With globalization and digitization increasing, the need for flexible schedules is also growing. 80% of the hourly workers reported week-to-week fluctuations in the hours of work they are doing. Additionally, the freelancing culture of work is increasing, and the need to have flexible schedules is also growing.
A 40% of freelancers reported that knowing their plan and meeting one week in advance helps increase productivity and reduce time wastage. The need for a proper scheduling application and online assistant rises in such a scenario. The fact that the schedules are not only inconsistent but also unpredictable adds to the problem.
Not only that, there are various other benefits of scheduling a well. Let us look at some of them:
- It allows for better time management: One of the most apparent benefits of having a scheduling app and online assistant is that it helps save time and control better. With the effective time schedules in place, people make better use of their available time. This process helps in yielding better time management.
- Improved planning capability: The ability to plan is a crucial skill for every entrepreneur, business owner, and manager's success. Personnel can better manage and prioritize vital on-the-job activities—managers who have a better grip on when and what their team is doing can deliver better results.
- Improved communication among employees: As people work rotating and changeable shifts, it becomes pretty difficult to set up the schedules. A scheduler helps analyze when the teams are meeting, and the conferences are taking place so that the employees and the managers can work accordingly. The prevalent communication gaps decrease as there is clarity in the plans of every team member.
- Enhanced Resource Management: Effective scheduling also helps managers distribute resources more efficiently. Payroll Expenditures
are one of the most common examples in which the scheduler allows the management.
1. Acuity Scheduling
A cloud-based appointment scheduling software solution, Acuity Scheduling is the perfect solution for business owners to manage their appointments online. The software caters to the needs of the tiny business owners ass well as the mid-sized organizations. Individual entrepreneurs can also use these tools to manage all their appointments.
In today's world of automation and digitization, Acuity Scheduling lets users automate the entire appointment booking process. The idea behind this software is to give the users a real-time view of their available time. It can automatically sync the calendars according to the time zones and send regular alerts and reminders to the users regarding their scheduling appointments.
Additionally, the scheduling feature helps set up the customizable intake forms, embedded calendars, and the third-party application calendar, synchronizing and grouping the scheduling of the workshops.
This software is suitable for services-based businesses that have a lot of need to give appointments to their clients. For, e.g., tutoring centers, fitness coaches, salons, spas, spa centers, and much more.
Features of Acuity Scheduling
Various features integrated within the application make it one of the market leaders.
- Auto Time Zone adjustment
- Multiple locations and employees
- Intake-forms
- Advance appointment scheduling
- Embeddable directly to the website
- Email and SMS Reminders
- Open API
- Activity Tracking
- Auto notifications and reminders
- Fully customizable
- Event and group scheduling, and many more
Advantages of using Acuity Scheduling
Being a market leader, Acuity Scheduling has various benefits:
- Intelligent and Secure Scheduling: The software eliminates the risk of mix-ups as it automatically updates and adjusts the calendar through the different time zones. The application also compartmentalizes the management of multiple users. One can also set up events in the calendar that you as a business owner want your customers to see.
- Dashboard: The application also has a dashboard that helps users access the basic features from one place and efficiently manage operations.
- Track Revenue: You can track the revenues through detailed overviews of paid and unpaid appointments. You can follow the no-shows, the time spent on each appointment, and the fulfillment. This helps in keeping the track record of all the calls.
- Secure Transactions: The software is HIPAA Compliant. It handles customer information very securely. The software heavily protects the payments made through the payment avenues such as PayPal and Stripe. Single and multiple bookings by various clients are protected end-to-end. The security is also extended to any mobile device.
- Integrations: The software can also be integrated with various other softwares like Braintree, Facebook, FreshBooks, Google Analytics, MailChimp, WordPress, etc.
Drawbacks of using Acuity Scheduling
Most of the users are happy with the platform's simplicity and functionality. But there are various criticisms are well.
- Reviewers dislike the app's inability to limit the available appointment slots every week.
- There are instances where the blocked periods do not sync with Outlook or various other calendars.
- Various reviews showcase the application's lack of HIPPA support for lower-cost tiers. This issue is a challenge, especially for the smaller businesses that don't need the features of upper-tier versions of the app.
Pricing
- Free Trial: Yes
- Freebie: Yes
- Emerging Plan: $15/month
- Growing Plan: $25/month
- Powerhouse Plan: $50/month
Acuity Scheduling is an app available on Insiderapps.com
2. CoSchedule
This marketing suite is a family of Agile Marketing Productsthat helps coordinate the process, projects, and teams along with scheduling and assisting in booking various appointments. This software helps publish more content to generate a higher ROI by increasing the team's productivity and work capacity. This platform helps complete the work and the booking schedule cycle.
This software also helps eliminate the endless email threads, unnecessary meetings, and desk drops byes. This software also helps deliver the projects on time and develop a high-performance team that completes the projects on time by balancing the predictability and flexibility of your work.
The product also has a calendar schedular to see the entire strategy and the meetings in real-time. It helps get the global visibility of every project and campaign in a cross-functional calendar.
