Jesse Lawrence
As the lockdown starts to relax, businesses are starting to look at ways to open and operate, but maybe not as normal – The New Business Normal! Supermarkets have been running one-in-one-out type policies for some time now, however other businesses might struggle to work in the way.
Scheduling appointments may seem like an awful lot of effort, especially if they are only 5-10 minute appointments, but what if you could do this with very little work? In this article, we look at how a low a hidden gem from Microsoft – Bookings - could make this a reality.
For businesses that run on appointments, it is easy to become overrun with the job of managing bookings. But what if you could put the power into your customer’s hands to do the hard work? That is where Microsoft Bookings comes in. You put your service types in with their length of time and price. Set up your calendar for availability and now it is possible to book services into the calendar.
The clever bit comes in with the booking page – Microsoft Bookings creates a web page that allows your customers to book appointments, with automatic reminders etc. This means that making bookings, checking availability, editing appointments etc can all be done by your customers, leaving you to get on with your work.
Now that we are in this New Business Normal, businesses are having to review how they work. Of course, the examples from the Microsoft video means that it becomes obvious for a salon or a pooch parlour to run their business using Microsoft Bookings. However, now that we need to consider social distancing, an increasing number of businesses are using Bookings to limit the number of people on the premises. Estate agents, accountants, legal firms and so many other businesses are using bookings to stop people just walking in off the street.
Microsoft Bookings is part of the Microsoft 365 offering (formerly Office 365) and is available with most of the license types. A one-month free trial is available for many of the license types, and depending on your requirements you may be able to make use of the 6 month free trial. If you would like to discuss getting started, please do not hesitate to contact our team, who will be able to help you with getting started.
Things are changing in the world of business, which we are calling The New Business Normal. We are releasing a lot of helpful articles for businesses to consider during this change to a new world.
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