Blog

We made some big updates to our Online Appointment Scheduling tool this week. They’re all are geared at helping you better manage your business and staff with Agendize. All of these features are available to you right now when you log in to your Agendize account and manage your schedule! Here’s a list of the improvements with more details below:

• Personal Meetings
• Recurring Appointments
• Conflict Management
• Recovering No Shows
• Interface Updates/Simplifications

Personal Meetings

Now add Personal Meetings and Recurring Appointments

Sometimes a staff member might have a personal appointment, or a one-on-one meeting with a supervisor. Our new tool helps you schedule personal meetings with team members, eliminating the chance of double booking an appointment with a customer for the same time.

Recurring Appointments

Do you have clients with regular appointments every week? Stop wasting time by booking them manually. Schedule a recurring appointment with an automatic reminder instead. It’s important to note that as the schedule administrator you and your staff can add recurring appointments, but we chose not to allow clients to do it themselves, to keep you in control of your calendar.

Conflict Management

Now that we’ve added recurring appointments, what happens if that team member already has an appointment scheduled during one of those times? Double booked customers can turn into very angry customers. We added a conflict management feature that will alert you of any conflicts created by the new appointment, also giving you the option to reschedule. This feature will open automatically after you schedule an appointment with conflicts, and will also be visible on your Scheduling home page.

Recovering No Shows

Helping you to avoid no shows is a big benefit of an online appointment booking tool like Agendize because of features like automatic reminders to make sure clients don’t forget their appointments. What do you do if your client still does not show up to their appointment even after sending them multiple reminders? Don’t give up, but don’t be perceived as pushy either. Now you can click on the appointment and use the No Show button to send your client an email with an offer to reschedule the appointment.

Interface Updates

You may also notice many interface changes. Our goal is to simplify and speed up every task from the initial setup of your account to your day-to-day management of your business, and I think we’ve taken some big steps in that direction with this update.

I hope you find these new features helpful. If you have any questions or just want to chat, please don’t hesitate to call or chat with us using the links at the top and bottom of this page, or you can contact me directly on Twitter at @mattfogel.

Matt Fogel

VP Product

Title too mean? Maybe a little. The truth is people often judge each other by the way they look, dress, what car they drive etc. Focusing on the inside of a person, not the outside and finding the good parts in everyone is what counts. Agreed? Discovering the types of blogs a person reads can tell us a lot about someone. It can indicate common interests, hobbies, dreams, goals, hidden secrets and more.

I figured a great way to get to know the Agendize team is by exploring the content we read daily. Also…we didn’t want you judging us on our looks.☺

Here’s what a few of us had to say:

Phil – Project Manager

Tech: www.gizmodo.com

News: www.cyberpresse.ca/blogues

Celebrity News: www.wwtdd.com

Sports: www.deadspin.com

Humor: www.petitpetitgamin.com & www.stuffyouwillhate.com

✩ Fave Blog: Gizmodo - I love gadgets too much!

Alex – CEO & Founder

Tech: http://www.gizmodo.fr

Marketing: http://sethgodin.typepad.com

News: www.rue89.com

✩ Fave Blog: Rue89 – I learn new stuff, discover new faces and news that you don’t usually find on the big news channels. Different points of views help me broaden my thoughts about people and life in general.

Chris- UX Designer

Tech: http://www.engadget.com

Design: www.lukew.com/ff

News: http://www.lefigaro.fr/blogs/

Humor: http://www.chucknorrisfacts.com

✩ Fave Blog: http://www.good.is

Matt – VP Product

Tech: http://www.techcrunch.com

Company: http://www.37signals.com

News/Everything: http://www.boingboing.net

Entertainment: http://warmingglow.uproxx.com

Humor: 27bslash6.com

Other: http://w5.montreal.com/mtlweblog

✩ Fave Blog:  Boing Boing - It’s really well-rounded, covering news, technology, music, literature and any other weird stuff going on in the world.

Nancy – Marketing Communications Manager

Tech: http://mashable.com/tech

News: http://blogs.independent.co.uk/

Marketing: http://www.copyblogger.com/

Celebrity News: http://www.zacktaylor.ca/

Other: http://www.treehugger.com/

✩ Fave Blog: Treehugger – interesting stories for the green and geek in me!

We opened the question up to our friends on Twitter. Montreal-based Web Developer, Alex Poitras was the first to answer our tweet: LifeHacker for sure! http://www.lifehacker.com/

Q: If you could only choose one blog to read for the rest of your life , what would it be? Post your answers in the comments section below. Our ✩ fave response will win $15 of free Agendize credit.

Nancy E.

Sharing is caring. In the online world, sharing is caring about visits, conversions and your brand. You’re probably already familiar with the “Share” button, but do you really know how it can benefit your website or blog?

