5 Scheduling Appointments Tips That Will Help You Save Time

If you’ve ever struggled to schedule appointments around your work or personal life, you know how frustrating it can be. Trying to find time for everything is a juggling act, and sometimes it feels like something has to give. But what if there was a way to make scheduling appointments easier and less stressful? Here are five scheduling appointments tips that will help you optimize your schedules.

Scheduling Appointments Tips

There are a few things to keep in mind when scheduling appointments. First, try to schedule appointments at a time when you know you will be available and not distracted.

Second, make sure to allow enough time for the appointment, especially if it is with a new client. Finally, be sure to confirm the appointment with the client ahead of time.

Here are 7 scheduling appointments tips that will help you:

1. Make it easy for your customers to book appointments

Let’s begin with the simplest of solutions: your own company’s website. Many companies spend most of their time focusing on their contact lists.

They pour money into their inbound strategy, which is intended to warm up their leads into customers. They spend hours on role-plays with SDRs.

Even though it’s common for salespeople to make 18 attempts to reach a prospect, they make it difficult for interested customers to schedule an appointment.

These folks have essentially done the work for you, so it’s up to you to make it as easy as possible for them to do so.

Have an appointment booking button on your website so that customers can book appointments without ever having to leave your site. Use pop-ups on key pages (like your pricing page) to prompt visitors to book an appointment. Ensure that you employ effective lead capture forms, including QR code sign-ups, to make it convenient for visitors to easily sign up for appointment reminders or notifications when you have openings in your schedule.

2. Make more phone calls and improve your calling skills

The more phone calls you place, the more sales you’ll make. It’s a simple equation.

But only if your phone calls are exceptionally good. How do you make sure you’re giving your prospects a reason to answer your call?

Beware of using scripts too much. While they can keep you on track, they can come off as boring and disinterested.

Before you pick up the phone, do some background research on the person you’re about to call. Do a Google search on them to see what kind of news or articles they’ve written, or look them up on LinkedIn to see if you have any mutual connections. This can help you better understand who they are and what they’re interested in.

This will make your phone call more personable and appealing to your prospect.

Now that you’re on the phone call, chat with them like you would an old friend and see if you can get them to agree to an appointment. Make sure to not end the call until the meeting is booked.

When booking follow-up meetings with your prospect, always schedule them during the phone call itself. This will reduce any delays between sessions and ensure that you and the prospect can meet face to face.

3: Focus on the appointment, not the sale

One of the biggest mistakes that SDRs can make is to forget what it is that they’re actually selling.

They become too focused on selling their solution to potential customers that they forget to be polite.

Think of your call as a trailer for a movie. You introduce the characters and set the scene, then throw in some tension and some jokes.

Just enough info to get people excited about your event and interested in attending.

Ways of doing this are:

• Do your due diligence about the company and the individual.
• Be as targeted and personalized as you can. 
• Be brief and get to the meat of the conversation quickly. If the conversation is dull, how unexciting is the product? This also shows that you respect their valuable time and value them taking a few minutes out of their day to speak with you.
• Be clear about the problems you can help them solve.
• Be direct about the next step. Ask them to take the next step.

4. Save time by using meeting scheduling software

We admit that this should have been our top priority from the start. We apologize for not being more up front about this in the beginning, but, as with Dory’s help in finding Nemo, we wanted to be humble.

We’ve all been there. You’re in a store and you finally find the item you’ve been looking for, but just as you’re about to buy it, you notice that the checkout line is incredibly long.

Find a sales appointment scheduling tool that integrates with your reps’ calendars.

The booking page lets sales pros share their availability and set rules for meetings. They can specify things like their working hours, how long a meeting can last, the minimum amount of time they have to give before meeting with a prospect, and how much time they have between appointments.

Having scheduling software that customers can easily use to book their own appointment not only makes the process easier for them but also reduces the amount of time and effort that marketing and sales reps have to spend making those bookings. This allows them to focus on more important tasks, like generating more revenue for the company.

5: Follow up with your prospects to avoid no-shows

It can be frustrating when 15 to 35% of appointments don’t actually take place.

Software like Calendly or ScheduleOnce can help cut down on the number of no-shows.

When you allow customers to schedule their own appointment, they are less likely to cancel at the last minute. At Doodle, we send out invites with a link to easily change an appointment, which cuts down on the number of missed or late-canceled meetings.

Shortening your appointment times can increase your compliance with appointments, as you’ll likely cancel an hour-long meeting during a busy workday, but won’t necessarily skip a 20-minute session.

This is something that our company has looked into and we have found that 30 minutes is usually the preferred meeting duration.

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The most important thing is that SDRs do not think that their job is over once the sales meetings are booked. Instead, find ways to stay in touch with potential customers leading up to their appointments.

One tip for preventing no-shows is to send your prospects useful, relevant content in the weeks leading up to your meetings. Also, confirm with them the agenda and time, and make sure they can still make it. If they can’t, offer to reschedule.

Some businesses have found that texting or messaging clients is more effective at reminding them of meetings than emailing them.

Conclusion

By following these five scheduling appointments tips, you can start scheduling appointments the smart way and free up time for the things that matter most to you. So why wait? Start optimizing your schedule today!

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