Online scheduling

[Dragonflies]

Thanks, my biggest need was accepting online payments and only two services that I found offered that. Now, I've realized that accepting online payments isn't really a big "need" in my practice at this time. So...really just want the basics which, in my opinion, all services look about the same except for aesthetics and pricing. So, I'm not really looking for anything specific, just wanted to give an update on my experience with MBO.

FWIW, Appointment Plus lets you take online payments through PayPal and a couple of other online-based merchant service providers. The back-end can be confusing at times (so many options and sub options and options under that) but it has been consistently helpful as my business has evolved over the years.

[JLWmassage]

http://gbk.me/r/QWFK8VZS

If you use my referral link you get a 15% lifetime discount

[JLWmassage]

http://gbk.me/r/QWFK8VZS

If you use my referral link you get a 15% lifetime discount

This is for Genbook

[christa]

Hey guys,

Rezdy's online booking system has a FREE Setup and discount offer as they just came out of beta. Just use the coupon code "FIRST100" and you're in.

Online scheduling is just one of its many capabilities.

The first 100 users get this free setup and discount offer.. also there's a 14-day trial, it's a powerful tool. Check it out here: http://rezdy.com/sign-up-free/

[randomness0]

I'm in Australia and have been using a NZ company, Ezybook for my http://www.innerwestmassage.com.au website - business has been a little slow for various reasons but I'm happy using ezybook as it is not a one-size fits all type approach. The owners are flexible and accommodating of any particular reqested for changes and variations to tailor the output to a particular clients requirements.

[pueppi]

A question to all of you who have online scheduleing...

Are you still using the company you set up with initially (kathryn, I know you switched once... so, I'm asking about the one you switched to) and do any of you find that you end up with more people who book and then cancel, than you did when you booked sessions by phone?

My current concern with online booking is too many clients booking just to "hold" an appointment, and then cancelling, causes issues for others who are in real need of a session and were unable to book it because someone else held the appointment "just in case".

Also, do any of these programs allow for full payment if cancellation is not 24 hours in advance? And have any of you run into an issue with someone being charged the cancellation fee, who then tried to get credited by their credit card company.

Has anyone used online booking for just a few days of the week, while still taking phone calls for *all* working days. Maybe telling the clients "We have online booking available for the <weekends> or <weekdays> as a connvenience, othewise, please call for <weekly> or <weekend> appointments." (??) It seems confusing, but can any of you think of a way that could be worded to be user friendly?

Thanks for any replies.

[randomness0]

Hi,

Yes am still with the first company that I started with initially.

Have not run into the issue of people holding appointments although may not be entirely relevant for a mobile massage business compared with clinic though. Not in the US so probably your questions regarding full payment not applicable.

Richard

[JLWmassage]

A question to all of you who have online scheduleing...

Are you still using the company you set up with initially (kathryn, I know you switched once... so, I'm asking about the one you switched to) and do any of you find that you end up with more people who book and then cancel, than you did when you booked sessions by phone?

My current concern with online booking is too many clients booking just to "hold" an appointment, and then cancelling, causes issues for others who are in real need of a session and were unable to book it because someone else held the appointment "just in case".

Also, do any of these programs allow for full payment if cancellation is not 24 hours in advance? And have any of you run into an issue with someone being charged the cancellation fee, who then tried to get credited by their credit card company.

Has anyone used online booking for just a few days of the week, while still taking phone calls for *all* working days. Maybe telling the clients "We have online booking available for the <weekends> or <weekdays> as a connvenience, othewise, please call for <weekly> or <weekend> appointments." (??) It seems confusing, but can any of you think of a way that could be worded to be user friendly?

Thanks for any replies.

I am still with Genbook. I have been with them since 2008 times fly's !

