Zoho Bookings Issues We are facing

Zoho Bookings Issues We are facing

Hi team,

Here are list of issues we are facing with Zoho Bookings when migrating from other platforms. Sorry there is a lot but the bookings app need to be functional and practical for people to actually use it and not-cause MORE problems by being so basic and not customisable to each business. 


1: SMS reminders for staff 
There should be time limits on these reminders to make them useful. EG. if a new booking comes in more than 4 hours from now we don't really need to get a reminder, however if it is a last minute or on the day booking, this is something that would be useful to get updates for!

2: Customer Verification
Having duplicate customers is just not enough. Allowing only one person per phone or email is vital to track our customers. Most other Zoho apps have this feature which allow its to operate seamlessly and integrate with other apps. Not sure of any business that would allow a guest and not want to know if they have returned! To eliminate this I suggest there could be the OPTION to turn off guest registrations since you have the option to turn off register guests. Something to keep our database clean!

3. Staff Meetings
We have staff meetings weekly in our workplace but there is no ability to make an appointment and add other staff members in it to ensure all our calendars are blocked off at the same time. 

4: Blocking Off time
If the above option is not available, it would be great if there was a way to categorise and label our blocked off time so it was trackable.. eg. staff meetings, personal stuff, lunch, training ect. That way we can report based on that time blocked off. If this time could also have the ability to apply reminders that would be good too. In the calendar currently it doesn't highlight or take mention of any blocks unless you are in the day view. It does not allow your to edit the blocks or colour code them to make it stand out like HEY you need to do this today. We use this calendar for more than just appointments so its essential we can document those things correctly. EG. on the calendar view of your day today it will show your blocked times and your lunch break times in order. That was you can see your day ahead and account for those periods. When you click on the block it opens up the calendar view showing the notes you have written with the option TO EDIT which is not currently an option. Screenshot for an example. 

5. Resources
The recourses feature is cool however I have come across some roadblocks. For starters it doesn't assign anyone to it, so who is supposed to take care of that? When you get a reminder email about it from a customers perspective its says - you have an appointment with null as there is no way to customise that email for a non appointment service. Where does the resources calendar live? How do we see who is coming in for that and when? EG. We have a Hyperbaric Chamber we use in clinic. There is only 1 and therefore only 1 customer can use it for the hour at a time. If I have many consultants i still need to assign that resource booking to a  consultant but at the same time be sure that no one else has booked that time slot out. Im finding that i cannot do that in its current state. 

6. Staff SMS
I am not sure if it is just our organisation but staff are not receiving any text message reminders. Me as a super admin am receiving all notification during all possible testing type but the staff are not. Am thinking the phone number is updated in the wrong spot or something I am not sure? Can you assist with tackling why this would be the case? Is the phone number pulling from the profile page or the Zoho one account profile page? Or is there something else I am missing?

7. Zoho forms Integration
As a medical practitioner, we need to take notes of our consults. We use Zoho forms currently however we see great potential in the ability for these two apps to be integrated. Having the ability to fill out a form by clicking a button while seeing that customer in the consult and storing a copy of their notes in their file makes sense. I can see this being beneficial to almost every industry. Or at least having a way to access them quickly. Perhaps a short term fix would be to implement the use of custom buttons to navigate to other things? The notes feature currently is quite basic. MOST other booking platforms has some sort of note taking history quick access or forms storage within. Please consider this. 

8. Staff Access to settings
Staff cannot edit a customers details which i find quite odd. If they spelled their name wrong or need to update a phone number this is not possible. I find it quite strange that that would need a supervisor to do this for them. I think it would be much more beneficial to allow us to choose staff restrictions settings as they may differ per industry. Since our staff are not in the same state as thier manager sometimes, it is really unproductive to have to ask for basic changes that are not considered an issue for our staff to access. Hope that makes sense.

9. Bookings
Why cant we edit an appointment once it is made? You only have the choice to reschedule or cancel.  If that is not possible, then why when i press the DO NOT notify the customer of a cancelled booking, it does anyway? Would this not then seeing these cancellations in the reporting? Shouldn't that be an appointment unit of measurement? How long does it take for bookings to show in the reporting? I also think it would be ideal to make the customers name in the bookings clickable to see their profile and have access to their previous bookings if any. I noticed you cannot edit a booking once it is marked completed either even from a SuperAdmin. I think the ability to edit would make sense. EG.. you cancelled cos you thought they were a no show but showed up last minute anyway. Its just seems annoying not to have the option that is all.

10. Ability to see other peoples calendars in your same workplace
This is important for us. The details are hidden but the ability to see their availability is important. Can this be something we look into? 

Thanks for your time.
M

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