What Questions to Ask When Looking For an Online Scheduling Tool? appointment scheduling

There are many reasons you might decide to look for a tool to help you automate booking appointments or meetings. Maybe you’re trying to scale up your revenue ops or trying to better speak the language of your consumers. Regardless, it’s key that you pick a tool that fits for your specific needs, as all online scheduling tools are different and serve different needs. In this post, we will dive into some of the questions you should ask when looking for an online scheduling tool before you commit your organization to one.

Is this a known, reputable brand?

There are hundreds of tools in this category. Some are very well known and others have practically no market share. When evaluating vendors, you’ll want to work with a brand that is already in the market with hundreds of customers. This helps you vet which companies are actually legitimate and which ones you can trust vs. the ones you can’t. If a platform has tons of users, it means they are doing a good job and have a product that is attracting and retaining its customers. Use this as a vetting mechanism when looking for your online scheduling tool. How do you know how to tell if a website is being used?

What do their online reviews say about them?

Look at trustworthy review websites such as Trustpilot and G2 to see what previous customers have to say about the product and their experience. This can be helpful in deciding whether or not you want to move forward with a specific company — the scores alone will help you weed out any weak contenders.  

Do other recognizable brands use them?

If they are listing logos of many other companies you recognize, they are likely reputable. On a sales call, you can ask about their customers and if it’s a reputable brand, they’ll have a list of users to talk about.

Does the software have options such as an API?

Having a good graphical user interface is helpful, but oftentimes, the best software allows you to interface with it through an API. API stands for application programming interface, and with an API, you can have much more flexibility into how someone works with the online scheduling tool. Note, the companies that have an API likely are more expensive, but the API functionality is key for a growing company.

Do they provide good documentation and support?

If a company has an API, it should also come with great documentation for how to use it. The API is as good as the documentation to explain it, so if you can’t understand how to work with their API, maybe the API wasn’t good to begin with.

Are they upfront about their pricing?

For online scheduling tools, many often hide all of their pricing from the website. The only way to know the price is to submit a form and they get back to you. This allows companies to charge more based on your needs and company size, without you even knowing they are doing that. 

Upfront pricing means that the inline scheduling tool trusts that the value of their product is so immense, that having pricing wants to deter the target users. Generally, these companies have a custom price for larger companies, but it’s key that they are open to sharing some of their pricing with all website visitors.

Does this product meet all of your needs — and future considerations, too?

Sometimes vendors think that they are able to request the right features to get their system going, so they go with the cheaper option in hopes that more features get built down the road. We would suggest shying against this. Know what you need going into looking for an appointment scheduling platform, and shop for those key features with different vendors. Plus, you want to make sure you find a tool that can scale with your business as it grows!

These are just some of the questions to keep in mind when shopping for an event scheduling platform online.

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