The biggest service that they have that I love is there reviews. 24 hours after a clients appointment Genbook send them a form to fill out to submit a review. And These reviews get posted on my genbook page. I have to say these reviews gave really helped to grow my business

I use their calender for all appointments. And the office phone voice mail tells clients they can book online. You can set up genbook to only allow certain services to be shown online. I have it set up so people can cancel 24 hours before their appointment on their own, they just need to have the confirmation email. You can have it set up to take credit card info for new and or all clients who book online, but it doesn't run the card for you (I have never felt the need to do this no shows are really a none issue)

Because I am get busy fast and not everyone is ok with see one of my other MT's I block out a bunch of times for my clients who want and or need a last minute appointment. I have only shared this secret to a few clients

[pueppi]

A question to all of you who have online scheduleing...

Are you still using the company you set up with initially (kathryn, I know you switched once... so, I'm asking about the one you switched to) and do any of you find that you end up with more people who book and then cancel, than you did when you booked sessions by phone?

My current concern with online booking is too many clients booking just to "hold" an appointment, and then cancelling, causes issues for others who are in real need of a session and were unable to book it because someone else held the appointment "just in case".

Also, do any of these programs allow for full payment if cancellation is not 24 hours in advance? And have any of you run into an issue with someone being charged the cancellation fee, who then tried to get credited by their credit card company.

Has anyone used online booking for just a few days of the week, while still taking phone calls for *all* working days. Maybe telling the clients "We have online booking available for the <weekends> or <weekdays> as a connvenience, othewise, please call for <weekly> or <weekend> appointments." (??) It seems confusing, but can any of you think of a way that could be worded to be user friendly?

Thanks for any replies.

I am still with Genbook. I have been with them since 2008 times fly's !

The biggest service that they have that I love is there reviews. 24 hours after a clients appointment Genbook send them a form to fill out to submit a review. And These reviews get posted on my genbook page. I have to say these reviews gave really helped to grow my business

I use their calender for all appointments. And the office phone voice mail tells clients they can book online. You can set up genbook to only allow certain services to be shown online. I have it set up so people can cancel 24 hours before their appointment on their own, they just need to have the confirmation email. You can have it set up to take credit card info for new and or all clients who book online, but it doesn't run the card for you (I have never felt the need to do this no shows are really a none issue)

Because I am get busy fast and not everyone is ok with see one of my other MT's I block out a bunch of times for my clients who want and or need a last minute appointment. I have only shared this secret to a few clients

JLWmassage,

One other question. Since you've been with your on-line company for so long, you probably have a pretty good feel for the % of clients you have booking via phone, and those booking via on-line. Would you mind sharing a rough estimate?

[JLWmassage]

About 70% of my clients book online

[sez]

I adore FullSlate!
I've been using the service for a couple of months now and haven't had any issues. My clients love it, and I love it. I found it through ABMP, in which you get 40% off (usually $24 but it then $14/month w/ discount, I believe). It has a huge array of features and is very intuitive.
To give a little background, I work from three spaces:
1. As an employee at a Pilates studio in Seattle, in which they use mindbodyonline.com (which is decent, but does not make any sense for a sole proprietor or very small business)
2. Out of a co-op with other MT's where the rooms are shared, first come first served essentially. There we have appointment-plus.com (it's not that great in my opinion, especially compared to FullSlate)
3. I'm also out of another shared space, yet this one I rent a specific room. (I use FullSlate for this space mostly, although I do allow clients to book for both of my locations via this scheduler).

With FullSlate, I get text messages when a client books, and I can confirm or deny the appt from there. (there's a large assortment of features for you to play around with and customize-again, presented in a very intuitive way). They also offer a generous free trial (up to 100 appointments when booked from the back end and 10 appts when booked by clients).

Cheers,
Sarah Enera

[akashafive]

A question to all of you who have online scheduleing... Are you still using the company you set up with initially ... and do any of you find that you end up with more people who book and then cancel, than you did when you booked sessions by phone?

I've been with Acuity Scheduling since 2008 and I've yet to have anyone book online and then cancel. I've had someone who I booked online, use the link in the confirmation email to cancel the appointment, but that link is an option I chose.

My current concern with online booking is too many clients booking just to "hold" an appointment, and then cancelling, causes issues for others who are in real need of a session and were unable to book it because someone else held the appointment "just in case".

I've never had anybody use it in this way.

