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Which online scheduling works better for your clients--Schedulicity or GenBook?

I am curious to see how many therapists are utilizing online booking companies to enhance their businesses! Have you used these companies or another one? Have you had a good or bad experience? Most importantly, how do your clients like the "convenience" of booking appointments themselves?

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Permalink Reply by Kim Galliher on May 3, 2011 at 3:21pm

Do any of these online scheduling companies also offer online gift certificate sales?  Or is that an entire different industry?

 

Permalink Reply by Jeff Shearer on May 3, 2011 at 3:25pm

Hi Kim

Bookit Live offer a voucher code purchase meaning you can give discounts or gift purchases and Mind Body online I am pretty sure do the same.

Regards

Jeff

Kim Galliher said:

Do any of these online scheduling companies also offer online gift certificate sales?  Or is that an entire different industry?

 

Permalink Reply by Rebecca Legamaro on May 3, 2011 at 3:29pm

Kim and Jeff,

 

Appointment-Plus offers gift certificates that can be purchased on-line, securely.  Those gift certificates can either be mailed to a recipient, or e-mailed to the recipient or purchaser.  The purchaser also is not required to have an account with Appointment-Plus but could purchase a gift certificate for a friend or family member they know uses your service.  Also that Gift Certificate is trackable in the Appointment-Plus system.

 

Regards,

 

Becky Legamaro

Appointment-Plus

Permalink Reply by Kim Galliher on May 3, 2011 at 3:59pm

Thanks for the info.  I appreciate it!

 

Permalink Reply by Donna Whitton on May 4, 2011 at 11:26pm

I've been on the hunt for a while now and there always seems to be something about each offer that makes it less then ideal for me.

 

This thread has allowed me to research some more options that are available but the one I've discovered and have been testing recently I believe was not mentioned:

www.styleseat.com

 

I believe it's primarily for hair stylists but it seems to function for MTs as well. Although it doesn't offer a html code to put the booking process within your website (as clickbook and bookfresh does) you can add a booking link.

It also offers a way to upload photos that will be seen if/when clients go to your scheduling site.

 

As for customer service, there's a chatbox always available and the help I received was excellent, despite asking questions I could have learned if I would have just taken the time to play/research a little more. The company is on the West Coast, so if they're off line check your clocks.

 

They are currently testing phone apps including smart phones - something I have been looking forward to since I don't own an iPhone and if companies offer an app it's for that only. I'm not sure what all it will entail, though.

 

Additionally, they do offer email marketing, although it's not readily available (one of the things I needed the chatbox for) via link - you have to email your interest and they set-up the ID/Password with the company they utilize.

I haven't done this yet; I currently use Constant Contact but am looking for a plan that is more economical for me, esp on those months I can't find the time to send something.

 

The bottom line, I think it takes a whole lot of time using free trials to see what works best and is most cost-effective. It's time consuming at best but I can't help but think it's worth it in the end once it's finally set-up and some new clients are gained!!

Permalink Reply by Michael Wilson on May 5, 2011 at 9:45am

Just wanted to mention that all of us associated with these different scheduling solutions obviously have our biases.  I would hope you would compare what our clients say about our products and services.  No better place to do that than our respective Facebook pages. 

 

Here's the link to Schedulicity's Facebook page!  

 

Would love to hear what you think.

 

All the best,

 

Michael Wilson

Director of New Media

Schedulicity

Permalink Reply by Rebecca Legamaro on May 5, 2011 at 11:58am

Hi Donna,

 

I just wanted to respond to your statements about e-mail marketing and chat assistance.  Appouintment-Plus has both of those features as well.  If you go to www.appointment-plus.com you can chat with an associate, also we integrate with iContact, who has a FREE version for small businesses.  You can sign up for the free version here:  http://appointment-plus.iconta ct.com/

 

Have a great day!

 

Becky Legamaro

Appointment-Plus

Permalink Reply by Zuri, Dirisha on May 8, 2011 at 2:12pm
Hi My name is Zuri, and I havn't used any of these yet but must admit during Spa Wk one of these systems would be very helpful.  In general because I'm still fairly new I can still handle my own bookings but I look for a new web providered to enhance my site in order to make it more user friendly and add more pages that will drive more business my way and hopefully than I will need one of these booking tools.  But I have heard a few people say they like Gen books. So good luck and if you tlk 2 any one soon I keep u posted.
Permalink Reply by Nancy Henson on May 17, 2011 at 3:14pm
I was JUST looking at the Benefits Booklet from ABMP and saw that, Marc! I tried Schedulicity and will now try GenBook's free 30-Day Free Trial :)

Marc Woodward said:
Just a reminder...

ABMP Members receive a 15% Lifetime Discount on Genbook. Sign up on a 30-Day Free Trial here:http://www.genbook.com/abmp/

Happy to answer any questions you may have.

Regards,

Marc
Marc Woodward, VP Marketing, Genbook.com
Permalink Reply by Nancy Henson on May 17, 2011 at 3:16pm
Thank you! I will try your suggestioin...

Rajam K Roose said:

After researching into the various online scheduling companies out there, I chose MindBodyOnline (MBO). The biggest reason I chose them over the competition was b/c they offered online credit card (cc) payment that wasn't paypal. Nothing against paypal, but some of my clients are banking lawyers and they've told me that it wasn't as secure as some of the other online cc companies.

 

Although MBO didn't offer the free trial period, it was after using all the other companies free trials before I realized none of them worked for me. One of them didn't allow for the scheduling of multiple services, it might have been genbook, I can't remember now, I tried several of them. Many of the other services seemed okay, but I really wanted clients to be able to have the option to prepay and only one other service offered that and it was prepay system through paypal. Because none of the ones with free trials worked out, I finally purchased with MBO.  MBO had extensive help both in the form of tech support and also a video tutorial for EVERY single little step in setting up. Not only can a client pay for their session on MBO, but they can also order gift certificates to print off or email, I didn't have to get a separate service for that. Not only that but the amount of things you can control in the set-up of the online scheduling of MBO is just amazing!

 

Although I've only had it for about two months, the online scheduling has been really helpful in cutting down the phone and email tag between clients. I've also had new clients use it and they chose my business b/c they liked the website, but booked an appt. because it was just that easy.

 

If you want to check out the MBO version, feel free to go to my site at www.RajamRoose.com and play around with the scheduling set-up. Just enter "test" as your first or last name, so I know you're not a real client.

 

Whatever your choice, I highly recommend signing up for all the various free and 30 day tutorials that most of the online scheduling programs offer to get a feel for the various set ups and whether or not they will work for you. The best way to find out is to sign up and try them all out because only YOU know what it is you need in your practice!
Permalink Reply by Sreed on July 1, 2011 at 2:24pm

I really like Full Slate, but I guess there are still some site I haven't seen before. definitely take Rajam K Roose advice and try them all out.

Permalink Reply by Massage Gnome on July 2, 2011 at 11:23pm
We started using appointment-plus in April this year and are happy with what they have to offer.  There has been some slowness and lag time in the last 2 weeks that we have been unhappy with and even tho we bought the POS feature for tracking the report functions are not all they are cracked up to be.  We cannot get a legible report on what products are available and what we need to order or a solid report on what each employee has done.  Trying to get an idea of what goals need to be set was one of the reasons we went online instead of having a book.  We do love that our clients can book and it has really cut down on the 3 or 4 calls when a customer only picked one date and time before they call in.  Our clients absolutely love it and find it fairly easy to use, can't use from a smart phone tho because the screen won't scroll down that far.  Whatever one you try remember you have to enter in all your info so once you get into the trial you feel like you may as well just sign up because you don't want to have to enter it all in again.

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