Features of CoSchedule
- Social Media Analytics
- Campaign Optimization
- Social Publishing
- Social Engagement
- Collaborative
- Asset Management
- Calendar Scheduling
- Event Registration
- Real-Time Chat
- Real-time scheduling
Pros of using CoSchedule
- Centralization: One of the most critical aspects of this software is that it helps streamline the scheduling process through Coschedule.
- Automated Updates: By keeping everything centralized, one can easily link all your projects to the calendar. Coschedule intelligently updates all the project dates and the appointment dates according to the new updates.
- Efficiency: The entire purpose of this platform is to streamline the management of the marketing endeavors to finish the projects. Along with that, it also helps in streamlining the scheduling process as a whole. This helps in online assistance as well.
- Ease of Use: This software has a learning curve, but it is pretty easy to use after that. The managers and schedulers can easily navigate through the platform and use drag and drop to configure and plan appointments.
Cons of using Coschedule
- Price: Although there is a free trial with the platform, the software is a bit pricier than the other tools that provide similar functions.
- Complicated Layout: The user interface is quite complex and hard to navigate. The layouts for the platform are tediously complicated.
Coschedule is an app available on Insiderapps.com
3. Let's get digital
Let's get digital is an online platform that offers to create events that need to be remembered. With multiple networking features, possibilities for interaction, and the option to personalize the looks of the platform, this is one of the top central performing scheduling and online assistant apps for teams.
- There is a possibility to use the app to enhance the in-person experience.
- The software is highly customizable to fit the brand's aesthetics as well.
Features of Let's Get Digital
- Abstract Management
- Agenda Management
- Barcode/Ticket Scanning
- Customizable Branding
- Customizable Templates
- Badge Management
- Event Registration
- Guest List Management
- Lead Capture
- Real-Time Chat
- Real-Time Updates
- Registration Management
Pros of Let's Get Digital
- Let's get digital is a robust conference platform with great networking features.
- The software also can schedule and meet one-on-one with the attendees, and the speakers are great.
- The software has an excellent user interface, and it is straightforward to use and provides the customers with the ability really ow the event and give the customer support.
- The platform helps in setting up the entire sales to operations and support on the event day.
Cons of Using Let's Get Digital
- The entire payment system and the various integration with the third party take a lot of time.
Let's Get Digital is an app available on Insiderapps.com
4. Bookafy
An appointment system scheduling solution, Bookafy, is designed to automate the scheduling process for phone calls, meetings, text reminders, confirmations, and calendars. This is a cloud-hosted software that helps in saving some real-time. Providing online scheduling services for businesses and clients, Bookafy has a customer-facing design with a very intuitive user interface that is customized to suit the needs of every business.
This tool is the perfect solution for solo entrepreneurs, agencies, freelance startups, and prominent people working in small setups. The quality integrations with the market leaders play a helpful tool that can be tapped for successful business ventures.
This platform manages and schedules phone calls, appointments, and meetings. The system simplifies the process where the users can book, cancel, reschedule and remember arrangements and works without too much hassle. Additionally, the software also provides the users with the following:
- A Free website: Bookfy provides custom-made websites to its users for free, where it makes the users and the clients to access the business and schedule the appointments.
- SMS Text Reminders: Automated confirmation messages are sent and saved in the customer's calendar. The application sends the customer and the manager automated reminders before the appointments. Furthermore, it also provides custom messages and reminders with each appointment confirmation.
- Customer Marketing messages: Through Bookafy, the customers can create custom marketing messages on the appointment details and send these messages via its integration with SmartList.
Features of Bookafy
Other than the features mentioned above, there are various other benefits Bookafy provides its users.
- The appointment scheduling features include group scheduling, meeting room booking, and payment processing.
- It also has various services like Feedback Management, Project Management, Email Integration, Data import, and much more.
- Bookify also provides Third-Party Plugins and google and integrations.
- The system also comes with 24/7 customer service that is fast and reliable.
- Various languages are also supported: Iframe, WordPress, Facebook, Wix, Squarespace, etc.
Advantages of Using Bookafy
- Bookafy is very comprehensive and offers excellent personal support.
- It has 24/7 customer support as well
- It allows the clients to choose their appointments directly from the website.
Disadvantages of Using Bookafy
- With the various integrations, there is a severe lack of PayPal integration within the software.
- The software is not customizable as to the branding design.
Pricing
- Free Trial: Yes
- Free: Yes
- Pro: $7/user/month
- Enterprise: $11/user/month
Bookafy is an app available on Insiderapps.com
Conclusion
Stable Scheduling increases productivity by 20x times. It is on the managers to improve their schedule stability. The competitive retail and corporate environment of the business and economy raises the need for a proper scheduling system.
The various scheduling apps and online assistant applications help business owners schedule their resources effectively and efficiently. And for this, the need for effective scheduling softwares is always the priority.
- It promotes the exceptional time management of the supervisors and the employees.
- It helps in eliminating preventable misunderstandings and time wastage.
- It enhances better work/life balance.
- It enables the managers to cut down labor costs, especially related to overtime.
Thus, the need to have a good scheduler can never be underestimated.