Also, do any of these programs allow for full payment if cancellation is not 24 hours in advance? And have any of you run into an issue with someone being charged the cancellation fee, who then tried to get credited by their credit card company.

As far as I know, Acuity does not allow for payment after cancellation. I have mine set to not allow an appointment to be cancelled via the email link if it's less than 24 hrs. They are forced to call or email me directly, or no show I guess. It currently has the option to require pre-payment at the time of booking, but no invoicing or card information storage. I get around this by using a cancellation policy that states any repeated last minute cancellations or no-shows will result in mandatory pre-payment for any future sessions.

Has anyone used online booking for just a few days of the week, while still taking phone calls for *all* working days. Maybe telling the clients "We have online booking available for the <weekends> or <weekdays> as a connvenience, othewise, please call for <weekly> or <weekend> appointments." (??) It seems confusing, but can any of you think of a way that could be worded to be user friendly?

I do not currently use mine this way but it would be very possible. You can set it to make only certain days/times available to be booked. Those would be the only appointments an online client would see and be able to book. Acuity allows for text be shown above the scheduler where you can write a reminder that online booking is for the clients convenience during busy week-ends and that week-day appointments are available by calling.

Thanks for any replies.

[pueppi]

akashafive,

Thanks... very detailed and useful.

-==-


randomness0,

Thanks also. I don't know how I missed your post.


-==-

sez,

Thanks.

[EgoMagickian]

Did you look at https://www.appointlet.com/ ? I think their payments functionality is available as a beta feature right now.

[athletica]

I really like Mindbody. Their service reduces the amount of cancellations and missed appointments. Approximately 80% of our clients book appointments online. Its usually only new patients that call to book. Mindbody allows you to take payments online, we have opted out of this service because we find it reduces the number of peole that then use the online system.

[kathryn]

Yes, I'm still with BookFresh. They do allow for payments to be made online but I don't have that feature turned on. I haven't had any technical issues like I did with MindBody, which was sad b/c I liked MindBody the best. BookFresh has been great and they are very droid friendly.

Are you still using the company you set up with initially (kathryn, I know you switched once... so, I'm asking about the one you switched to) and do any of you find that you end up with more people who book and then cancel, than you did when you booked sessions by phone?

* 99% of my new clients book online and I've yet to have one cancel their appointment. Actually, I may have had a new client cancel an appointment, but I can't recall for sure. Since I've had the online scheduling literally only 2 or 3 new clients have called. I'm serious-- 99% of NEW clients have used the online booking. My regulars typically schedule their sessions at the office. My initial concern was being able to confer with new clients to find out why they are coming in, but that actually hasn't been an issue. I haven't needed to speak with them beforehand as I thought.


My current concern with online booking is too many clients booking just to "hold" an appointment, and then cancelling, causes issues for others who are in real need of a session and were unable to book it because someone else held the appointment "just in case".

* Is that just a concern that you fear may happen, or does that happen to you often?


Also, do any of these programs allow for full payment if cancellation is not 24 hours in advance? And have any of you run into an issue with someone being charged the cancellation fee, who then tried to get credited by their credit card company.

* Yes, BookFresh allows for you to charge full or partial payment for missed appointment not within the cancellation time. But, I don't have that feature activated.


Has anyone used online booking for just a few days of the week, while still taking phone calls for *all* working days. Maybe telling the clients "We have online booking available for the <weekends> or <weekdays> as a connvenience, othewise, please call for <weekly> or <weekend> appointments." (??) It seems confusing, but can any of you think of a way that could be worded to be user friendly?

* I haven't but BookFresh and all the online systems that I played around with gave the option of choosing which days are available for online booking.


To be honest, I tried almost all the online systems out there and basically they are all the same. They have most of the same features:
* Online pay
* Post massage email asking for a review
* Reminder email to client
* Ability to ask to book the session, but not valid until verified by the mt
* Ability to have control over the types of services shown
* Ability to set a time between appointments, for example, whether you want 5 minutes or 45 minutes between sessions
* Book Now buttons for the website and FB

The biggest differences are in how they appear on your website and the process of scheduling. That is where the personality of the mt comes in- when it comes to which set up they like best.

