Managing multiple appointments and activities is difficult. If you are facing this issue, then you are not alone.

When your business starts to expand, managing appointments on a spreadsheet is not a feasible options, It is time-consuming, and there are high chances of errors.

Before your customers feel that their queries are not being heard or you don’t offer good customer service, it is time to digitize the appointment scheduling process.

You need a calendar that allows your customers to choose to book the appointment and, at the same time, help your resources manage their own schedule.

This blog is all about how Dynamics 365 CRM users can book appointments with a scheduling software and other important features.

CRM Integration

It is obvious that you will be storing all the client’s information in the CRM. So any scheduling software that you use must enable a CRM integration. 

There are some software that offer CRM integrations via third-party extensions. However, you have to pay extra for that, and the customization options get limited.

The best solution to this problem is a Dynamics 365 Calendar plugin. The Dynamics plugin directly integrates with the CRM, eliminating the usage of the third-party extension.

The Dynamics plugin opens the door to customization. You can ask users for any custom details in the form according to your CRM entities. 

Online Appointment Scheduling

Earlier customers used to call/email and ask for the time available for an appointment. Why waste your or your customer’s time scheduling an appointment when it can be easily done online? 

But with an appointment scheduling platform, you only need to share a booking link. Let’s go step by step to understand how the scheduling platform works. 

For instance, you are a business owner with 5 staff members indulged in 5 activities. Now, you can set the booking link for all 5 of them and fully customize it.

The first staff member, named Harry, only takes introduction calls which would last upto 15 minutes. Harry works from Monday to Friday and is available from 9 am to 5 pm. The tool lets you add all these details, buffer time between appointments, and much more.

The other staff member Bella does demo calls which usually last for 30 minutes. Bella is available Monday to Friday from 11 am to 3 pm. You can set all these details, and a booking link will be generated.

Similarly, you can set availability for all your staff members and share the booking link on your website, in emails, and on social media platforms.

On the booking link page, customers can see all the types of events, i.e., Introduction calls, Demo calls, etc. The duration of the appointment will also be available, along with the designation and name of the staff members.

The customers have to first select the purpose of the meeting, which is the type of event. After selecting the type of event, based on the duration of the call, they can see the available time slots. Customers can choose from the available time slots. 

After they confirm the booking, both parties get an email with all the details. Thus, once you set the availability of your resources, all the bookings will happen automatically. 

This feature is not just for customers. Enterprises can use it internally as well. The employees can use the booking link to schedule meetings with top management. The employees can see when the managers are available so that it is easier to schedule the meeting. 

Recurring and Collison Free Appointments

Some meetings happen daily, like daily standups with different teams to understand who is working on what.

Sending a calendar invite daily is not an ideal way of working. You need a feature that allows recurring appointments.

An ideal appointment scheduling tool must have a feature that allows recurring appointments. 

The other most important factor is a collision-free appointment, You don’t want to schedule a meeting when your invitees are already occupied in the meeting. 

The calendar should notify you when you double-book the invitee. The warning message will prevent you from scheduling an appointment when the invitee is already occupied.

Cancelation and Rescheduling

Appointment cancellation and rescheduling are very common. There can be N reasons for this, but in the end, what is affected is your employee’s valuable time.

When you give customers a chance to reschedule the meeting, you will priorly know the changes in the timings rather than waiting during the meeting time for customers to join.

If the customer reschedules the meeting, the initial meeting time will be unlocked for other customers to select. Thus, employees’ time will be utilized at its fullest.

The tool also allows you to set the time frame for customers to cancel or reschedule appointments.

Reminders

Half of the meetings would never happen if there were no reminders. Reminders are mandatory if you want everyone to attend the meeting on time.

The scheduling tools let you send the meeting reminder prior to the meeting time. You can decide when you want to send a reminder email.

Reminders emails are extremely beneficial in office meetings as well. It ensures all the meetings happen on time and everyone is present in the meeting.

Availability Management

An ideal tool lets you visualize all the ongoing tasks and resources associated with them. If you know whether a resource is available for the day, you can assign them some new task.

Having visibility of your team’s schedule can make a huge difference while assigning tasks, especially the high-priority task which needs immediate attention.

The calendar gives you full visibility of every activity that is going on. Thus, the work distribution will be fair, and employees don’t have to overwork and burnout.

Custom Calendar

Every business has its own way of working and requirements. If the filters in the calendar are static, they won’t be of any use.

But a calendar plugin integrates with the CRM which means you can choose the entities you want. You can also save calendar views with different filters on. 

Thus, you don’t have to choose the filters you use daily every time you open the calendar. Just save it, and you can use it later on.

Customization

If the view of the booking page or calendar looks way different than your website theme or brand color, it can impact your branding.

An ideal calendar must be fully customizable. It should let you configure it to match your brand theme.

So when you share the booking link with your customers, the booking page will look like it is part of your website. 

Conclusion

In today’s fast-paced society, slowing down and interacting with others may be helpful. Yet scheduling an appointment manually takes time and is tedious for both you and the people you meet.

The market offers a wide range of possibilities for choosing the ideal appointment scheduling solutions. You can select an application that supports team management, sales management, communication management, and other functions in addition to appointment management.

Nonetheless, it is always advisable to choose software that provides you with the features to manage your day effectively.