What is Zoho Bookings?

Zoho Bookings, at its core, is an online tool your clients can use to book appointments with you. It gives you complete control over managing those scheduled events.

Any service, such as a salon or clinic, requires a mutually agreed upon time with a client. Scheduling that contact time according to your customer's convenience (as well as your own) is of the utmost importance. Zoho Bookings efficiently takes care of this part of your business, so that all you have to do is publish your services. Clients will be able to access this information anytime online, choose a required service, choose an available date and time of their choice, and book an appointment with ease.

As the service provider, you will be able to view and manage bookings from the admin interface. Information about appointments and clients is consolidated and available online, helping you analyze and derive deep statistics about your business and customers. Cancellations and rescheduling of appointments is seamlessly handled; your clients and staff get notified of any changes via automated reminders.

If you are using other Zoho Services, you can connect them all with Zoho Bookings. For example, you can automatically create a lead in Zoho CRM when an appointment is booked in Zoho Bookings. Using the built-in integration with Zoho Meetings, you can also offer online meeting services.

With a host of features, such as online payments, synced calendars, setting available/block/buffer times, mapping your custom domain, and much more, you are set to manage all your bookings in one place, no matter where they come from, whether from web, phone, email, sms, or in person. Zoho Bookings will help you manage the two things that matter the most: your bookings and your time. 

Why do I need a booking software?

If you own a business, you've likely found that managing client appointments demands a substantial amount of effort, and is arguably as important as the service you provide. Most clients would also agree that the process of booking appointments can be inconvenient without an easy-to-use online tool.

Imagine you are booking an offline appointment with a doctor- the first thing you do is check your calendar. After checking your schedule, you zero in on your convenient time slot, call up the doctor's clinic, and participate in some brief small talk, only to find out that they are not available for the time you picked. So you stay on the phone while struggling to find out your other available time slots in your calendar. After a while of back and forth, you get a time slot that works for both of you. Finally, you add that appointment to your calendar, along with a reminder as a backup. What should be straightforward turns out to be a time-consuming and bothersome task.

As for the business, the above scenario could result in losing clients who have been trying to reach them, and are on hold while they were trying to schedule an appointment. Not to mention the hassles of rescheduling or canceling appointments.

Having booking software eliminates the hassles mentioned above for both, the clients and for business. To put it briefly,

Zoho Bookings helps customers by:

• Eliminating the need to call or email, as well as going back and forth to finalize the time
  
• Keeping their privacy intact, since they don't have to speak to anyone
  
• Not having to repeat the entire process in the event of a change in plan. They can reschedule or cancel with a few clicks.
  
• Sending automated reminders and notifications
  

It also helps employees by:

• Providing one place to manage all appointments, and to review business analytics
  
• Eliminating concerns about forgetting an appointment, or updating it
  
• Automating reminders. No need to keep an alarm or manually send reminders to customers.
  
• Defining working hours, availability for staff, buffer time between services, and other such configurations for efficient service
  

High Level Features of Zoho Bookings

• One-on-one services - Offer appointments for one-on-one services, which can also be configured as online meetings. Define the duration for each meeting, set the price or make it free, define buffer duration between the meetings, and assign staff for the meeting. For example, this could be used to make an appointment with a hair stylist or a doctor.
  
   
• Group booking - Offer appointments for group bookings, which can also be configured as online meetings. You can set the total number of seats that can be booked. Define the date and time of the event, duration of the event, set the price (or make it free), and assign staff for the meeting. You can configure this as a recurring event of 2 types - Drop In and Series, which are meant to repeat until the specified date. A drop in is used when the same event is to be repeated, and the customers can select a date on which they will attend. For example, this could be used for a single day workshop. A series is used when the configured dates will be booked as a whole by the customer in a single transaction. For example, this could be used for a series of online training classes.
  
   
• Resource Booking - Offer bookings on assets, charged for the amount of time for which they are booked. For example, this could be used for booking laptops or vehicles.
  
   
• Custom Domain - Map your business domain, and integrate the booking page with your website.
  
   
• Customer Portal - Dedicated pages for customers to sign in and view their bookings.
  
   
• Collaboration - As a super admin, you can involve managers and staff in the booking process. Managers can add and reschedule bookings for all staff members. Staff can add and reschedule bookings for themselves.
  
   
• Online payment - Enable full or partial online payments for customers, using built-in integration with payment gateways such as Paypal, Stripe, Authorize.Net, Forte, Razorpay, and Worldpay.
  
   
• Integrations - Pre-defined integrations with SMS service providers, such as Twilio, Clickatell, Hoiio, ClockWorkSMS, ScreenMagic, and Nexmo. Integration with Zoho Meeting is built-in to facilitate online meetings. Custom functions can be used to integrate with almost every other third-party service.
  
   
• Custom functions - Deluge editor to write custom scripts. Deluge is our in-house scripting language, which can be used to perform operations like API calls, database queries, data manipulations, and a more. For example, let's say that, for every booking, you want to push the customer details to Zoho CRM, or any other external CRM. This (and much more) can be achieved using Deluge scripts in Custom functions. Learn more about Deluge here. 
  
   
• Sync calendars - Sync your Zoho Calendar, Google Calendar, and Zoho CRM Calendar, to avoid overbooking or double-booking. When you are booked, that date will be blocked in all calendars. Dates already blocked in other calendars will be disabled in the booking page.
  
   
• Reports - Monitor popular services, staff engagement, appointment status, and other such statistics. Generate booking or revenue reports, based on staff, service, and appointment type or status.
  
   
• Time Zones handled - Bookings for services across various time zones are handled seamlessly. Time zone conversion is done automatically, so that customers can view the timings in their time zone.
  
   
• Reminders - Greatly reduce no-shows with reminders. Send automated text and email alerts for your staff and customers, when sessions are booked, or re-scheduled, or cancelled.
  
   
• Work, Break, and Block times - Configure business hours at the staff and service level. Allow staff to customize availability, break, or block times, and set buffer time between services. 
  
   
• Predesigned themes - Pick one of the pre-designed themes with various color options for the booking page. Customize the title and description, and upload an image for your booking page.
  
   
• Customizable booking options - Configure booking based on staff or individual service, or bundle all services in one booking page.
  
   
• Social media links - Predefined footer links to your social media accounts in Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.
  
   
• iOS and Android apps - Zoho Bookings is available in iOS and Android, from which customers can book appointments on the go.