Online appointment scheduling software has rapidly become a must-have tool helping businesses across sectors provide excellent, convenient customer experiences. By enabling self-service booking, these solutions reduce no-shows, maximize staff efficiency, and support data-driven business decisions – all contributing to a positive ROI.
Content Navigation show
Industry analysts size the global appointment scheduling software market at $6.35 billion in 2022, growing at an impressive 15% CAGR over the next seven years. Driving this adoption is rising consumer preference for flexible, personalized service interactions coupled with small businesses needing to do more with less in a post-pandemic economy.
This guide examines the capabilities modern appointment platforms provide, recommends standout solutions ideal for different use cases, and explores what the future may hold in store for vendors and customers alike. Let‘s start by examining what today‘s solutions offer.
Core Capabilities to Expect
At minimum, scheduling systems centralize availability data and enable customers to self-schedule appointments based on that information. Standard functionality includes:
Online Booking
- Customers select services, duration, location/staff from options you configure
- Customers self-schedule based on public availability from your calendar
Calendar Sync
- Bi-directional integration with popular calendars
- Availability data transfers automatically
Admin Portal
- Tools to manage services, duration, buffer times
- Easy staff schedule and time-off management
- Central reporting across organization
Customer Notifications
- Confirmations, reminders, follow-ups
- Configurable email and SMS templates
Flexible Embedding
- Embed booking directly into website
- Offer scheduling via Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, SMS
That base feature set meets the requirements for most businesses. However, customers today expect more personalized and convenient experiences. Extras like customer profiles, intake forms, self-rescheduling, and mapping integration go a long way here.
According to Salesforce research, 66% of customers expect companies to respond and interact on demand via the channels they choose. Let‘s look at what that means when evaluating scheduling tools.
What Customers Value in the Booking Process
| Desired Capability | Percentage |
|---|---|
| Self-service booking without contacting company | 73% |
| Real-time appointment availability | 68% |
| Booking confirmation within minutes | 58% |
| Self-service rescheduling | 57% |
| Text/email reminders | 51% |
| Location/arrival info integration | 44% |
Younger demographics have even higher expectations of the experience technology should deliver:
| Desired Capability | Gen Z/Millenials | Gen X | Boomers |
|---|---|---|---|
| Expect self-service booking | 81% | 63% | 66% |
| Want real-time visibility into availability | 74% | 59% | 64% |
With an understanding of modern customer expectations, let‘s walk through an approach to identify the must-have appointment scheduling features for your business.
A 3 Step Assessment Model
Consult Your Existing Tech Stack – If you already use tools like Salesforce, HubSpot, QuickBooks, or Office 365, shortlist options that integrate natively with those platforms to avoid fragmented systems.
Map Peak Customer Journeys – Analyze at what points in your average customer lifecycle appointment scheduling would make the biggest impact. Common integration points include your website, post-sale follow-ups, or as part of recurring account management.
Define Must-Have Features – Create your list of non-negotiable capabilities based on analysis of your tech stack and customer journeys, Also consider growth goals that may necessitate additional feature needs in 2-3 years. Plot premium "nice-to-have" functionality separately.
Let‘s see examples of how two businesses might apply this model…
Case Study 1: Julie, Private Practice Therapist
Tech Stack – Built website with Wix, uses Mailchimp for emails, processes payments in QuickBooks
Customer Journey – Most new clients come via website inquiry. Must schedule initial consultation to convert lead. Also requires booking for ongoing session.s
Must-Have Features
- Embed on Wix site
- Collect patient intake forms
- Invoice paid sessions to QuickBooks automatically
- Email reminders with easy rescheduling
Case Study 2: Maria, Fitness Studio Owner
Tech Stack – MindBody business management software, TrainHeroic workout tracker
Customer Journey – Clients book one-on-one personal training sessions plus register for cycling classes through studio website
Must-Have Features
- Integration with MindBody for staff and class visibility
- Self-service booking by class type, trainer, location
- Collect liability waiver at signup
- Notify TrainHeroic app of booked workout sessions
This three step process clarifies your requirements for efficiently comparing vendors. Next let‘s examine popular solutions available to fulfill those needs.
The Best Appointment Scheduling Apps
With a firmer grasp of core capabilities available and criteria for selection, let‘s overview top recommendations across different common use cases.
Best Overall: Calendly
Trusted by over 50,000 paying organizations, Calendly provides an easy-to-use scheduling system flexible enough to handle common and complex appointment scenarios alike. It stands out as the best overall option based on:
- Visually intuitive event types and availability configuration – Simple for both admins and customers
- Smooth embed anywhere capabilities – Embed booking directly into your website, link from emails, integrate with chat tools like Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp or Intercom, and leverage connections to over 100 other software platforms via Zapier
- Top-notch automation – Workflows for appointment reminders, follow-ups, patient intake data capture, and more
- First-class customer support – Technical expertise and best practices guidance for account configuration
Calendly works for all business use cases from entrepreneurs and freelancers providing consulting services to enterprise corporation scheduling. It starts with a forever free plan for individuals and offers paid upgrades expressly designed for optimized scheduling conversion all the way up to complex organizations managing a high volume of bookings across teams, locations, and customers.
For most straightforward booking needs, Calendly makes the shortlist of options to evaluate.
Best for White Glove Customer Experience: Square Appointments
Restaurants, retailers, salons, healthcare offices, auto shops and other location-based service providers often balance managing in-store and online customers. Square Appointments marries robust scheduling capabilities with seamless point-of-sale functionality for transaction processing, inventory management, and more.
