Online Appointment Scheduling Software
Hi! I was just posting on the My Nams Forum about a new tool that I found and I thought I'd share it over here, too. 🙂
Here's what I wrote…
If you took my www.OutsourceWeekly.com course, you know that I much prefer automation to delegation. Why pay a person to do a task that can be done by a computer, right?
Well, one of the things on my “I really dislike doing this and I dislike outsourcing it too” list is scheduling appointments to talk with…
1. my coaching clients (I, however, LOVE talking to my coaching clients once the appt is made),
2. setting time to meet weekly with my staff members, and
3. connecting with people for interviews (in fact, a lot of them get dropped because of the scheduling factor).
What I've been looking for is a program that will do that for me, easily.
Here's what I found. www.Tungle.com. Well, actually Tishia Lee suggested it to me. (Thanks Tish!)
So far, so good. Before I totally dive in with it, though, I wanted to see if anyone has found a better solution?
Well, the feedback so far has been that Tungle rocks. Paul Evans also uses it, which is endorsement enough for me. Plus, it's free. 🙂
Here's a video that I found to show you more – or just head on over to Tungle.com to check it out.
I hope it helps!
Warmly,
Nicole
Loretta
November 1, 2011 at 2:38 pmI was using Tungle for awhile in my transcription business, but I ended up going back to just managing things by email. I can see how it would work in other business approaches though, it’s definitely a handy tool!
And you just reminded me to go visit my NAMS friends in the forum… haven’t done that in awhile.
Michelle Macphearson
November 2, 2011 at 12:30 amI’ve been using Tungle for quite a while – VERY handy for dealing with busy folks in different time zones. I’m a big fan.
Tishia Lee
November 2, 2011 at 9:01 amYou’re welcome for the suggestion Nicole 🙂 Now, maybe I should take my own advice and put it to use in my own business 😉
Lynn Brown
November 2, 2011 at 10:41 amThanks Nicole for sharing this appointment scheduler. I am currently using Clickbook.com but I think I will look into Tungle as I like the feature that my clients don’t have to have an account with Tungle to schedule with me. This could actually help me to book more appointments!
Lynn Brown
November 2, 2011 at 10:43 amP.S. Thank you also goes out to Tishia Lee for suggesting this to Nicole. Networking is a wonderful thing!!
Glennette
November 2, 2011 at 12:44 pmMy prospects and clients haven’t embraced it yet but you can see my schedule at http://www.tungle.me/premiumweb/. Definitely a great resource!
Glennette Goodbread, Owner
Premium Web Design and Hosting
Jeanie
November 3, 2011 at 3:09 amI also used Tungle for some time, and I can definitely say that it’s very useful. Thanks a lot for sharing this post
Mary Deshong-Kinkelaar
November 3, 2011 at 3:19 pmGreat post, Nicole.
Over the last year, I think I test drove almost every online scheduler available. Many are quite pricey for what you get and some have features I would never use or are too complicated to set up.
In the end, my top recommendation for a paid services is http://www.timetrade.com and for free services I like both Tungle and http://www.YouCanBook.me – I ended up going with the free version of YouCanBook.me as it fits my business model nicely, it lets the focus be on my business brand, not just me so it works great with staff Google calendars and it allows me to add different services/staff members.
I’m always interested in finding out what productivity tools are helping small business owners, so thanks for the post!
Nicole Dean
November 9, 2011 at 10:48 amThanks for the recommendation, Mary. YouCanBook.me looks really cool, too.
Appreciate all of the comments!
N
Steven
November 23, 2011 at 11:03 pmA friend of mine works for SnapAppointments, and they also offer an online scheduling solution. The basic service is free and does pretty much everything you’d need. You get a listing page/etc or you can embed the booking module into your website. The website is http://www.snapappointments.com/en/ – worth checking out if you’re looking for online scheduling and unlike the others that just offer a free trial, this is actually free. I will say I’ve never used it myself – only know one of the founders and he’s a sharp guy.
Ashley
December 8, 2011 at 12:39 amI tried out the SnapAppointments scheduling software and it’s amazing what you get for free – almost too good to be true. My only complaint is that they don’t have an option for recurring appointments – only recurring EVENTS (which can’t be associated with a customer.) Definitely not a deal-breaker…but it would be nice not to have to go ahead on the calendar and manually add in appointments for people that book the same time every month (or in some cases even every week.) The work-around is that I add a recurring “time block” so that the timeslots are still blocked out (meaning nobody else can book an appointment during those times) and then manually add in the appointments (associated with the client/etc) later. Other than that I think they’ve literally thought of everything. I’m going to try their free trial for the “voice reminders” in addition to text/email reminders since some of my customers are elderly and do not have cell phones (and rarely check their email.)
I second checking out http://www.snapappointments.com if you are looking for an online appointment booking solution – it probably does everything you need and other than the automatic phone call appointment reminders, the free version does everything I want. I was told by Tungle that they fixed many of the issues I complained about so if I ever run into any serious issues with SnapAppointments I will give Tungle another chance.
Thanks Nicole and Steven!