Starting a business from scratch or working freelance is not easy. It requires a lot of effort, time, and patience. However, that is not the hardest part. It is after you launch your small business or your career as a freelance consultant that the real struggle starts. With the orders finally flowing in, happiness naturally tends to follow but so does confusion, restlessness, and anxiety. Since your front-end staff is stretched thin, it is natural for you to be piled with loads of work, phone calls, and a lot more. Do you also find yourself juggling too many calls? Do you often tend to find yourself forgetting about important appointments in all the confusion? If your answer is yes, then you must know that you are not alone.
Appointment scheduling software is just the perfect solution for you. This software helps small businesses to automate calendar management. This method is not only cost-effective but also does a lot more than just scheduling appointments. When used correctly, an appointment scheduling software can reduce your burden manifold. Want to know more about this win-win opportunity? You are in luck as we have prepared all the information you need right here. Continue reading!
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How can an Appointment Scheduling Software help you?
If you are relatively new to this thing and are unaware of the numerous ways that an appointment scheduling software can help you, then you are in for a pleasant surprise. Though appointment scheduling software has plenty of features, the most basic one is that it aids you in setting appointments and organizing your calendar. The procedure is very simple. The software will show the customers your free days, then allows them to schedule an appointment with you, and sends you a notification regarding the same. It even sends reminders about the appointment date and time. You will also be pleased to know that apart from this, the software can even send out branded company information, sync your calendar and create custom templates. Some of the additional features which you can generally find in most of the appointment scheduling software include accepting payments through third-party apps, video conferencing, and so on. All in all, this software can help you stay organized.
Why should you consider using Appointment Scheduling Software?
If you are someone who owns a small business or are a freelance consultant and need to keep track of multiple appointments, then investing in purchasing an appointment scheduling software can prove to be rewarding for you. For starters, some of the advantages of this amazing software are that it will increase your productivity, efficiency as well as accuracy. It not only helps you prioritize and manage your time well but also automates many tasks thereby reducing your workload. This software will also constantly monitor employee and team appointments for you. The best part is that apart from monitoring, the appointment scheduling software will even send appointment reminders to prevent you from missing some important meeting.
Now that we are done knowing the basic information regarding an appointment scheduling software, let us move on to the next stage. It is now time for us to know some of the best appointment scheduling software that are trending these days for their amazing performance. Continue reading!
Acuity Scheduling
Founded long back in 2006, this online appointment scheduling software has grown five-time its original size over the years. This is cloud-based software and is also available in the form of apps for iPhone, Android, and iPad users. The fact that makes Acuity Scheduling a good choice is that it is easy to use, set up, and navigate. In fact, it is also capable to serve as a personal assistant for your business.
Features: This appointment scheduling software comes with a wide range of features. However, the feature which makes this software unique is that it can offer memberships, packages, and gift cards. Some other best ones include organizing client information, sending customized branded appointment reminders to customers, organizing your schedule, sync and share your calendar, etc. This software can also accept online payments from Square, Stripe, and PayPal.
Pros: If you are not so sure whether Acuity Scheduling is the right software for you, then there is nothing to worry about. They offer customers a 7-day free trial with no credit card required. It is even easy to customize according to your preferences. The software sends branded booking confirmations to clients, reducing your workload and enhancing your reputation. There is also an online and over-the-phone customer support service.
Cons: Though the services are great but when it comes to calendar view formatting, this feature can be improved. In some cases, customers have reported that they received occasional error messages which can be because of technical glitches.
Square Appointments
Founded in 2009, it was finally in the year 2010 that Square launched its first app. Though it was originally a small, white card reader that combined mobile payments and merchant services into one easy-to-use service, today it has turned into a public traded company offering services like appointment scheduling software, POS, sales tracking, and a lot more. Square Appointments is a beloved part of the Square family. This software helps small businesses, freelance consultants, and individuals to keep a track of appointments.
Features: Square Appointments can be considered as a pretty straightforward appointment scheduling software. It has a simple design which makes it easy to navigate and use. Its features will help you to reduce inbound calls. The best part is that this software will even cut the time it would have otherwise taken you to schedule appointments manually. It even offers Instagram in-app booking, automated text and email reminders, integrated payments for invoices, and your own weblink so that clients can self-book. You can even track customer sales and appointments with Square Appointments.
Pros: Square Appointments is free to use for individuals like freelancers and sole proprietors. You can easily add it to any of your Square productions. Both, the software as well as the app are easy to use. It even includes SMS texting and auto-responding which proves to be very handy and effective. This software can even book recurring appointments.
