Payformix online form builder was never intended to be a scheduler. It just happens to be really good at making appointments — as a side effect of sorts.
Appointment schedulers are very complex software systems. Good appointment schedulers require vast amount of time spent on research and development. Good appointment schedulers use dedicated data centers. Good appointment schedulers are rarely developed by a couple of teenagers in a garage.
Your first option in choosing your future appointment scheduler is the most solid one — the integrated customer management software package. Many commercial appointment schedulers are vertically integrated into turn-key software solutions developed for specific industries. Beauty salons get their schedulers as a part of their salon management software, health clubs do their appointment scheduling by using membership management platform add-ons, even doctors are getting started with online appointment scheduling via their medical practice management web portals. Having appointment scheduling tightly integrated into the customer management software brings tangible benefits — minimal duplication of customer data, reduced training requirements, easy access to appointment history, better security, etc. If your industry has enough money bubbling through its financial arteries, you will be offered the integrated solution built for businesses just like yours. Take the blue pill and buy it. Pricing? Expensive. Free ride? Not here.
What if your industry is not so fortunate to have the integrated appointment scheduling / customer management software developed for it? Never fear. There are still many options to choose from — among dedicated online appointment schedulers. There are literally hundreds of websites that provide online appointment scheduling services. Choosing the one that is right for your business may not be easy, though — each appointment scheduling service is differentiated from its peers by pages after pages of marketing bullet points — all the functionality that has been requested by the users over time, and that was, of course, implemented by the vendor. Some of the accumulated functionality is truly remarkable and really useful. Some — not so much. Most dedicated online appointment schedulers come with extensive calendaring, import-export, accounting, messaging, and even payment integration functionality. Subscription fees are mostly reasonable. Free options do exist — few and far between.
What’s left? Well... hand-made 'contact us' forms. These have been usually coded be a geek nephew of a business owner. Or her own son, if she is so lucky. Crude and simple, these 'contact us for an appointment' forms surprisingly account for the vast majority of appointments made over the Internet.
Have you read this far still looking for options? You may want to try Payformix.
Let’s look at the parts that a good online appointment scheduler consists of:
Decent online appointment scheduling software will glue all of the above together.
Good appointment scheduler will keep the user manual under 10 chapters. Excellent web scheduler will give you everything in 3 clicks.
Payformix makes web forms. Really good web forms.
An online appointment scheduler happens to be a specialized version of a web form. A form with some calendar availability rules built in. Let’s see how fast we can build one!
This example shows how Payformix can build a fully functional online appointment form in just 45 seconds — this is not a video, but a live demo. You may notice that the appointment form is far from simple: it has complex availability based on multiple appointments per day, with exact times, this appointment form also limits available appointments to weekdays only. This online appointment scheduler does not skip on customer intake form part either. All of this in just 45 seconds! You can test the live form here.
This is the Payformix approach — we make appointment forms simple.
If you would like build your online appointment forms on Payformix patent-pending technology, you can get started here:
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