One of the greatest things you can do to engage your customers with your business is to give them the ability to book an appointment with you directly from your WordPress website.
The convenience this offers your customers and clients is something you can use to grow your business. The easier you make it for them to engage with your business online, the more clients you’ll see coming through the door because, in this day and age, we all know how busy people are and being able to make appointments online is a time-saving exercise for both parties.
If you’re like most of the small businesses out there, you probably have a WordPress website setup with your personalised theme and related content with a blog and various information pages.
If one of these is a contact page with a phone number or email address to make an appointment you’re probably missing out on a fantastic opportunity to add the online appointment scheduling feature to your WordPress website.
Here are a few cool plugins for your WordPress website that’ll give you functionality for online appointment booking. Consult your web host or designer about getting one of these services added onto your website.
BirchPress
The BirchPress Scheduler is a wonderful option with all round great features set with easy to use functionality that is extremely important for the small business customer.
The greatest feature set of BirchPress is that it will sync to your other calendar systems such as Google Calendar, iCal, Android, and Outlook. You will find the PayPal link system great for taking payments for bookings made online with credit cards or their own PayPal account.
Booking Calendar
This option is a great because it is free, and is very simple to use. One of the oldest booking calendar systems for WordPress, it’s been around for a long time and has matured enough to be considered a pretty solid and stable platform for bookings.
There are technical aspects to this option that your WordPress developer would be interested in but all you need to know is that it’s super easy to use and your customers will love it.
However, it does lack the integration to outside services that you will find in more complicated options.
Appointment Calendar
This plugin is more for a busy individual with limited appointment times available. The base plugin allows you to set unavailable times for when you’re out of the office or unavailable.
Included are email notifications for bookings and reminders for you so you don’t miss anything. You’ll also benefit from the PayPal payment gateway to take booking fees at the time of booking.
Great option all around.
While these are my top 3 you’ll find many more available; we’re only scratching the surface here. Contact your WordPress developer for more information on what suits your business needs and your website best.
What’s your favourite online appointment setting plugin? Please leave a comment in the comment section below.
image: freedigitalphotos.net by digitalart