abundance of options. With some being more useful than others.
To save you finding out yourself, we have found some of the best appointment scheduling tools available on the internet which are the some of the FREE alternatives to Calendly.
I did a post about How To Use Calendly for your Business take a look to get yourself set up with it.
4 Free Alternatives to Calendly For Scheduling Appointments
ScheduleOnce
This innovative software uses smart scheduling that connects leads and prospects and is absolutely perfect if you’re a project manager or business owner.
The top-down approach allows you to focus, organise and schedule meetings for your whole team. It allows prospects and clients to choose when to meet with your team.
You can also share your team’s availability to reduce scheduling delays.
ScheduleOnce also integrates seamlessly with your Google Workspace, Microsoft Office 365, Exchange, Outlook, or iCloud calendars.
Want to send a personalised video, well you can send calendar invitations with secure video links
Save time with automatic calendar invitations and secure video links.
ScheduleOnce also integrates with your Zoom, Microsoft Teams, Cisco Webex, Google Meet, or GoToMeeting account.
Pricing starts from FREE for up to 3 users
Taggg
Taggg is an online scheduler that has many of the same features as Calendly.
It has been created for people that schedule meetings with their internal and extended team.For example sales engineers, IT department, agencies, entrepreneurs etc.
Taggg also integrates with your Zoom, Google Meet and Ring4 meetings and you can unlock up to 700 software integrations by linking it with zapier.
The software allows you to find meeting times, send invitations,
create different time blocks for your open appointments, and even block off specific times for yourself that are unavailable.
Pricing starts from FREE
Honeybook
This piece of software is more than just a calender.
It contains everything your business needs to get it done.
Manage projects, book clients, send invoices and get paid — all on HoneyBook.
But for now let's just focus on the calendar.
With an intuitive dashboard, scheduling appointments with honeybook is as easy as 1, 2, 3
Set your availability, Share your meeting link, Get scheduled.
You can select how you'll meet: in-person, video call etc.
Time buffers are included so you can block time before and after meetings.
Sync your sessions with your Google calendar, so your availability is updated in real-time and you’re never double-booked.
HoneyBook also includes a dedicated online portal for your clients so they can message you, select services, schedule meetings, sign contracts and pay invoices.
Pricing: You get a 7 Day Free Trial then $39 per month
Like I said earlier, it contains everything your business needs to get it done.
Manage projects, book clients, send invoices and get paid — all on HoneyBook.
Teamup
If you or your team run classes and workshops this is the ideal appointment scheduling tool for you. Its user interface allows for both new and existing clients to easily book onto your classes.
It also provides a broad overview of each of your team members schedules. Allowing you to gain valuable insights and discover trends in regards to your consumer behaviour.
Teamup is innovative in that it accommodates for a wide range of different payment methods when it comes to paying for classes or workshops.
It also acts as an all-in-one platform not only for meeting booking but also to be paid for. Removing the need to use another tool for payments and another system to learn and manage.
Pricing starts from FREE for small teams
If you or your team run classes and workshops this is the ideal appointment scheduling tool for you.
Why you should adopt appointment scheduling in your business plan
No matter how big or small your business is, or even
if you’re a freelancer. It’s absolutely critical to managing your schedule.
Not only due to the reasons mentioned at the start of this blog.
But also due to the value that it gives you, as well as giving you insights into consumer behaviour and avoiding meeting clashes.
Some of the Calendars mentioned can also act as a CRM system.
With each booking providing you with email addresses that are perfect for any email campaigns going forward.
This will allow you in the future to tailor certain campaigns towards
specific clients and avoid bombarding existing clients with non-relevant and what they could see as spammy emails.
If you would like to see more alternatives to Calendly you can check out this post Top 9 Calendly Alternatives by Taggg