Calendar Booking
Calendar booking comes in handy for the customer to book a meeting or a service appointment or a call almost instantly. It allows customers to see when the support agents are available and enables them to schedule a meeting or call independently. It also allows users to build appointment forms for their business' services within CRM.
Calendar Booking for Appointments, Meetings and Calls
Let's try to understand its function with the help of an example. Travis recently purchased a software from Zylker Inc. However, he needs a product demo to get a better understanding of all the features. He reaches out to the support team via email requesting the same. This form of communication raises significant concerns about the possibility of his email being overlooked, or the meeting being scheduled during a time when he is unavailable.
It is to avoid these issues that the Calendar Booking intends. A customer can choose the appropriate time for the meeting based on their availability, enter the required details, and Voila! - the meeting is booked. In the likelihood that the customer is not available at the scheduled time, they can reschedule or cancel the booking. This will help the customer bypass the series of calls or emails made to the support team and independently book a meeting with the respective User or Team.
Once the setup is completed, a meeting URL is generated that can be shared with the customers, allowing them to book a meeting.
Availability
Permission Required
Users with permission to Manage Calendar Booking can create Team Booking, and users with permission to create a Meeting or Call can create User Booking.
Setting up Calendar Booking
To set up calendar booking
Go to Calendar and select a date or click Day, Week, or Month.
From the Options drop-down, select Calendar Booking.
Alternatively, you can go to Setup > General > Calendar Booking.In the Manage calendar booking page, click Create Calendar Booking and do the following:
Creating and Setting up Appointment Booking forms
Services
Appointment booking forms are created for services that exist in CRM. For instance, AC installation by an air conditioner company, or an oil change by a car service center, or a haircut by a salon. These services will be recorded in the Services module in CRM.
For instance, Zylker Salon provides various services such as:
Haircut
Hair spa
Keratin treatment
Manicure/Pedicure
Appointments
It is a meeting or an engagement set aside at a specific time slot for the services that are booked by customers. The appointments booked for a business' services are recorded in the Appointments module in CRM. For example:
Hair cut for Krisha
Nail treatment for Stacy
Microdermabrasion for Jeremy
Appointment Forms
Service-based industries can build appointment booking forms within the CRM system and embed the same on their website or add them as a link on any medium (social media, email, etc.).
Here's an example of a form that Zylker Salon built for Keratin Treatment.
The city-based parlor offers numerous services, such as:
Keratin treatment
Hair fall treatment
Hair cut
Hair color
Manicure/pedicure
Microdermabrasion
Threading
Waxing
Note. As of now, when a customer tries to book an appointment using the same email ID and phone number, we do not allow the booking and show an error message accordingly.
The email also allows the customer to reschedule/cancel the appointment made.
To reschedule an appointment
Click Reschedule from the email.
You will be redirected to the bookings page.Click Reschedule Appointment and continue from step 1.
To cancel an appointment
Click Cancel from the email.
You will be redirected to the bookings page.Click Cancel my appointment, and your booking will be cancelled.
How are the forms created?
You will first need to 'Enable Services' in the Services module.
Next, you must Create Services before you can create an appointment booking form.
To create an appointment booking form, go to Setup > General > Calendar Booking.
Under Appointments, click Create Calendar Booking.
Create your Appointment Booking Form.
Fill in the following:
Booking Form Name
Booking Form Description (Not mandatory)
Service Name
The Appointment Scheduling information has two parts.
The appointment details that need to be collected from the user.
The appointment details that are not collected from the user, but are still required for tracking inside the CRM system.
Booking User Information will contain user details to be collected from the user (customer) such as:
Name
Email
Phone Number
Depending on the business' preference, specify which module the booking users (customers) are tracked inside CRM.
Specify whether you want a new contact to be (automatically) created even though the booking user's (customer's) details are not already available in CRM (in the Appointments module).
Appointment Scheduling Settings
Set up how your appointment must be scheduled. It will include:
The minimum notice required for scheduling appointments - The shortest lead time a customer must give before booking a slot (eg. appointments can't be booked less than 2 hours in advance).
