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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 Elizabeth Christensen on January 3, 2012 at 9:53pm

I really appreciate all the information everyone is giving.  I have been doing this day by day in  my own calendar so It is easy for me to read my own mind :)  but my daughter is my helper and I have been trying to decide how I can help her read my mind, so I do like the fact we can put the extra time for clean up into the appointments.

Are you able to have a brief cancelation notice and thank you in the text reminders?  and are the text reminders sent the day before? one of the systems allows for text, but only the day before for the next morning, and the day of for afternoon/evening, which again wouldn't work for my area, if they forget and the reminder is sent only a few hours before there is more room for 'I forgot and can't make it"  I need it to be as client friendly as possible, I don't want to have to enforce the cancelation policy because they honestly are busy and forgot.

Cassie

 

Bill Lange said:

Hi Cassie - I don't mean to pester or pressure you, but did want to address your questions as relates to Full Slate. 

Full Slate offers a number of options for determining the available appointment times.  Our default is to let Full Slate calculate the optimal way to fill your schedule.  This option would prevent the scenario you describe and not leave the 45 minute gap at the beginning of your availability or the 30 minutes after.

Alternatively, we allow you to specify start times (e.g. 'every hour on the hour', etc.) or to enter custom start times (e.g. 1pm, 2:15pm, 3:30pm, etc.) on a service-by-service basis.  You can also specify setup and cleanup time to give you buffer between appointments, if desired.

Regarding your other questions, we give you full control over the contents of email messages with no limit on the size/length.  We allow you to send automated 'thank you' emails and to establish your own cancellation policy.  And you can have a description of each service.

I hope this helps.  Feel free to contact me directly if you have additional questions... or to tell me to stop responding to your questions! ;-)

Thanks,

Bill

Permalink Reply by Bill Lange on January 4, 2012 at 12:57am

Hi Cassie -

I'm glad you find the additional information useful.

Full Slate provides default message templates, including for cancellation notices and text message reminders, that you can customize and however you like.  And, for example, when you need to cancel an appointment, you can preview the email before it is sent and add a personalized note, if you like.

You specify when text message reminders are sent - as much as a week in advance or as little as 1 hour prior to the appointment - with several increments in-between.

Again, I hope this helps.  Don't hesitate to respond with additional questions.

Thanks!

Permalink Reply by Jason R. Brown on March 1, 2012 at 3:12pm

Thanks for all the info everyone.  I'm trying to decide which booking platform to go with, and the one challenge I'm having is that I see clients in three different locations and have different availability in each.  I'm just one provider, and don't want to have to pay a lot extra to have different locations if I don't have to.  Does anyone know which of the above offers the ability to have different locations?

Best,

Jason

Permalink Reply by Bill Lange on March 1, 2012 at 3:46pm

Hi Jason - 

Full Slate allows you to support multiple locations - each with it's own days and hours of availability.  You can even have a different list of services that you perform at each location.  All of the schedules are viewable on a single calendar... or you can choose to isolate on just one or two of them, if preferred.

Happy to answer any additional questions you may have.

Thanks,

Bill 

Permalink Reply by Robin Byler Thomas on March 1, 2012 at 6:08pm

Hi folks,

I've been using Full Slate for the past two months and have been pleased. This is my first online scheduling system and I see no reason to change. It was fairly easy to set up and my clients are now used to it. I've always sent out reminders and do most of my booking through e-mail, so it wasn't a big change for them and it's a nice break for me. They like having the option to see what's available online and I've added credit card services and gift certificate availability as well. 

Full Slate has been great about support (Bill even answered one evening), the templates are easy to personalize, and the look is really nice compared to the others I've seen. I raised my rates last month, and was able to create another template to send out the notice to my regulars and now I have a record of it. If you want to see how it works, you can test it out on my website; just type in "test" instead of the personal info. It's on my facebook page too.

www.handsonhealthtucson.com

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Hands-On-Health/223060247756129

And no, no one from Full Slate asked me to comment. Good luck!

Permalink Reply by Ryan Baker on June 28, 2012 at 5:49pm

There is certainly a wide range of choices available to businesses for online appointment software... and some really great information on this discussion about the features you should be looking for. An important thing to factor in is, how often and how quickly the provider releases new features, improvements and fixes to the appointment software. A good way to find out is to ask an existing user. A lot of frustration can come from an established system which may be a few years old and is slow to respond to small improvements.

We have just launched a new appointment system to the market, which is perfectly suited to massage and bodywork professionals. The product is called Timely, and the website is www.gettimely.com.

Timely ticks a lot of boxes in this discussion including recurring appointments, automated sms and email reminders that you can configure to send on an interval that suits your business, multiple locations, staff at different locations, simple rebooking and much more. We have a development team with over 30 years combined experience building online appointment and ecommerce systems, so new features are being added constantly! :)

Most business owners/operators in the beauty and massage industry have a keen eye for aesthetics, ergonomics and design. Timely stands out from the crowd of online appointment systems as it is beautifully designed and so enhances your own brand in the eyes of your staff and customers.

