Simplify & Automate All of Your Meetings with Calendly

 

There are all kinds of appointments and group meetings that are required when you’re running a business, all of which can be made simpler with software that helps you to set them up. Like so many tools that we’ve discussed in this blog, Calendly is an online tool that will make your life a lot easier while saving you a ton of time in the process.

It basically provides a platform to create “events” through the Calendly site that automate the whole process for calls, consultations, interviews, and any other kind of meeting. Once you start using the service, you’ll most likely never go back to conducting them the old-fashioned way.

 

Stop Setting Up Manual Meetings

 

What we mean by “manual meetings” are those that are arranged by a human being without the assistance of software. It basically amounts to communicating directly with all parties involved in a meeting to set the date and time, explain the purpose for the meeting, and make sure everybody is invited, notified, and confirmed for the meeting.

If you simply enjoy doing it that way and are against using technology, then you can continue to set up meetings the old-fashioned way, but using Calendly to set up and monitor meetings takes way less energy and is actually a lot more reliable. If you miss a meeting when you’re using a service like Calendly, it won’t be because someone forgot to tell you about it or because one party wasn’t notified.

Calendly does that automatically and doesn’t require that you speak to attendees outside of the program. These are the kinds of things you can eliminate with Calendly, freeing you up to use the time for more pressing tasks than making sure everybody gets to the meeting.

 

Get Introductory Questions Out of the Way

 

This is one of the landmark features of Calendly and a big time-saving advantage of using software to set meetings, as it can be time-consuming to do it on your own, directly with an invitee for a meeting or appointment.

When you have an appointment with someone, especially a new customer with whom you are meeting or speaking for the first time, it often starts with some basic, introductory questions that can take up quite a bit of time. Using Calendly, you can just include introductory questions on a fill-in form that the person with whom you’re meeting can complete before you meet with them.

This way, things like the invitee’s background information, reason for inquiry or appointment, special requests, etc. can be answered right away, automatically, without any need for you to ask them about those things directly. Then, you can even review all of their responses to those questions before you meet with someone.

 

Create Events for All Purposes

 

There’s no reason that you can only use this service for business purposes, either. You can make the events either nondescript without any special parameters, if needed, or you can create specifically designed appointments for any reason.

No matter what is the purpose of the meeting or call, using Calendly will simplify it. Once you start using the service for your business, you might find that it would be useful for other types of meetings, too, such as gatherings for friends and family, or even get-togethers like dinner dates or group outings and trips that you’re planning.

One of the great tools you’ll find with Calendly, also, is the ability to label everything appropriately, so that all parties know exactly what the purpose of the meeting is and what they need to bring to the meeting.

Think about how many times, when going on a trip or to an event, when someone got the wrong time or didn’t know that they needed to bring something. It’s a small issue, but one you can resolve with Calendly, nonetheless.

 

Everyone is Automatically Notified

 

It’s obviously essential that everyone knows when and where a meeting is happening, which is why you need a reliable system to confirm that with people. All parties involved in a meeting or appointment that you create in Calendly will get notifications about the confirmed date and time when it’s happening, what its purpose is, and any other information that you provide for invitees when you create the event.

It leaves virtually no room for an error that would cause someone to get the wrong information, or to miss the information. Whomever is organizing the meeting will never have to personally contact those involved because the software automates that.

The automation also makes sure that invitees confirm they will be in attendance, so as long as you have the correct contact details for each person, it pretty much guarantees that everyone will be there.

 

Easily Set Available Times & Blackout Dates

 

When you use this service, you are most likely using it to provide customers with the ability to create their own appointments. How that works is that you place a link somewhere on your business website (wherever they are going to see it), and when they click on the link, it will bring the customer to your Calendly event page for whatever event applies to their need.

For example, if the purpose is to complete initial account setup with your company, the link can bring them to the event page for a consultation meeting where the customer can quickly and easily select the date and time when they would like to schedule the meeting for a consult.

So, when you actually create the event page for this consult beforehand, you’ll be able to set all of the available dates and times when they can schedule an appointment. For any dates when you don’t want customers to be able to schedule an appointment, you can just black them out and avoid any issues with missed appointments or rescheduling.

Calendly is an incredibly useful tool for businesses, a tool which many businesses aren’t even aware that it exists. When you don’t know there is an improved way to do something that’s necessary for your business to function, that’s when you end up needlessly wasting time and energy that you could be using for other things.

As a business owner, time may be your most precious commodity. That’s why we’re providing this article because you can make setting up and conducting any appointment far easier and more efficient by using Calendly.