Standout qualities include:
- Highly customizable booking screen to match branding
- Tools promoting scheduling through Instagram, Facebook, and Google
- POS hardware integration for in-person payments
- Invoicing for appointments post-visit
- Everything syncs into Square Dashboard for centralized reporting
Given the deep POS features, Square Appointments works best for storefronts looking to balance walk-in, phone reservation, and online booking customers. It starts with a free plan for single locations. Paid upgrades unlocking more customization and user controls begin at $23 per month. For retail and service businesses wanting combined online scheduling and brick and mortar retail management, Square Appointments delivers.
Most Flexible Configurability: Acuity Scheduling
Sold to Squarespace in 2021, Acuity Scheduling manages over 20 million appointments per year. It stands out for enabling deep customization of booking logic and views to match specialized operational needs.
For example, Acuity lets you:
- Have customers schedule repeating appointment sequences rather than one-off bookings
- Customize views to show availability in daily or monthly layouts
- Set appointment increments to every 20 minutes for more flexibility
- Apply special business hour and appointment availability rules by location
- Partial hide open appointment slots to prevent a desperate look
While Acuity Scheduling configurability adds complexity, the tool remains user friendly with some of the most polished-looking embed widgets available. It can handle common and exotic appointment booking scenarios for businesses like contractors, web conference hosts, fitness instructors, and home healthcare professionals.
Pricing starts at $15 per month supporting one staff member scheduling. Additional tiers allow more appointments, users, features, and custom app development privileges.
Best Free Forever Offering: SimplyBook.me
Top advantages of SimplyBook.me include:
- Intuitive visual calendar for managing availability across providers
- Customizable booking widget embedding for your website
- Automatic syncing with Google and Office 365 calendars
- Customer management CRM tracking interactions over time
- Email + SMS reminders and notifications
The forever free plan supports one provider, 50 bookings monthly, and basic customer data collection. Two paid upgrades unlock additional staff, appointment volume allowances, video conferencing, and priority support.
For lean small businesses and solopreneurs needing straightforward scheduling capabilities, SimplyBook.me DELIVERS A POLISHED EXPERIENCE AT A GREAT PRICE.
Best for Bookable Content: Calendly Badge
Thought leaders, creators, consultants, coaches, agencies, and media producers make money sharing their expertise. Calendly Badge helps these professionals directly monetize blog posts, videos, podcasts, newsletters, and other digital content by making it bookable.
Rather than force readers to a separate scheduling page, Badge allows embedding calls-to-action to schedule meetings within the content itself. This captures leads while in an engaged, high-converting state rather than hoping they take action later.
Key qualities:
- Embed scheduling invites, links, buttons directly into any web-based content
- Prospects complete contact and questions forms at booking
- See which pieces of content generate the most meetings
- One-click integrations with email, chat, and workflow automation platforms
The forever free Badge plan supports core functionality. Two paid upgrades add analytics on conversion performance, higher usage limits, priority email support, and access to more advanced tool integrations.
Content creators of all types should consider placing Badge booking links within YouTube descriptions, podcast show notes, blog posts, and other content. It directly connects expertise shared to meetings booked.
Best for Multi-Location Enterprises: Setmore
For multi-site businesses like retailers, restaurant chains, dentist offices, chiropractors, salons or gyms with locations across cities, Setmore simplifies the complexities of managing providers, services, and availability across the organization.
Advantages over single-location focused tools:
- Centralized dashboard gives visibility across the business
- Tailor booking specifics like services and duration individually by location
- Sync calendars across the organization while retaining schedule control at each site
- Shared customer database connects purchase history across all stores
Setmore starts with a free plan forvery basic scheduling needs. Paid upgrades supporting more locations, appointment volume, and advanced functionality like custom forms, reporting, automation recipes, and text messaging begin at $15 per month.
For clinic chains, fitness studios, salons, and retail franchises, Setmore is purpose built to handle multi-location needs.
Emerging Capabilities on the Horizon
Appointment scheduling apps continue maturing to deliver more personalized, convenient booking experiences supported by automation. Some emerging functionality to expect providers to showcase includes:
Two-Way Calendar Sync
- Machine learning predicts optimal availability based on historical data
- Surfacing this suggested availability to customers further optimizes booking rates
Intelligent Q&A Bot Assistants
- Natural language AI helps customers self-triage the best appointment type
- Drastically simplifies booking the right session with the right staff the first time
Automated Confirmations + Reminders
- Text-based confirmations eliminate email clutter
- Chat reminders reduce no-shows and keep customers engaged
Arrival Management Integrations
- Tools embedding maps with traffic data for precise arrival times
- Parking integrations and contactless building entry where applicable
- On-site navigation and check-in assist
Predictive Pre-Pay
- Data science forecasts service prices based on past appointments
- Payment links sent in advance improve cash flow
The vendors recommended in this guide seem poised to lead innovation given their operational maturity, access to capital, and engineering expertise.
Professional Scheduling Will Only Grow In Importance
Online booking and schedule coordination tools have graduated from nice-to-have to outright necessity. Customers expect businesses to run efficiently and enable practical self-service. Staff need to focus on service delivery rather than administrative paperwork.
As digital transformation continues permeating enterprises over the next decade, systems allowing customers to independently handle simple interactions may become the status quo consumer baseline. Already we take for granted flight check-ins, event ticket purchases, and food delivery order tracking happening online without human assistance.
Appointment scheduling seems likely to follow suit with customers seeking the flexibility to book, reschedule and self-manage bookings via mobile devices. The vendors, features, and specific buying considerations covered in this guide aim to help businesses evaluate solutions poised to deliver on this future.
While finding the right platform requires assessing your existing software, customer journey pain points, and must-have functionality, the recommendations and emerging capabilities give a starting point to future proof your booking experience. As consumer expectations for professional, transparent business interactions rise across generations, appointment scheduling technology paves the way forward.
