Businesses always find themselves managing multiple appointments and activities challenging in a daily schedule. Some tasks are only half done, or either it is missed. The reason behind this is because of using old ways of managing tasks, which is time-consuming and leads to errors.
It is time to digitalize the appointment process if you feel you miss many of the appointments. You need a calendar that makes appointments simple, which is also important to boost the business.
Dynamics 365 Calendar is one such calendar software that can be used to manage appointments effectively. Read below to understand how managing the appointment can boost the business growth:
What is an Appointment Management System?
Appointment management systems are intended to help organize the activities and meetings. They are useful for companies that give appointment-based services to their customers. These services have a client interface that allows the users to schedule appointments on the website.
Customers no longer have the need to call the business, and the business also has no need to maintain paper calendars and planners. Appointment management tool like Calendar 365 automates the appointment and scheduling process.
These appointment management tools help in appointment rescheduling appointment cancellations with online solutions. With these features, businesses can manage efficient appointment scheduling.
Simplifying Appointment Scheduling
Appointment scheduling is a simple and efficient process. The ways in which scheduling simplifies the process are:
1. Direct integration with CRM
The usage of third-party extensions for CRM connectivity is needed when using independent appointment scheduling software, and this costs more. Also, it restricts users' ability to customize their experience. So, the most economical and efficient method is to use a Dynamics 365 Calendar plug-in.
There is no need to use a third-party extension because the Dynamics plug-in integrates with the CRM. Customization is made possible with the Dynamics plug-in. You can ask users for any custom information with this form in line with your CRM entities.
2. Recurring and collision-free meetings
There may be meetings that can be on a daily basis, like the standup meeting with various teams. Sending invites for these meetings daily is not an ideal option. So, you need to have a feature in the software that can work on those requirements.
The other important feature that is highly in demand for the business is the collision-free appointments. You don't need to schedule a meeting when the invitees are unavailable. Dynamics 365 Calender provided solution to this issue to make error-free appointment bookings.
3. Cancellation and rescheduling
It is very common to reschedule or cancel the meeting. The challenges with this frequent disruption are that it impacts the efficiency of the work, and the time slot will be wasted. So, if it is properly informed or known earlier, the time may have been used wisely.
What you can do for cancellation issues is to have a flexible policy, and any changes in the meeting timing will be updated in the calendar in real time. The right meeting time will be available for others so the time can be used protectively. You can also set a time limit for the canceling or rescheduling of appointments.
4. Availability management
You can see all of the active tasks and the resources with Availability Management Calendar 365. You can assign the resource that is accessible for new assignment.
Understanding your team's calendar can help you assign tasks more effectively, especially when they are high-priority and need to be completed. You can see all the action that takes place with Calendar 365. Assigning tasks to resources is beneficial to prevent overwork.
5. Reminders
Without proper reminders, most of the meetings would never take place. So, if you want everyone to show up at the right time, it is always advisable to send proper reminders.
You can send a meeting reminder with the appointment management tool. Email reminders are beneficial for office meetings and ensure productivity. This ensures that all the meetings happen at the right time and with all persons.
6. Customization
A difference in appearance between the appointment booking page and the website's theme or brand color doesn't look nice. Complete customization is necessary for the perfect calendar. It should be adaptable enough to fit your workflow and brand's general look. Dynamics 365 Calender is fully configurable in terms of functionality and appearance.
Benefits of Appointment Management
Appointment management offers multiple benefits for businesses to boost their growth. The important ways in which appointment management helps businesses include:
1. Simplify the appointment booking process.
Booking appointments in a traditional way that is very slow and monotonous. If many customers call you to book an appointment, to manage all this, you might need to hire a staff, which can increase the cost. This way of appointment booking is not reliable, and there is a high chance of error.
Appointment management software makes all these processes smoother. It is easy to share the meeting link with others, and they can choose the preferable time. After they confirm the timing, meeting details will be sent.
2. Saves time
It might be a lot of tasks if you do everything by yourself. Creating or assigning tasks to your team members is much easier with the Dynamics 365 Calender plug-in. When the data from CRM appears on your calendar, you can drag and drop details. Tasks and meetings can be divided by color based on the projects. It becomes easier visually to find what you are seeing.
Any adjustments or modifications to the status of tasks can be easily made from the calendar as it is synced with the CRM. So, you can update a task's status from the calendar, and the CRM will also show the change.
3. Avoiding time conflicts in meetings
Many meetings get canceled or have to change their timings as invitees may be busy with other meetings. This is one of the most common situations that many of the employees go through. The meetings have to be rescheduled because of the conflicts in time.
If the calendar reminds you that the invitee that you have selected is busy with other work, it can be of great help. So the meeting organizer will know about the status of the invitee. This is made possible with effective appointment management tools, and this avoids time conflicts.
4. Build a strong bond.
The key to any successful business is making a strong connection with the clients. To build a strong connection, you must build trust. With appointment management, you will have a new opportunity to build trust.
When your customers find it easy to contact you, it builds their trust. So, it would be a great chance if you personalize the marketing efforts and get customers to trust you. For building this trust, the right appointment is important, and this can be ensured by appointment management software.
5. Calendar sharing
It might be challenging to plan meetings when there are several invitees, as you have to take into account everyone's schedule. It takes time to plan a meeting after asking each invitee about their availability. You may easily avoid this by using the calendar plug-in to share calendars with colleagues.
Whoever is planning the meeting can browse their calendar and then set up a time. So, you don't need to wait for invitees to respond with a yes or no to being available at a specific time.
6. Fulfill multiple requirements
A company may have different departments, and different departments can function in different ways. This ultimately means that they would have different requirements. For example, the marketing team would have different requirements than the sales or development teams. So, the calendar needs configurations that are based on user types for the right use.
The calendar plug-in has different features that help you to configure according to your requirements. These plug-ins allow you to save the calendar with the different entities. So, the users will have the flexibility to choose the entities according to their needs and save them for future use.
7. Helpful insights
Businesses can get the chance to learn a little bit more about themselves through the use of appointment management tool. These tools can help you identify your busiest times of day and decide whether you need to add more staff to meet demand.
You would also be aware of the times and days when fewer appointments are planned. With this data, you can adjust how many hours you work. Businesses can plan more effectively with all this data and insightful information which would ultimately result in business growth.
Final thoughts
The Dynamics 365 Calender offers an easy and fast way to improve productivity. You can know about the employee productivity based on their completed task within the deadline. Also, users can manage their activities and tasks to independently update their task status. To take advantage of effective appointment management, Dynamics 365 Calender is a tool you should consider.
