Solution
Automated appointment booking
Customers book appointments online in free slots calculated from calendars, qualifications and travel times. Confirmation, reminders and rescheduling run automatically, and the appointment appears in the calendar and the ERP. For simple cases an off-the-shelf booking tool is enough, and we will tell you so.
Who it is for: For service providers, practices, service teams and consultancies with many appointments a week.
Starting point
How the process runs today
A customer calls or writes, someone checks several calendars, suggests times, waits for a reply and enters the appointment. Rescheduling starts the whole thing again. Reminders depend on someone remembering. Outside office hours, booking is not possible.
What it costs
- The phone interrupts work for tasks that involve no advice.
- Missed appointments cost revenue and cannot be refilled.
- Travel times and qualifications are factored in by hand, or forgotten.
- Enquiries outside office hours go to competitors.
Process
What the process looks like afterwards
01
Request
The customer selects the service and location on your website.
02
Availability
Free slots are calculated from calendars, qualifications and travel times.
03
Booking
The appointment is confirmed and entered in all calendars.
04
Reminder
Reminders go out by email and SMS, and rescheduling takes one click.
05
Follow-up
In the ERP or CRM, the appointment becomes an order, a work report or an invoice.
Integrations
Which systems are connected
Your staff's calendars remain the system of record. The booking system reads availability there and writes confirmed appointments back.
- ERP and accounting
- bexio
- Abacus
- CRM and communication
- HubSpot
- Twilio and SMS gateways
- Calendar and collaboration
- Microsoft 365
- Google Workspace
Make or buy
Off-the-shelf or custom?
Off-the-shelf software is enough if
- One person or a small team offers appointments of fixed length.
- There is no dependency on rooms, equipment or travel times.
- The appointment does not need further processing in the ERP.
Finished products for this case: Calendly, Microsoft Bookings, Calenso and industry solutions for practices.
Custom is worth it if
- Appointments depend on qualification, location, vehicle or materials.
- Field sales and service teams need routes with realistic travel times.
- An order or work report should be created automatically from the appointment.
- Booking should be part of your customer portal.
Effort
Price range and duration
- Price range
- CHF 8'000 to 25'000
- Duration
- 3 to 8 weeks
Non-binding estimate, excl. VAT.
What drives the effort
A standard tool set up and connected to your calendars costs less than CHF 5,000. Custom scheduling logic with resources, travel times and ERP integration defines the upper range.
The price becomes binding after the fixed-price discovery phase.
Automated appointment booking
Frequently asked questions
Why not simply use an off-the-shelf booking tool?
For simple cases that is the right choice, and we are happy to set it up for you. A custom solution pays off when resources, travel times, qualifications or your ERP need to feed into scheduling. Standard tools cannot do that.
Can several staff, rooms or vehicles be scheduled?
Yes. The scheduling logic takes calendars, qualifications, locations and buffer times into account. For field sales and service teams, it factors in travel times between jobs.
When do you advise against custom software?
Whenever a standard product covers 80% of the case and the remainder is not a competitive advantage. For accounting, simple appointment booking or a small shop, there are good off-the-shelf solutions. We will tell you so in the intro call. Custom software pays off where several systems have to work together or your process departs from the norm.
Let us talk about your case.
20 minutes are enough to find out whether a custom solution is worth it for you.