What is Calendly
Meetings, calls and gatherings are an important part of most professionals and businesses, but they can also be a very time-consuming activity, especially when it comes to planning, which often involves endless email exchanges to check the availability of different participants. What about when meetings involve multiple people in different time zones? Organizing a simple call can be a time-consuming and energy-intensive task.
And that's where Calendly (https://calendly.com/), an appointment scheduling software that takes care of everything related to scheduling an appointment so that you can focus on more important tasks.
Founded in 2013, Calendly integrates with your calendars and allows you to set preferences for calls and meetings. Team members or potential clients can then schedule meetings with you by choosing an available time slot that fits the preferences you set.
Paid versions offer team-friendly features and integration with popular business apps, such as HubSpot, Zoom and Salesforce.
How Calendly works
Calendly is a great program for anyone looking to simplify the process of scheduling meetings, whether with potential clients or team members. Calendly syncs with a wide variety of popular business apps, including tools you probably already use.
Calendly offers a wide range of functionalities (https://calendly.com/why-calendly) developed to simplify life for users. Let's see them together.
Ability to set meeting preferences
With Calendly, you can limit the number of calls and meetings per day and set a time limit between them. You can also set a minimum amount to avoid last-minute meetings.
When people set up meetings with you through Calendly, the times available reflect these preferences.
Different types of meetings
With Calendly, you can choose from different types of meetings to meet various needs. You can select 15-minute, 30-minute and 60-minute meetings or set your own duration.
Allow people to schedule a one-on-one meeting with you or schedule time with multiple team members at once. You can also host multiple guests at once for webinars and trainings.
Time zone
Organizing meetings with people in different time zones can be a real challenge. Calendly solves this problem by detecting the different time zones of the participants. People planning meetings will see your availability in their own time zone.
Metrics
You can track campaign planning activity, guest engagement and participation with Calendly's built-in metrics and reports.
You can also access Calendly from mobile devices to check important metrics at any time.
Workflows
The new Calendly feature, Workflowsallows, as in the marketing automation, some automation, like text messages when emails are booked, email reminders, thank you emails, feedback surveys and more. If there are other workflows you wish to add, Calendly allows you to create new ones.
Team functionality
Calendly gives you control over team scheduling with a standardized, scalable process (https://calendly.com/for-teams). It's secure, easy to manage, and integrates with your team's favorite tools, so you can get everyone working as efficiently and effectively as possible.
Help Center
The Calendly service center offers a series of useful articles divided by topics. The website also includes blogs, videos, case studies and a community forum.
However, Calendly's direct customer service is limited. With the free plan, support is only available via email. Premium and Pro users have access to live chat, but phone support is not available.
Benefits of Calendly
Calendly saves you time in scheduling meetings, calls, webinars and gatherings, both internally within your company and with potential clients. Integrations with video conferencing, CRM and other popular business apps help you stay organized with little or no work on your part.
Calendly effectively eliminates sending emails about different time zones to check availability of attendees. Basically, you set your preferences and Calendly handles the rest for you.
Integrations
The integrations (https://calendly.com/integration) are Calendly's flagship feature, with the ability to connect your scheduling software to popular business apps, from calendars to video conferencing to CRMs.
Calendly integrates securely with Google, Outlook, iCloud and Office 365 calendars. You can connect up to six calendars and Calendly checks availability to make sure you don't double book or have overlaps. Calendly integrates directly with GoToMeeting and Salesforce and you can connect additional apps via Zapier.
You can also connect Zoom to your video conferencing account, with the details automatically saved to your Calendly event.
Calendly automatically creates conferences, adds meetings to your CRM, and sends reminders to your guests before meetings. If you charge a meeting fee, the software accepts payments via PayPal e Stripe.
You can also embed the Calendly link on your website and include it in marketing campaigns, allowing easy online planning for potential customers.
Opinions and reviews on Calendly
Meetings and email exchanges are the two main factors that involve a huge waste of time and energy in the workplace. With Calendly you can make both of them faster and easier. Take a look at what users think here: https://www.g2.com/products/calendly/reviews
Prices
You can choose between a free plan and three paid options. Calendly offers several pricing plans (https://calendly.com/pricing), ranging from zero to $ 12 per month per user.
With the free Calendly plan, you don't have access to any of the team features and you can only schedule one type of event. The free plan does not include any customization, such as customizable email reminders or choosing a color scheme when adding Calendly to your website. Also, the free plan offers limited integration. Calendly will integrate with calendar apps, but will not integrate with Zapier, Zoom, GoToMeeting, Stripe, PayPal, Mailchimp and various other business applications.
To access some of the most important features of Calendly, you need to upgrade to Premium for $ 8 per month or Pro for $ 12 per month. These fees are charged per user, not per team. When you select your plan, you can choose to be making payments monthly or annually.
The Premium plan does not integrate with Salesforce, HubSpot, Mailchimp, Stripe, PayPal or Google Analyticsbut integrates with Zapier, Zoom and GoToMeeting. Other features exclusive to Pro Plan include SMS notifications, the ability to redirect clients to your site after scheduling a meeting, and color customization. With both paid plans, you can remove the Calendly branding and upload your own logo.
Then there is the plan Enterprise, with features and price to be determined by contacting the Calendly team directly.
You can opt for a 14-day free trial. Once your trial period has expired, you will automatically switch to the free plan unless you choose to upgrade: https://calendly.com/
