Essential features of an appointment scheduling software

Appointment scheduling software is the best way to schedule appointments with your customers hassle-free. It sends out automatic notifications and reminders, while you focus on the important aspects of your business.

Now that there's a faster scheduling solution than the traditional pen-and-paper technique, what are the key features that an appointment scheduling tool should have before you purchase it?

Below, we'll walk you through what to look for in a scheduling software.

A compelling booking page

Scheduling software should provide an individual booking page where your customers can schedule an appointment with you or your team members based on availability. It would be a bonus if the software allows you to customize colors/text/images of the booking page. This lets you match the scheduling page to the rest of your brand presence.

Design a good booking page on Zoho Bookings.

Customize and personalize your booking page with Zoho Bookings

Two-way calendar sync

Once an appointment is fixed, the online scheduling software should let you sync your calendar to it. Syncing your calendar allows the appointment scheduler to check for other appointments and eliminates double bookings for you and your staff.

Sync your appointments to your calendar and never miss an appointment with Zoho Bookings

Automatic notifications and reminders

Once the customer books an appointment, the scheduling software should automatically send out an email confirmation to the customer. Ideally, it will also send reminders via SMS/email. This feature saves time for businesses and reduces no-shows.

Reduce no-shows with Zoho Bookings

Zoho Bookings sends automatic email notifications and reminders that can be customized

Work hours setting

Before scheduling software existed, customers had to call/email a business to confirm availability and make an appointment. Now, appointment scheduling software lets you set your available working hours and block days off you won't be available. The scheduling software then only shows the available appointments on your booking page.

Zoho Bookings lets you customize your working hours to let customers know when you're available

Cancelling and rescheduling

A flexible scheduling app allows customers or team members to cancel or reschedule an appointment. Canceling or rescheduling appointments should be as easy as creating the appointment in the first place, and the booking software should handle it effortlessly.

Canceling or rescheduling appointments with customers is easily done by Zoho Bookings

Different services for booking

No business is the same. Every company or individual provides different services. Appointment scheduling software should let you list out the various services you offer, so customers can book one specific service from the booking page.

List out your different services for customers to book with you on Zoho Bookings

Team scheduling

Appointment schedulers should automatically assign appointments to team members based on availability and equal opportunities. It should free your time and energy from manually assigning customer appointments to your team members.

Try Zoho Bookings today to automate your scheduling.

Schedule meetings to your team members effortlessly on Zoho Bookings

Time zones

Using Google's help to convert time zones from your time to a customer's (or vice versa) is no longer necessary. Automated time zones and daylight saving conversions are a natural feature of good appointment scheduling software.

Online meetings

A good majority of businesses do not require physical presence for a service or meetings to be completed. They can be done online via a voice/video call. A robust online scheduling software should integrate with apps like Zoho Meetings, Google Meet, Zoom, etc., and automatically send the meeting URL to the customer after booking.

Meet with your customers online via google meet or zoom with Zoho Bookings

Integrations with other software

Many appointment schedulers offer their users the option to connect to various other apps to make their work more efficient—Zapier, Zoho Flow, Zoho CRM, Mailchimp, Office 365, etc. This way, a single customer booking will trigger various automated tasks that would otherwise require manual effort to be completed.

Learn More

CRM Zoho CRM
mail chimp Mailchimp
zoho flow Zoho Flow
office 365 Office 365
Zoho Calendar Zoho Calendar
Zoho Meeting Zoho Meeting
Zapier Zapier
zoho assist Zoho Assist

Payment options

Gone are the days where you send bank account details before or after an appointment to collect payment. Appointment scheduling software should make it easy to collect partial or full payment when the customer books an appointment. Paypal and Stripe are both popular payment gateways that scheduling software should integrate with.

Start collecting payments online with Zoho Bookings.

Collect payment online with Zoho Bookings using apps like PayPal or Stripe etc

Mobile friendly interface

A large amount of your customers will be accessing your bookings page through their smartphones. Not all customers will be booking the appointments from their desktop/laptops. A versatile appointment scheduling software offers a mobile-friendly interface, so that customers can book appointments with ease.

Zoho Bookings mobile app lets you to keep tab on your appointments on the go

User experience

Out of all the essential features, a high-quality user interface and user experience is essential to online scheduling software, because it determines how easily you or your customers can navigate through the software. Using appointment scheduling software should be a breeze.

Zoho Bookings has a easy and friendly UI to help customers with ease of booking appointments

Here's a complete glossary of all the appointment scheduling app features

Psst! Would you like to get all these features and more?

Start a 15 day free trial with Zoho Bookings today:

Try Zoho Bookings Today