Cons: As the number of users increases, the cost gets higher too. Moreover, there is no detail about upfront pricing for businesses with over 10 employees. It is comparatively less suitable for industries that have longer sales cycles.
Calendly
This is one of the best appointment scheduling software that is simple, easy to use, and powerful. It is designed in a way that helps its users to improve service quality, speed up sales and also save time. Rather than using the old ways of using email or phone tags to schedule appointments, Calendly allows potential customers to instantly log in. Users can even configure their features so as to allow more and more guests to plan in the same space, which works extremely well in the case of webinars, workshops, guided tours, and so on.
Features: With the help of Calendly, you can even integrate your calendar into Google, Outlook, and Office 365 so that you can view all calendars to avoid any double conflicts while booking. Any new calendars are added automatically. Since it has an easy-to-use, simple, and modern user interface, you can expect to enjoy an uninterrupted and seamless process. With this appointment scheduling software, you can even send automatic reminders as well as personalized confirmation to guests.
Pros: Calendly is fully optimized to work on various devices such as desktops, tablets, and phones which ensures that the guests do not face any compatibility issues. This software even helps prevent any nighttime meetings, set up adequate buffer times between consequent appointments, and provides increased privacy as well as control. Calendly even provides time zone detection, so that there are no mishaps in appointment times. It can even sync multiple calendar programs.
Cons: Calendly has pricing per user. So, in the case of larger teams or businesses, it can get expensive.
Doodle
If you are someone who is feeling harried and disorganized while sifting through hundreds of email messages and appointment schedules on a daily basis, then Doodle is just what you need. This appointment scheduling software not only offers you an easy way to book appointments and meetings but also aids you in organizing, communicating, and tracking changes, all in place. The best part which makes Doodle all the more attractive is that it can also help its users to keep their appointments confidential for them and all attendees.
Features: No matter whether you are a small business or a freelance consultant but if your job requires you to schedule appointments and organize meetings regularly, then Doodle can greatly help you. Some of the best features of Doodle include a bookable calendar, custom logo and branding, personalized scheduling URL, zoom integration, one-on-one meetings, and meeting time polls. Doodle can even sync meetings to calendars, store email, phone, and address of all attendees, and even give deadline reminders.
Pros: Doodle works as a great appointment scheduling software for meeting hosts who need to simplify the process of managing and organizing multiple scheduling conflicts. The software provides robust security too. You will be pleased to know that Doodle integrates well with existing tools and plug-ins, including Zoom. Another pro of this software is that it offers a free basic plan as well as a free trial.
Cons: While Doodle has a series of great features, but over time, it has proven to not be suitable for the service-based industry. Also, there have been a few minor UI complaints regarding the software.
10to8
This appointment scheduling software is known to be best for fast–paced businesses that need to coordinate with a team and schedule appointments. Moreover, with its generous free plan and four additional pricing tiers, this software delivers all that you would need in basic scheduling without paying anything extra. You will also be pleased to know that 10to8 can be used by anyone and everyone, even if they have no prior experience or training. You can access this appointment scheduling software from any device at any time, absolutely hassle-free.
Features: 10to8 has a user-friendly interface and many great features, because of which it works quite well for a variety of businesses. It can do everything from booking appointments, syncing calendars, coordinate with your staff to seamlessly accept online payments through PayPal and Stripe, professional services at a small business helping your teams to organize a meeting, and a lot more. It provides automated SMS and email reminders with read receipts, voice reminders, confirmation emails, and custom reports too.
Pros: This appointment scheduling software helps you book, track activity, and collect payments all in one place. It can even be integrated with over 500 other apps including Facebook, WordPress, Zoom, and more. 10to8 also boasts of providing automated satisfaction surveys, customizable questionnaires, and a client review badge for your website. SMS reminders are included with every tier.
Cons: There is no limit on the reminder texts. Another flaw of this software is that it has no automated workflows. Also, customer support is only available online with most of the plans.
Conclusion
Scheduling, organizing, tracking, and optimizing appointments as well as meetings are significant for any business. No matter how simple they appear, in reality, doing all this is tough as manual maintenance requires time, labor, and even money. Taking the help of technology via the appointment scheduling software can reduce this workload greatly. All of the above-give recommendations are amazing and each of them has its own unique features as well as valid pros and cons. You have to choose the one which suits your business and goals the best. Work hard, work smart and choose the best appointment scheduling software right here!
