How much time do you spend per week emailing or texting back and forth to schedule something with your clients? Whether it’s a consultation, design meeting, preview meeting, or simply a coffee date catch-up, there are tools available to automate scheduling things within your workflows! I’m so excited to share more about when and how to use auto-schedulers to streamline your business & client experience!

Imagine setting your availability, knowing when you’re taking certain types of calls or meetings (help block scheduling!), and letting your clients do the rest. We’ve had some scheduling tools available for years, but so few creatives I work with have used them. Furthermore, most CRM’s these days have a built-in scheduler available (like HoneyBook and Dubsado). If you don’t have a CRM, I still highly recommend setting some up in a service like Acuity or Calendly to include those hyperlinks in your templates. 

WHAT ARE AUTO-SCHEDULERS?

Auto-schedulers are tools that allow you to create meeting types, assign your availability and other settings to them, then share a link to allow others to choose the time that works best for them. Talk about streamlined! 

Not only can you have people schedule within your pre-determined availability, you can automate so many things beyond that for each appointment. You can set them up to send confirmations, create your conferencing link (Zoom, G-Chat, etc), send reminders, and so much more!

WHEN TO USE AUTO-SCHEDULERS

There are so many opportunities to use auto-schedulers in your workflows and business. It truly depends on how your workflows are set up and your business needs. To give you an idea, here are some of the ways we have worked auto-schedulers into workflows in the past:

• Schedule consultations (easy and quick)
• Schedule various meetings at appropriate times in your workflow and have the email/scheduler auto-trigger – saving you time!
• For mini-sessions! You can set them up to allow your clients to choose their mini-session slot AND book if set up properly with a workflow!!
• Pretty much any type of session or meeting (in person or virtual) can be scheduled via an auto-scheduler link!

BENEFITS OF USING AUTO-SCHEDULERS

I feel like these should go without saying, but wowza,  y’all! These features alone save you SO much time! Auto-schedulers benefit everyone who uses them. Not only does it take the manual back and forth off your plate, but elevates your client experience, too. At their convenience, your clients are in the driver’s seat and can quickly schedule when they’re ready! No more back and forth emails – win-win!!

On a personal note, having things block scheduled and preset for your availability helps you (hi, fellow workaholics) honor and stick to the boundaries you’ve set for yourself. 

Do you use auto-schedulers in your business? Did you know they exist? If you use them, what are your favorite things about it? Anything you love them for that I’ve left out? People get so creative with how to incorporate them, I’m always looking for new ideas! 

Xoxo,

 

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