Besides enjoying what they have chosen as their job, accountants, physical therapists, yoga instructors and hairdressers have one thing in common: they all need to manage appointments and bookings for their clients. But none of them want to worry about phone calls and emails to schedule hours. This is where Microsoft 365 Bookings comes in handy.

Surprisingly, many small and midsize companies still use a whiteboard in an office to communicate their schedules. And although a few other tools are available, smaller companies sometimes use Microsoft Excel for scheduling as well.

What is Microsoft Bookings?

Microsoft Bookings is an online and mobile scheduling tool that takes your business appointment management to a new level of professionalism. It is an add-on to your Microsoft 365 Business plan and provides a simple custom website that allows customers to book a meeting, reschedule an appointment and receive email reminders. Integrated with your Microsoft 365 or Office 365 calendar, it helps customers of small businesses and companies to quickly find available times and avoid double-booking.

Consider Bookings if:

• You still do paper bookings

• You regularly interrupt your workday to schedule appointments

• You make mistakes with appointments (e.g. double-booking or getting the time wrong)

• Your client contact list is a mess

• A receptionist sounds great, but you can’t afford one

How Microsoft Bookings Works

Nowadays, we are all inundated with emails, social media notifications and meeting requests at work. With that in mind, Microsoft created a smart app that helps customers schedule meetings directly with your employees. It’s easy:

• Create a custom-branded, public-facing calendar (or more than one for different needs).

• Customers can access the Bookings site 24/7.

• Customers find and book appointments by themselves.

• Bookings sends a confirmation email and calendar invitation.

• Customers can reschedule or cancel through Bookings if they must.

• Bookings tracks all confirmations, reminders, and changes for you.

You can run Bookings as a stand-alone site or embed the app in your company website, making it look as though you coded the scheduler yourself. Microsoft lets you add custom branding to create a consistent look and feel. You can add custom fields, such as an alternate email for the customer or whether a down payment is required.

Your customers will only see the Bookings calendar that you publish online for the services, times, and staff that you choose to register.

Microsoft Bookings is fast and simple to use, and it's appropriate for all careers and industries.

Is Bookings included with Office 365 or Microsoft 365?

Bookings is available and active by default for Microsoft 365 Business Premium, Microsoft 365 Business Standard, A3, A5, E3, and E5 customers worldwide.

Added Benefits of Bookings

As an extension of Microsoft 365, Bookings syncs easily with Outlook calendars. This can help you avoid double-bookings.

The Facebook integration allows you to accept bookings from your page via a “Book Now” button, which can help many small to medium-sized businesses. Plus, customers will enjoy easier booking, as Facebook fills in their contact information.

There are also Android and iPhone mobile apps available. This helps keep a mobile business up to date on its bookings.

Appointments booked as online meetings create a unique link to enable virtual meetings via Microsoft Teams.

Bookings can also help you avoid last-minute cancellations. You’re able to control how much advance notice is required to cancel an appointment.

Additionally, Bookings helps build your company’s customer database. The appointment manager gathers input such as names, phone numbers, and postal and email addresses all in one place.

Bookings can also help those who prefer booking appointments on behalf of clients. Enter the details, and Bookings takes care of confirmations, reminders, and updating your database.

Final Thoughts

There are many online scheduling tools available. Bookings’ integration with Microsoft tools that many businesses already use is a big advantage. It’s affordable, too.

Don’t waste hours of every week setting up, recording, and rescheduling appointments. With Bookings schedule management, you can get back to doing the work you like best.

Don’t want to take the time to upgrade and integrate Bookings? Our IT experts can do it for you. Contact us today at hello@zakini.com, or give us a ring at 305 400 0992!