Another thing to be wary of is appointment systems that try to do "too much", such as point of sale, accounting, payroll, etc. You will find that they don't do any one thing particularly well, including the core product of appointments! A modern-day approach is to combine a suite of cloud applications to run your business with.

Timely integrates seamlessly with;

If anyone would like some more info, I'd be happy to arrange a time to chat. :)

Cheers,

Ryan

Co-founder, Timely, www.gettimely.com

Permalink Reply by Julia Tabarez on July 1, 2012 at 5:23pm

what is the cost?

Permalink Reply by Ryan Baker on July 2, 2012 at 5:56pm

Hi Julia - Timely is currently in a free beta and we are announcing our pricing this month. So this is a "you heard it here first"! :)

Subject to change, the plans will start at USD$19/month for a solo operator and the most popular plan that will allow up to 10 staff and 3 locations will be USD$39. Larger plans and customized plans will also be available.

If anyone wants to have a try of the appointment system feel free to jump on and have a look. New features are being added daily by our dev team and if there's anything you'd like to see added, just let us know!

Cheers,

Ryan

Permalink Reply by Nancy. on July 5, 2012 at 9:08am

This forum has been MASSIVELY helpful. Last Friday, I was simply searching for a way to use QuickBooks on an iPad and I stumbled onto this site. Three days later, I am testing a new system! After reading all the posts, I decided to see if the grass was greener. I have been using GenBook for several years now, and I do love it. However, they are slow to add any new improvements (even though I have asked repeatedly for some very simple ones).

I took the weekend to try out MANY (many!) platforms, and have landed on Full Slate for my real trial (meaning I launched it on my website, and am letting clients book now, awaiting their response). For all of the tweaks I have asked GenBook for, Full Slate already has them up and running.

One thing that definitely sets them apart is TWO-WAY SYNCING! Many of these programs ONE-WAY sync, meaning it will tell your calender what it knows, BUT, it won't "hear" what your calender is saying. Two-way sync means that if you want to put something on Google Cal, then your Full Slate calendar will have that info, too. THIS, to me, was amazing. Now I don't have to "double type" (or copy and paste, like I have been). Another plus, as mentioned here and elsewhere on the web, is Full Slate's incredible customer - or potential customer - support!  Without a doubt, they have the fastest and most thorough support of any company anywhere! (Hope it stays that way.).  

Thanks everyone for all of the detailed, real-life information.

Permalink Reply by Danielle Osgerby on July 5, 2012 at 4:41pm

I have been using gobook...you can google it.  LOVE it!  Totally free and works great.  When a client books with you online it sends an email to your phone with date, time and such.  Awesome and very user friendly!

Permalink Reply by Abram Herman on July 9, 2012 at 4:18pm

Glad to hear you've had such a good experience with Full Slate--we've been hearing that a lot! :-)

That's why Full Slate is the preferred online scheduling provider for ABMP, and we've arranged a fantastic discount for ABMP members--you can get up to 40% off their program, just for being an ABMP member! To get your discount, login at this link with your ABMP ID and password.

Best,

Abram Herman

Social Media Coordinator at ABMP



Nancy. said:

This forum has been MASSIVELY helpful. Last Friday, I was simply searching for a way to use QuickBooks on an iPad and I stumbled onto this site. Three days later, I am testing a new system! After reading all the posts, I decided to see if the grass was greener. I have been using GenBook for several years now, and I do love it. However, they are slow to add any new improvements (even though I have asked repeatedly for some very simple ones).

I took the weekend to try out MANY (many!) platforms, and have landed on Full Slate for my real trial (meaning I launched it on my website, and am letting clients book now, awaiting their response). For all of the tweaks I have asked GenBook for, Full Slate already has them up and running.

One thing that definitely sets them apart is TWO-WAY SYNCING! Many of these programs ONE-WAY sync, meaning it will tell your calender what it knows, BUT, it won't "hear" what your calender is saying. Two-way sync means that if you want to put something on Google Cal, then your Full Slate calendar will have that info, too. THIS, to me, was amazing. Now I don't have to "double type" (or copy and paste, like I have been). Another plus, as mentioned here and elsewhere on the web, is Full Slate's incredible customer - or potential customer - support!  Without a doubt, they have the fastest and most thorough support of any company anywhere! (Hope it stays that way.).  

Thanks everyone for all of the detailed, real-life information.

Permalink Reply by Bookappo on August 1, 2012 at 4:21am

Very well said, Michael. Personal biases can be ivolved, but it is up to each individual to make his or hers own research.

If I may add a suggestion, http://www.bookappo.com also offers features mentioned in this thread and is definitely worth considering as the right choice. 

Matej,

Bookappo


Michael Wilson said:

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

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