[pueppi]

My current concern with online booking is too many clients booking just to "hold" an appointment, and then cancelling, causes issues for others who are in real need of a session and were unable to book it because someone else held the appointment "just in case".

* Is that just a concern that you fear may happen, or does that happen to you often?

It is a concern, because I want to make sure my standard client base is taken care of and not screwed-over because of random persons booking appointments, just to no-show or cancel the day before. I believe you are in a large city like I, so you'll probably understand what I am trying to say, regarding travel times and large corporate jobs which make it difficult for people who "wanted" an appointment on such and such day to spin on a dime. Many times, a situation like that can cause someone to miss out on needed care.

I did experience it when I was younger, and early in practice... so, I've really groomed my clientele over the years. Now, I only very, very rarely have someone who will book and no-show or late cancel. Maybe once or twice a year.

I am not even sure that online booking is best for my office at this time... but, I certainly don't want to have a potential for this to pop up. That's why I am asking so specifically.

Thanks for the details and the explanation that most all have the same features! I did not realize that. Your indepth work is my gain.

[kathryn]

Pueppi wrote:

It is a concern, because I want to make sure my standard client base is taken care of and not screwed-over because of random persons booking appointments, just to no-show or cancel the day before. I believe you are in a large city like I, so you'll probably understand what I am trying to say, regarding travel times and large corporate jobs which make it difficult for people who "wanted" an appointment on such and such day to spin on a dime. Many times, a situation like that can cause someone to miss out on needed care.

Ah, I see. I haven't had any kind of problem with that people scheduling and then canceling in that manner. A couple times people will reschedule or cancel their appointments, but it has always been ahead of time so there haven't been any problems. At one time I did post permission for other MT's to try out the service from my website on another massage board, but that DID become a problem. MT's were scheduling and using fake emails and phone numbers. I would wonder if they were a real client and send out an email to find out. Once a mt used a "fake" email that turned out to belong to another person and they were aggravated when I contacted them and they learned their email was being used.

I had encouraged the MT testers to use their real email so they could experience what the notification emails were like. Eventually, I had to delete my notice in the thread giving permission. No one was putting "test" and it was becoming a pain in the a**. Recently someone did test it out, but they put "test" in the name so I knew it was fake.

If you live in a big city Pueppi, you may want to reconsider your thoughts about not getting online booking. Maybe you could just try it out for 6 months or so? Online booking was the single most thing that really bumped up my business. Way more than my website or even winning the best massage last year. Just about every new client that used it said that was the main reason they scheduled with me, because they could do it right there and didn't have to pick up the phone or email me.

[pueppi]

I've had a new idea... although I may not implement any of this for a year or so.

I belive I could add the "Online Scheduling" to the back end of my website, so that if youknow the html you can see and click on the page, but if you don't you can't. It would solve most of my concerns in one fell swoop... allowing me to give the html to the clients I want to have the info, but not to those who I don't.

For example: If I have someone who is a very difficult massage, be it their energy or the work I have to put in... then I could not give them the info and never worry about two "difficult/hard" clients scheduling back to back against my preferences. There are just some people I don't want to put in my book back-to-back.

This would also allow me to be selective in who I gave the info to, but *if* someone happened on the page and scheduled, it wouldn't be a huge problem.

We've done the whole adding-pages-on-the-back-end-of-our-site before, so that when you click on our website, you (the general public) see our "old" site. But, if I put in the proper html "... .com/newllc", I can visually see the "new" website which is currently being created. Because I am a visual person, this gives me a chance to see if I like what is happening on the new one or if it needs more tweaking, without having to depend on my husband (website designer) to pull up the Dreamweaver program.

And, if anyone has ever done a scheduler with password protection, I'd be interested to know how that worked. I have a feeling that password protection would cause people to be less likely to schedule with an online scheduler, but Imay be wrong. I'd be open to going to a page few people know about, but I would not want to have to mess with a password. That's probably just me. What do you think?

