Set Up Online Appointment Scheduling with Calendly

Tell me if this sounds familiar. Someone contacts you from your website and you want to talk to them on the phone. So you send an email and ask if they have time to talk. They call and you’re busy and miss the call. You call back and miss them. You email again asking for a time to talk. They respond with a day and time but you’re busy. You respond with a different day and time but they’re busy. And round and round it goes.

Stop the madness! It doesn’t have to be like that. You are probably wasting a lot of time with failed calls and emails trying to just find a time to touch base. There’s a better way.

Try Calendly Instead

Calendly is a simple scheduling software that can save you time and improve your life! How much easier would it be if you could send an email and tell someone, “Please check out my calendar and pick out a day and time that works for you.” And then the person on the other end can see all your availability, pick a day and time that works, and immediately get that added to your calendar. That’s what Calendly does.

(Calendly does not have an affiliate program, so my post is purely because I love it, and not because I’m getting anything out of referring it.)

It’s super easy

You create an account, connect it to your Google or Microsoft calendar, and then set up the days and times you want to be available. If you have an appointment on your calendar already, then that time is already blocked off. This is very helpful if you have outside activities that would interfere with your ability to take calls. For example, last week I had to have a new washing machine delivered when mine died. I was given a “window” (you know, sometime between noon and Tuesday) to deliver the appliance and so I added that window into my Google Calendar, and immediately those times were no longer available in Calendly.

It has lots of options

• Don’t want to take calls on Mondays? (I hear you!) You can do that.
• Need buffer time between appointments? You can do that.
• Need to have different availability on different days? You can do that.
• Need the ability to schedule different types of appointments of varying lengths? You can do that.
• Need to collect extra information during the scheduling? You can do that.
• Want to limit the number of appointments that can be scheduled in one day? You can do that.
• Need to have your client pay for their appointment? You can do that too!

There are a lot of great features in Calendly that lets you set up scheduling that works for you!

It’s free!

Kinda sorta. There is a free version that works great for most types of appointment needs. I used the free version for at least a year before I upgraded. The free version has more limited options – you can only have one type of event and you can’t remove the Calendly branding are a couple of limitations.

There are two other levels, Premium and Pro that are $8 and $12 per month respectively, and in my opinion, that is super reasonable.

It’s extendable

If you have a paid account, you can use Zapier to set up countless automations. (It’s no secret I’m a Zapier addict.) For example, if a client schedules a training call with me, then it automatically triggers a Zoom meeting to be set up and an email gets sent to the client with all the details of that call. There are tons of options to set up automations based on Calendly appointments.

You can accept payments

If your appointments or consultations are paid, you can integrate with Stripe or PayPal and accept payments at the time of scheduling.

If you struggle to schedule appointments with clients, Calendly is a great option to simplify your life and make organizing your appointments much easier! Stop wasting time with the back and forth of trying to find a mutually agreeable time. Want to schedule a time to talk to me about your website needs? You can see my availability here!