Hoi, founder of Hoi Tattoo, said in a recent Facebook Live with us, that she was spending so much time answering client emails at one point that it was beginning to take a toll on her life. She turned to outsourcing that with a virtual assistant and it made all the difference.
As your business starts to grow, you will start seeing that booking appointments from clients takes a lot of time out of your day. Not only is it time consuming, but it can get very messy. Maybe you heard “12” instead of “2,” and you end up double booking yourself, or maybe you’ve gotten three calls from the same client who keeps rescheduling.
Save yourself the massive headache that is to deal with booking client appointments and turn to technology instead. There are several, very good and very affordable solutions now available for client appointments. These schedulers allow your clients to book their own appointments. Just think how much time this will save you!
In this post we will go over 3 of the most popular ones in our industry.
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1. Square Appointments
Many people in our industry use Square to take payments with their handy dandy reader that you can plug into any phone or tablet.
But what many people don’t know is that Square isn’t just the reader. The two sides to their business include the hardware and the software. Square Appointments is part of the several software options available to help you grow and run your business.
I’ll let Square tell you a bit more about how their appointment scheduler works:
Square Appointments allows you to easily allow your clients to schedule their own appointments.
One of the things I love about it for my audience is that it gives you a dedicated booking site. So, if you don’t have a website of your own yet, you could just personalize the booking site they give you and make do with that.
Also, you can ask your clients to pay a booking fee, which will massively reduce No-Shows, and you can enforce a cancellation fee as well. You can also send them automatic reminders of their upcoming appointment as a text message or an email.
Square also integrates with other calendars. If you have an Android phone, for example, you’re like using Google calendar. I have a widget on my main screen that shows my upcoming appointments so I don’t forget them. You can do the same with Square by integrating it with Google calendar, or the calendar of your choice.
Square Appointments starts at just $30/month (compare to Mindbody at $45/month) and goes up depending on how many staff members you have.
You can try it free for 30 days by clicking here.
We love:
- Allows you to take a booking and a cancellation fee
- Gives you a beautiful booking site (perfect if you don’t yet have a website)
- In depth business reporting
- Free 30-day trial
- Separate staff logins
2. Acuity Scheduling
I use Acuity Scheduling to book my consulting appointments and I LOVE it. Many of you are also using Acuity Scheduling for your booking.
Just like with Square, you can allow your clients to book their own appointments. If you have your own website, you can embed the scheduler to a page and have your clients book from within your page.
If you don’t yet have a website, no problem. Acuity won’t give you such a nice looking site as Square, but it will give you a personalized link with your booking. You can add your logo and put it as your Instagram Bio Link.
I pay $10/month for Acuity’s Emerging Entrepreneur plan, which is their lower tier plan.
They have a free option, which you could always use, but it will have limited features.
That’s why I upgraded to the $10/month plan. I like that I can send my clients an email reminding them of their upcoming appointments and have them answer some questions when they first book with me.
I love that I can integrate it with my Google Calendar, as I can more easily see on my phone if I have an appointment that day.
Their interface is so easy to use and they make sure that all of their messages are quirky and fun. I love it when companies show a colorful personality.
We love:
- Easy embedding on your own website
- No website, no problem. You get a personalized link with option to add your logo.
- Integration with Google Calendar
- Great customer service.
- Ability to take payments, for example booking fees
- Reminder emails to clients
- Just $10/month to start
- 14-day free trial
3. Timely
Timely is another option for booking your appointments.
It’s also not expensive at all. Plans start at just $15/month and go up depending on your needs.
I love how they use colors to display your appointments.
Timely also lets you do all of the basics of a scheduler, but the best thing is that it allows you to add it to your Facebook page and let clients book directly from there. How cool is that?
We love:
- Starts at just $15/month
- 30-day free trial
- Sell gift vouchers
- Free mini website
- Facebook Page integration
- Email marketing integration
- Bulk text messages option
OK, that’s it, guys. These are the 3 schedulers we recommend. They are very popular already with many of you, and very highly recommended.
What scheduler do you guys use? Are you still taking appointments by hand? Let us know in the comments.
Until next time.