[akashafive]

I like your idea of selectively providing the link. I know Acuity is actually a completely separate site with your own specific link for your business (no website necessary); I just chose to integrate it into my website. I'm sure many other services also allow you to simply use that unique URL without having it connected to your site. Adding it to the back end of your website also seems like a great compromise. (I do my major website edits that way as well, as I really need to see it before I'm satisfied. )

I'd be willing to do a password as long as it was something easy for me as a client to remember. If I had to save an old email or note where I wrote it down and always needed to hunt it down before booking, I would get annoyed too, lol!

[pueppi]

I like your idea of selectively providing the link. I know Acuity is actually a completely separate site with your own specific link for your business (no website necessary); I just chose to integrate it into my website. I'm sure many other services also allow you to simply use that unique URL without having it connected to your site. Adding it to the back end of your website also seems like a great compromise. (I do my major website edits that way as well, as I really need to see it before I'm satisfied. )

I'd be willing to do a password as long as it was something easy for me as a client to remember. If I had to save an old email or note where I wrote it down and always needed to hunt it down before booking, I would get annoyed too, lol!

Hi akashafive,

Since you know about putting something on the back end of a website... even though Acuity is a seperate site which you link to your business, do you think you could link it just to one page on the back-end? And, is there a way for clients to find you on the Acuity site without knowing you have Online Scheduling with them? Just wondering for future reference.

Thanks for the response.

[akashafive]

I like your idea of selectively providing the link. I know Acuity is actually a completely separate site with your own specific link for your business (no website necessary); I just chose to integrate it into my website. I'm sure many other services also allow you to simply use that unique URL without having it connected to your site. Adding it to the back end of your website also seems like a great compromise. (I do my major website edits that way as well, as I really need to see it before I'm satisfied. )

I'd be willing to do a password as long as it was something easy for me as a client to remember. If I had to save an old email or note where I wrote it down and always needed to hunt it down before booking, I would get annoyed too, lol!

Hi akashafive,

Since you know about putting something on the back end of a website... even though Acuity is a seperate site which you link to your business, do you think you could link it just to one page on the back-end? And, is there a way for clients to find you on the Acuity site without knowing you have Online Scheduling with them? Just wondering for future reference.

Thanks for the response.

Yes, you could absolutely post the link on a back end page; no need to integrate it at all. However, I just did a search for my business name on Google and on the second page I found the Acuity page for my business. So yes someone could stumble upon it if they are looking for your specific business name, but I also tried just my first and last name with "massage" in the search and didn't see it within the first 5 result pages, and my city plus massage didn't show it in the first 10 pages. Not sure but the first search result may be skewed by the fact that I constantly visit my Acuity account from this same PC so the browser recognized it But your actual website should show up first any way so they wouldn't go further (mine was the first result on the first search; third search found my site on the second page ) Anyhoo, hope this helps!

[AlexK]

Dear BodyworkOnline community,
We need your help! I'm looking for massage and bodywork practioners who will give a try to our new scheduling app - ubooq.com . We have users from different professional groups but massage specialists are still not among them If you didn't use any online scheduling tools before or want to try a newer one - this is a good chance for you Please fill an invitation request here: http://ubooq.com and mention "BodyworkOnline.com" in it to get an account.
If you have any questions feel free to ask

[cabwy]

I have a question that I haven't seen addressed on this thread.. I apologise if I overlooked it.

How do you handle online booking when there's two therapists working out of the same room? I still have a large amount of mobile clients so there are days I am not in the studio at all, but other days, we juggle that room.

[akashafive]

I have a question that I haven't seen addressed on this thread.. I apologise if I overlooked it.

How do you handle online booking when there's two therapists working out of the same room? I still have a large amount of mobile clients so there are days I am not in the studio at all, but other days, we juggle that room.

I share my room with another therapist, but we only use the room on our set days and therefore I have my online scheduler set to only allow bookings on "my" days and within "my" hours. With the service I use (http://www.AcuityScheduling.com), you can set specific times on a day that can be booked, as opposed to anytime that day. Hope that helps some.