Google Calendar Should not Be Your Default Scheduling Software

Google Calendar is a popular choice for small businesses. But is it the best way to manage your scheduling needs?

It doesn’t matter if you run a coaching business, a business that teaches, a business that provides household services, or a studio for health and wellness, appointment-based businesses present unique challenges.

Let’s face the truth, scheduling can be a major problem. You are responsible for scheduling clients and managing the internal business calendar of your company.

Your appointment-based business is a source of revenue. Your first impression can make or break your client relationships. A reliable, accurate, and up-to-date scheduling program is essential to give your clients and potential customers the seamless experience that they deserve from professionals they book an appointment with.

Google Calendar may seem like a good choice for small businesses. But, is it the best way to manage your scheduling needs? Let’s take another look.

Google Calendar was never intended for business use.

We all love our Google Accounts, Google Workspaces, Google Maps and Google Calendars for their ease-of-use and integration with our default calendar apps on our Macs, PCs and mobile phones. Although Google Workspace is extremely robust, and free to use, it does not have the necessary features to effectively manage your appointments.

There’s good reason. Google Calendar and the Google Calendar App were not designed for business scheduling. Google Calendar was initially designed to help you and your team stay on track, but not for your customers or clients.

Although Google Calendar has seen a lot of improvements since its launch in 2006, it still lacks the core workflows and automation processes offered by online scheduling platforms like Acuity Scheduling.

Do you need to remind customers about appointments? Google Calendar is not able to assist you. You are looking for an all-in-one, easy-to-use system that allows your clients to book their time online with you? It’s not possible to find this with Google Calendar, the Google Calendar App or Google Calendar.

Google Calendar may seem like a good choice for small businesses. But, is it the best way to manage your scheduling needs? Let’s take another look.

Google Calendar was never intended for business use.

You can book online if you have a basic website and have created a Google Calendar public for your clients to view your availability.

You’re asleep at night, and a potential customer visits your website to find a link to their Google Calendar. This link is linked to your Google Account.
A potential customer will review your schedule and want to book a service. The user requests only half an hour, which is less than the actual service time (including prep time).
Potential customers never get confirmation that an appointment has been made. They send you an email at 1:00 AM to confirm. You’re still sleeping.
The next day you wake up, check the Google Calendar request. However, before the appointment, you will need to clarify the time and have the potential customer fill out an intake form.
You then send an urgent, lengthy email to your potential customers before you finish your morning coffee. Because time is money.
As the potential customer went to another provider, you never heard back from them.
Because they had a bad experience with the Google Calendar App, the customer lost their way.

Acuity is an online scheduling platform that allows you to set up your business 24/7 in order to respond to the changing needs of your customers.

Acuity is able to finish what took six steps and potentially lost revenue with the Google Calendar App in just seconds.

Potential customers navigate to your site and find your personalized Acuity scheduling page embedded.

Potential customers can view your current availability and see all your products and services in one place. They can also self-schedule and book the time and a half they require.

Acuity sends you an appointment confirmation by email or SMS. It will also send intake forms and new client inquiry forms. To prevent other customers from booking the same time slot, your online scheduler automatically blocks that time.

ACUITY SCHEDULING CONTROLS AVAILABILITY

It can be difficult to sync multiple employees who work in different locations and have their own calendars. It is essential that you can seamlessly manage and track all employees. It’s not a good idea for customers to miss appointments, get incorrect times, or show up to find out who they are.

Acuity Scheduling allows you to manage multiple locations and employees. It only shows your clients what calendar you have set up and makes it easy for you to change your schedule as necessary.

ACUITY SCHEDULING ORGANIZES CLIENT INFORMATION AND YOUR SCHEDULE

Acuity Scheduling can do simple tasks that the Google Calendar App cannot. It automatically adjusts for time zones and lets clients cancel and reschedule easily. Additionally, it updates your calendar automatically and sends out automated reminders to ensure that clients are on time.

You can also request all information upfront from your clients. Acuity Scheduling may ask clients to complete intake forms prior to booking so that you have all the information and details you need about them.

Google Calendar can’t be automated

For solo practitioners and micro-teams, small business success is about minimizing admin time and focusing on what you love. Automation is the best way to achieve this.

Calendar reminders are necessary for calendar events. Calendar reminders are essential because they have been shown to reduce no-shows by up to 80%. To keep your appointment-based business growing and healthy, smart, automated reminders are essential. You can spend every minute you spend reminding customers via email, phone or SMS about their upcoming appointment. This is time that could be used to grow your business.

Although it may take a while to set everything up, online scheduling platforms such as Acuity can save you hours by automating administrative tasks and integrating them with other apps you already love.

These are just a handful of the features and processes that Acuity can automate:

Get notified when new bookings are made by synchronizing your calendars
Integrate Stripe, Square, and PayPal to accept online payments
Gift certificates, packages, memberships, and group classes are not enough.
As part of HIPAA, feel confident that client information is kept private.
Sending clients personalized reminder emails and texts can reduce no-shows
Video conferencing integrations allow you to meet clients from anywhere and hold virtual meetings.
Share your calendar easily via Facebook, Instagram or email
Everything can be customized to reflect your brand experience
Appointment reminders via email or SMS
Automated anniversary and birthday messages
FreshBooks makes it easy to book appointments with clients. FreshBooks provides profitability information for each client with the Project profitability feature.

Privacy, HIPAA Compliance and Data Security not Included

Data security and privacy are a constant concern in our world. The security of customer data must always be a top priority, regardless of whether you are complying with HIPAA or following the ever-evolving privacy standards.

Despite a variety of new features and functionality, as well as a new UI, the free standard version of Google Calendar doesn’t include HIPAA compliance or data security features.

You will need to upgrade to G Suite by Google Cloud if you want to protect your customer data while using Google Calendar.

Acuity is committed to protecting the privacy of its customers and users. This is why we invest heavily in creating an all-in one solution that is not only simple to use but also has rock-solid security (including HIPAA compliance).

The Google Calendar App’s Bottom Line

Google Calendar is a powerful, free tool that busy business owners use to organize their day. Although it has many new features, you can connect to your Google Account and manage event creation. It also integrates with Google Hangouts. However, as a scheduling tool for appointment-based businesses, it is not very effective.

The good news is that you don’t have to abandon your Google Calendar. Acuity seamlessly integrates into Google Calendar, making it simple to view your schedule from any calendar app. This allows you to book time with customers without having to sacrifice customer happiness.