WordPress for Business- Save time and Money- Part 2

WordPress for Business - Booking Plugins

Allow WordPress to book your company's appointments through your site. This is Part 2 of a WordPress for Business Series - View Part 1 Here One of the great things about WordPress is that you can have online booking without relying on an external paid service.  If you have a manual process that requires customers to call in to book an appointment with your business, you would benefit greatly from a booking plugin. A WordPress plugin such as Bookly or Birchpress allow customers to choose a date and service for your site with little to no intervention on your part. Here's an example- Let's say you have a physical therapy business that needs to set up appointments with your clients. They would be able to go to a particular page on your WordPress site and choose a time that they can be seen.  The times the services would be available are pre-configured on your end.  Customers will be able to choose date & time, the service that they need, and also the therapist for a particular time. Clients can even pay through your website for the session in advance. Appointments can synchronize with a cloud-based service such as Google Calendar. A confirmation email sent after payment reminds the client about the appointment- it doesn't get any easier than that.

Professional Image from your WP site

Your customers will automatically perceive a greater level of professionalism from your business. You may not offer a service such as therapy, but maybe consultation time for potential leads, you can still use a booking plugin. the way it would work is this:

1. A potential client would go to your website to a particular page and choose a date and time.
2. They would choose whom to meet with.
3. The client would receive a free consultation based on a pre-set the amount of time of the appointment.
4. A confirmation email would be sent from your website informing the client that the appointment is set.
5. The person in your organization that they are meeting with would receive an email from the booking plugin making them aware of the appointment.  If the calendar is synced with let's say, google calendar, the appointment would automatically show up for them.

You can very easily update the days and times that you're not going to be available by setting "holidays".  If used correctly, you would have totally automated the booking for your business. When you use this strategy along with some of the others you will learn about in this series you will truly have saved yourself time and money.