Does your appointment scheduling software end up rewarding bad behavior?
I don't know if this has ever happened to you, but it happens on a weekly basis to me. And it's so incredibly annoying. Yes, I'm about to rant about appointment scheduling software. It's a silly thing. But it's not the software that bothers me. It's the behavior that it encourages and supports.
What do I mean by that?
Most software (other than embedded systems) interacts with people. Not a big deal. But not all software allows people to interact with each other. And when it does, the bar has to be pretty high to make sure it's not annoying.
Consider this silly example. What if every time you wanted to do a Zoom call with me, it just popped up on my screen and started showing you whatever my camera had in its view? That would be bad, right?
I need to “answer” the call in order to allow you to see my camera, right? But if Zoom did that, we'd say that the software allowed (or even encouraged) bad behavior.
You with me so far?
So my question is whether your appointment scheduling software functions like a bad actor.
You likely know this. I'm not a fan of Calendly.
I'm not a fan of Calendly because I feel like I regularly experience the poor judgement of the people using it, and it allows them to do it.
Let me walk you thru what I mean.
Let's say you want to meet with me. To pick my brain. To get advice. In this realm (assuming you're not booking me via my Clarity account), I'm doing you the favor. So who's calendar should be the primary one? Mine, right?
But that's not what happens. What happens is that you want to meet with me, and then you send me your Calendly link.
- I click the link.
- I look to see when you're free.
- I have to check my own calendar to see if I'm available.
- If not, I have to click on another day and start again.
Who's doing all the work? Me. The one who you're asking the favor from. It's poor behavior.
Of course, Calendly doesn't force people to do this. But it allows people (a lot of them) to do it. And it's bad form. That's why I can't wait to tell you about a solution that is so much better!
I finally found my favorite appointment scheduling software. Want to know what it is?
The software is called SavvyCal. It's a young software startup, but it's incredible.
The first thing to note is that it shows you my availability when I send you a link. That's not hugely different than Calendly, except the interface is better. I don't blindly pick a date and see which slots are available. I see a calendar with what spots are open.
That's fantastic but it's basically what you expect from appointment scheduling software, right?
But hold on, there's more.
It also has that little toggle at the bottom that says, “overlay my calendar” and it does that very thing. It shows the two calendars together so that you can see when both folks are free.
If that were all it did, it would still be awesome. But there's one more part I really like.
Remember when I told you about Bookly and the work it takes for most software to connect to my corporate calendar to help know what's really available?
Well, SavvyCal took care of it with ease. The availability isn't my personal (and empty) Google calendar. It let me connect it to my corporate calendar (which has all my meetings). When I integrated things with Bookly, I had to do a decent amount of work to make the connection solid. SavvyCal took care of it easily.
Are there any downsides?
The only one is that I can't charge for appointments yet.
So my Clarity account continues to do its job.
Trust me when I tell you SavvyCal is the best $12/month you'll ever spend if appointments are your thing!