Microsoft has
introduced a new service on its Office 365 suite called Bookings which will help customers’ book appointments as businesses will be offering a webpage for the same. Microsoft claims that Bookings will help reduce missed appointments and no-shows and keep business on the go.
According to Microsoft, the webpage works on desktop as well as on mobile phone, allowing companies to link the scheduling page from an email that is sent to customers from company’s website or Facebook page.
Centralized booking calendar
Bookings and customer information can be managed from anywhere with a centralized booking calendar giving a complete view of upcoming appointments. Enterprises can reschedule, cancel or re-assign an existing booking to another available staff member. And also quickly create a new booking if the customer is talking in-person or over the phone by using the day “split view” to quickly see which staff is available at a given time. Bookings also provides a customer list to help stay in touch with customers. Each time a customer creates a booking using company’s scheduling page, Bookings automatically creates a contact for them in company’s Customers list inside Bookings.
There is also an option of adding the bookings on staff calendar as customer is not the only one who can forget appointments and according to Microsoft, it works great with Outlook calendar in Office 365. Enterprises can create different booking pages and easily add new staff members as their workforce grows. There is no additional cost for creating multiple booking pages, and additional staff members aren’t required to have Office 365 subscriptions.
How to get Bookings
Bookings is now rolling out in First Release to customers who subscribe to the Office 365 Business Premium plan and will roll out to all Business Premium customers worldwide in the coming months. Once it rolls out, anyone with an Office 365 Business Premium subscription can access Bookings in the app launcher within the Office 365 web experience. Microsoft is also planning to launch a companion application that will allow designated users with an Office 365 subscription to manage and see all appointments as well as all customers’ information when they are away from office.
