Appointment Booking Software For Contractors
One thing I don’t talk enough about is how I’m able to implement strategies and processes that help customers go through the lead process to get to my clients’ front door.
As customers, most of us don’t have a lot of time to call or go back and forth via email to schedule a service. I’ve researched a couple of appointment-setting applications that a customer can use to book an appointment with you without having to pick up the phone or sending several emails. With these apps, a customer can go to your web page, your Facebook page, or wherever they find you, and book service with you right there!
This not only saves time for your customer, but it saves your time too. The time you’re not spending on the phone frees you up to do the things you do best, and it frees up your admins or whoever handles your appointment-setting process so that they can work on other things.
These days we want to do everything with our phone, except make phone calls! Think about it from your customer’s point of view. Do they want to spend time on the phone, pulling out their calendar, trying to figure out a good date and time while talking to you? Or do they just want to go to your website, pick the day and time they know is good, and be done?
Here are my favorite scheduling apps:
1. Setmore
This app allows you to have a booking page right on your website, or you can text the appointment app to your customer. Either way, the customer can pick the date, time and service, and any other criteria that you set. Then Setmore will sync with your Google calendar, or your iCal, whatever calendar you use. You can have it sync with your calendar and/or one of your techs’. That way the app knows when you have other appointments and blocks those out so that the customer can’t schedule you in a time that’s already committed to something else. All the customer sees are the days and times you have available, and they choose from that.
Once the customer books the service, they get an email confirming the appointment. The customer also gets a calendar invite so that they can get it onto their own calendar and get reminders. Your tech or whoever manages the service will also get a reminder email for that calendar appointment. Plus, you (or your customer) can reschedule the appointment through the app, and everyone will get the updated information.
Setmore has an app for iPhones and Samsung phones. However, it does not sync with QuickBooks. I know that many businesses use QuickBooks, so that’s something to keep in mind. It will, however, sync with your email campaigns through Mail Chimp, if you use that.
2. Acuity Scheduling
This is the tool that I use. I like this app because not only does it sync with my email campaigns through Mail Chimp, but it also does sync with QuickBooks. Acuity Scheduling does not have a phone app, but it does have a very mobile-responsive website. This means that when you look at the Acuity Scheduling tool on your phone, it looks and feels like a phone app.
It has the same features as Setmore in that you can set up your whole schedule and sync your calendars, and not allow customers to schedule service over times you already have blocked off. It only shows customers available dates and times.
I had one of my clients use this for the last few weeks, and he’s booking appointments nonstop! I put myself as a CC on his confirmation emails so I can see the lead flow, and his business is just blowing up! I love it! And the beauty of it is, all he has to do is wake up, look at his calendar, and see what he has on the schedule for the day. In the meanwhile, he’s saved himself valuable time by not having to be on the phone booking these appointments, and he’s saved his customers time making phone calls that they don’t want to make.
If you’re interested in these apps and need any help to implement these strategies to get lean and efficient with your business and cater to how today’s customer wants to do business, please give me a call or click “get a quote.” We can definitely set up a meeting to see how we can help you out!