Should I Use an Appointment Scheduling Tool for Prospective Web Design Clients? | EP 775

Should I Use an Appointment Scheduling Tool for Prospective Web Design Clients?

Read the full episode transcript below:

00:28 Tim Strifler: Hey everyone welcome to another episode of WP The Podcast, i’m Tim Strifler my co-host David Blackmon will be back with us in a few days as i mentioned the last couple days he is traveling uh he’s a digital nomad so he has his airstream and he’s going around to different places. And so today’s travel day it’s the day that we needed to record more episode and so he wasn’t able to to make it, so he’ll be back with us in a couple days. Today we’re going to be talking about should i use an appointment scheduling tool for prospective web design clients. Now if you haven’t seen these calendly is probably the biggest player but there’s a lot of these different tools out there where you can send a link to someone that wants to book a call with you, and they can see your available times. And so they can click it put in their name and email it books it on your calendar it sends them a calendar invite and it integrates with like Zoom for example or you know whatever conferencing other tools you want to use, and it automatically creates that Zoom link and sends it to everyone in the calendar inviting it’ll send reminders stuff like that. So it’s a really cool tool and so we’ve gotten questions before people say hey should i use this for my web design business like does this make sense now i’m not against it but a couple things i think because i’ve been on the other end of this where you say hey can we schedule a call and someone sends you a link to their appointment scheduling tool. Um it kind of feels a little bit pretentious like that you have to go through their scheduling tool to book a call and it kind of puts puts it on. So when you’re on the other end of that puts it you puts it on your shoulders to figure out a time and it’s like they’re too busy to be bothered with trying to figure out a time so they’re sending you the scheduling link. And so it could come off a little bit and personal in my opinion and so i again this is just my opinion you can do whatever you want but i typically recommend doing it the old-fashioned way. You can use your scheduling tool yourself to then say hey here’s my available times and then send it to people you know based off, of what the scheduling tool shows you. And then you book it yourself but to me that’s a way more hands-on personal feel good customer service type of thing to just say hey here’s when i’m available what works for you, rather than going through this appointment scheduling tool that feels very robotic. So that’s my own opinion, i think having that personal touch when you’re trying to win a client it makes it feel more personal rather than you’re some super important you know. Celebrity that can’t be bothered unless it works with their schedule you know so anyways that’s that’s my two cents. Now if you’re someone who is like an agency and you are doing a lot of paid ads a lot of lead generation and you’re sending people to a forum that qualifies them to see, if they’re a good fit for you and then if if you know they put in the right things in your dynamic form and they’re they are a good fit then it it it sends automatically. Sends them to your call scheduler you know that sort of thing. Okay yeah great that you know at that point sure it can be a useful tool and stuff. But for the average web designer you know one person solopreneur maybe a small team that sort of thing and you’re getting referrals, sent to you and stuff just doing it the old-fashioned way i think is a more personal touch. Um in my opinion. So anyways not to knock anyone who uses it if you if you use it and you like it and you found it to be helpful and your clients find it helpful and they don’t get turned off by it or anything um reach out let us know we’d be happy to do an update to this episode, i’ve never done it because that’s kind of how I feel. So i don’t have experience on the other end of it i’m sending clients a link to book a call if they they’re interested. So that’s my my deal, yeah would love to know what you think if you use it or haven’t used it or if you have an opinion on this at all definitely reach out. Tomorrow we’ll be talking about how to avoid blog comment spam i’ve been getting a huge increase in spam so it’s been on my mind. So we’ll be talking about that so until then take care bye.