“Share” helps spread your content through the web, helping readers share, save, bookmark and email posts and pages using Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Digg, Delicious, MySpace and many more social bookmarking and sharing sites. We’re also working on adding Google+ to the list!

Using a share button is an easy, proactive and free way to expose your new products, posts, press releases event details, infographics and more. You don’t need to be a programmer to create, install or manage a Share buttons. Simply copy and paste the code to your website and blog in minutes.

From a SEO point of view, sharing content that contains backlinks to your website will drive more traffic and increase your link popularity. With the latest changes to Google’s algorithms, social signals seem to be carrying more and more weight. The more your content is shared, the better you’ll rank in the search results.

Do your share of sharing. Share this post with your friends on Facebook and Twitter.

Nancy E.

Earlier this month, @BrianSolis blogged about “The Number One Least Asked Question in Social Media…Why?” He discussed why asking “Why” is important in all aspects of business, including social media. As we embrace a social media culture, Solis proves that Marshall McLuhan’s world aphorism “the medium is the message” (and palindrome: “the message is the medium”) is still valid today:

“In an era where information is democratized and influence is equalized, the message is now also the medium. There are prevailing cultures unique to each social network. What you create for Twitter is different than what you might say in Facebook and certainly not at all how you would say it in Google+. “

The real importance in understanding McLuhan’s quote is to remind us of the potential dangers of new “mediums” (technology)…like instant messaging.

@BrianZimm1 says that “digital conversations via email, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn can be very dangerous to the future of communication.” Research proves that a message is correctly interpreted approximately 20% more over phone than email. Without verbal communication, many opportunities of connecting with customers, leads and colleagues are lost.

McLuhan said, “Control over change would seem to consist in moving not with it but ahead of it. Anticipation gives the power to deflect and control force.”

Therefore, if we discover that a new medium brings along negative effects in the way we do business, it’s our duty to intervene during the technology’s development and set it on the right track. Maintaining the right balance between digital and face-to-face conversations is key for maintaining healthy business and personal relationships. Every instant messaging tool such as email, text message and Twitter, must be complemented with a human touch engagement tool like Click- to-Call. By adding the right ‘combos’ of communication tools to your websites, blogs and marketing campaigns, you can keep up with new technology, without neglecting the importance of verbal communication via phone calls, video chats and live meetings.

Nancy E.

Building a business is like building a relationship. We all slip up at some point and make mistakes. It’s how we deal with our shortcomings that really matters…and learning from them.

As a dissatisfied customer, I learned three important lessons in customer service today:

1. Don’t annoy your leads/clients
2. If you do irritate them, respond to their frustration in a timely manner
3. Not matter the situation, be polite and professional

Receiving  customer complaints via web forms and email is proving to be less and less effective. The main reason: response time. Our follow up expectations have skyrocketed in this digital age of real-time data.

How long is too long? Many users would agree that a response within 24 hours is necessary. Others are less patient.

So you or one of your employees made a boo boo. As a business owner, what are the right steps to take when responding to your customers’ complaints online?

Help your customer one to one:

• Use Click-to-Call and Live Chat on your site so people can get in touch with you immediately (and free). Don’t anger your customer more by forcing them to wait on hold and pay for it.
• Set up Twitter/Facebook pages and monitor them regularly. It’s important to know what people are saying about your company–good and bad.
• If a customer complains, respond honestly, transparently, professionally and address their concern. Don’t try to hide and ignore bad reviews/Tweets. It can backlash into a bigger issue.

Always try to move the conversation to a more private setting. Offer to help your customer over email, chat or phone. New ways to complain in real-time are developed every day. Don’t risk getting a bad reputation and put your customers first.

Nancy E.

With social media booming from all corners, adding Google+ to the family this week, we’re realizing it’s easier to host events online in order to increase and organize attendance. From a business point of view, online brand visibility (via webinars, Live Chat, Livestream etc.) is essential for companies wanting to reach more people and gain trust.

Summer months are ideal for hosting online and offline events since guests have more time, energy and enthusiasm to network and participate. So if you plan on hosting a webinar, gala, BBQ or wedding that will be promoted on your website, blog, or mass email make sure to use the appropriate tools and methods of communication to spread the word.

Adding a Save to Calendar button to your event guarantees you won’t waste your time or money on guests who arrive too “fashionably late” or never show up at all. Also, the automatic email and text messaging notifications function is proven to increase attendance by 40% and more. It takes one simple click from your invitees to save your date to their personal calendars, making your event info accessible offline and on the go.

Other features include:

• Compatible with Google Calendar, Outlook, Lotus Notes, Entourage and iCal
• Customizable user interface and API available
• Easy-to-install by copy and pasting code to website, blog or email template
• Google Analytics integration helps track all of your guest’s actions and your company’s networking/conversion goals

Nancy E.