Maximum scheduling window - The furthest into the future a customer is allowed to book an appointment (eg. no bookings beyond 30 days out).
Maximum appointments accepted per day/week - A cap on how many appointments can be booked within a given day or week to control workload and availability.
Appointment form
It is split into four tabs -
Appointment Booking Screen
Appointment and User Information Screen
Booking Confirmation Screen
Booking Failure Screen
Note. All four tabs (or screens) can be customized.
The 'Appointment Booking Screen' contains a calendar - allowing customers to choose their preferred date and time for an appointment.
In the Data tab of Canvas, all the fields that are collected in the appointment/user configuration will be listed there with the label name defined in the configuration.
The 'Booking Confirmation Screen' and 'Booking Failure Screen' are screens that a customer will be re-directed to (if the business has opted for the same) on successful completion or unsuccessful completion of their appointment.
Detailed Page of Booking form
The booking form insights will appear on this page. They include:
Number of visits
Number of appointments booked
Number of times re-scheduled
Number of appointments canceled.
Besides, appointments booked via the booking form will all be shown on this page.
Other actions that can be performed on this page include:
Meetings and Calls forms
Similar to the Canvas customization that we saw for Appointments, the team has made it possible for you to customize your Meetings and Calls' forms as well.
Calendar booking can be categorized into two parts for meetings and calls:
Team Booking
User Booking
User booking
User Booking follows the same straightforward booking flow as Appointment Booking, making it just as easy for customers to schedule a session. Unlike Team Booking, it doesn't include host information, so customers won't see or choose a specific staff member. This makes it ideal for single-provider setups or when any available staff member can handle the appointment.
Booking for Meetings and Calls
After a participant fills out the Workshop Reps Planning form, a record is created within the Meetings module.
Similarly, in the Calls module, too, a record is created after their details are filled out in the booking form.
Share Calendar Booking
There are three ways in which you can share the link with your customers.
Copy Link and share it with your customer via any medium (Social Media, SMS, Email, etc.)
Embed the code in your website.
Add the link as an Email Signature.
Copy Link
To copy the booking link
Log in to Zoho CRM.
Go to Calendar.
Click Options and choose Calendar Booking from the drop-down list.
In the Manage Calendar Booking page, click More against the booking you want to share.
Click Copy link.
Embed Calendar Booking
Zoho CRM allows you to embed the calendar booking in your website by three ways:
Button - The calendar booking will be embedded as a button and upon clicking, the booking page will appear as a overlay.
Link - The calendar booking will be embedded as a link.
In-line - The calendar booking will be embedded on the web page and the customers can book a meeting or call right from there.
Read More: Embed Calendar Booking
To embed calendar booking
Under the More (...) option, select Add booking form to website Embed against the booking you want to share. This can be achieved in the List View page as well as the record's Details View page.
In the Embed Options popup, do the following:
Choose Button/Link/Inline.
Enter Name for the button and link.Select Theme, Font color, and Background Color
In the embed code section, click Copy Code, and the code can be pasted on your website's HTML source code.
Click Done.
Creating Duplicates
The team bookings that were configured can be duplicated and the configuration can be modified based on your requirements. You can create duplicates by clicking More > Duplicate. This can be achieved in the List View page as well as the record's Details View page.
Delete Calendar Booking
User with appropriate permissions can delete the calendar booking if they are no longer necessary.
To delete a Calendar booking
Under the More (...) option, select Delete. This can be achieved in the List View page as well as the record's Details View page.
In the delete booking confirmation popup, click Delete to delete the booking.
Activate and Deactivate Calendar Booking
When the booking you created is not necessary at the moment, you can always deactivate them. By deactivating the booking remains unchanged except that it will be inactive.
User with appropriate privileges can activate and deactivate a calendar booking.
To activate/deactivate a Calendar Booking
In the list view page, you can toggle the status button to activate/deactivate.
The alternate option is to go to the record's details view page - under the More (...) option, select Mark as Inactive.
Note.
You can create 25 active Team Bookings and 3 active User Bookings.