Nobody likes playing email ping-pong to schedule meetings. Not your SDRs and definitely not your clients.
Using appointment scheduling software solves this problem and frees up your sales team's time for high-value sales activity like closing deals, instead of bloated admin tasks like sending up to eight emails to schedule a single meeting.
Online meeting scheduling tools come in all shapes and sizes, each with distinct use cases for different teams, niches, and businesses.
Trying to find the right one for your reps? Skip watching endless product demos with this list of eight of the best online appointment-scheduling software for sales teams.
Free Trial: Yes
Base Plan Price: Starting at $14 per month.
Integrations: Salesforce, Zoom, Google Workspace, Microsoft Outlook.
With 4.81 stars on Salesforce AppExchange, Cirrus Insight has one of the best appointment scheduling tools for sales teams to cut down on back-and-forth email chains.
With Cirrus Insight Calendar Sharing, you can share your real-time availability in your sales emails with a unique calendar link. And the best part? Every activity syncs with Salesforce — updates, changes, and recurring events.
Cirrus Insight also offers a Calendar API that serves up your availability on your website based on specific criteria from internal workflows, payment or ERP systems.
Smart Scheduler lets you intelligently match leads to the right salesperson’s calendar using custom personalization criteria and predetermined load-balancing rules.
Build your workflow to prioritize customer availability and display your entire team’s schedule on demand. Distribute all bookings evenly or pre-filter prospects before routing them to a sales rep — your choice. Create workflows from pre-filled templates or assign custom attributes to a pool of staff or options.
With Cirrus Insight Smart Scheduler, you can also decide which sales rep gets booked first and add your custom branding to booking forms.
Free Team Plan: No
Base Plan Price: $16 per seat per month
Integrations: Salesforce, Microsoft Teams, HubSpot, Zoom, Google Calendar, LinkedIn, Zapier.
Often used by employee recruitment teams, Calendly provides basic appointment scheduling.
Free Team Plan: No
Base Plan Price: $15 per user per month
Integrations: Salesforce, SendGrid, Google Calendar, Microsoft Outlook.
Cal.com provides single-use scheduling links.
Cal.com offers no-code options for custom workflows and integrates with several video conferencing tools.
Free Trial: Yes
Base Plan Price: $460 per year per site
Integrations: Salesforce, Zoom, Google Calendar, iCal, Microsoft Teams, Zapier.
10to8’s Sign-In Scheduling displays the pooled availability of your sales reps.
10to8 allows prospects to book and manage their meetings conveniently..
Free Trial: Yes
Base Plan Price: $65 per month for up to four users
Integrations: Microsoft Outlook, Zoom, ConnectWise Manage, Autotask, Datto.
TimeZest is an online scheduling software with a focus on managed service teams.
It supports availability customization and automated in-ticket scheduling. TimeZest is best where efficiency in ticket resolution is key.
Free Trial: Yes
Base Plan Price: $6 per user per month
Integrations: Salesforce, Google Calendar, Outlook Calendar, Zoho Calendar.
Zoho Bookings offers a solution for appointments and payments.
With intake forms and booking pages for desktop and mobile devices, sales reps can collect specific client information before appointments.
Free Trial: Yes
Base Plan Price: $59 per user per month
Integrations: Salesforce, HubSpot, Google Calendar, Microsoft Outlook, Zoom.
Apollo ensures leads are routed to the right person’s calendar while syncing details to your CRM.
This scheduling software collects data about contacts for your sales reps.
Online appointment schedulers should be user-friendly, intuitive and cater to varying technical abilities. This typically includes features like compatibility with screen readers, devices and platforms (email, web and social media) as well as ease of operability.
Appointment schedulers should also be customizable and accommodate different appointment types (1:1s or group meetings with specific people), rescheduling, and cancellations
For a business serving global clients, using a scheduling tool with time zone adjustment is important.
Without this feature, clients from other locations may struggle to schedule meetings correctly or might miss them due to confusion. However, with time zone adjustment, meeting details are correctly displayed on your booking pages and on every attendee’s calendar, regardless of their location.
After picking an online appointment scheduler for your staff needs, check that it seamlessly integrates with your existing sales tools. The last thing you want to do is add a new tool to your tech stack with a learning curve that eats into your sellers’ time.
Ideally, your scheduler should allow for seamless data syncing with your CRM and email platforms and map relevant data fields such as contacts or account records between the tools.
Where does scheduling friction happen the most? After a demo? Before a follow-up call? In emails or landing pages?
Pinpointing where you need to automate or enhance scheduling allows you to integrate new tools that complement your existing workflow. Delays in finding mutually available time slots can prolong the sales cycle and lead to potential loss of interest.
If you’re looking to pre-qualify leads before a meeting is scheduled, using a scheduling tool with customizable booking fields will save your reps some time. And for making sure a prospect or client speaks to the right sales rep based on specific criteria? A tool like the Cirrus Insight Smart Scheduler would be invaluable.
Make your booking page links and buttons easy to find. Use clear and prominent calls-to-action (CTAs) — whether in your emails, marketing materials, social media, or landing pages.
If there's no clear CTA for prospects to schedule appointments, they may hesitate or overlook the opportunity to engage further. An online appointment scheduler with embedded booking functionality makes for easy access across your sales and prospecting channels.
Apart from syncing with your CRM and pipeline data, scheduling software automates busy workloads like adding video conferencing links, sending meeting invites, and even follow-up meeting requests, allowing your sales reps to focus on more important sales tasks.
Also, when appointments are rescheduled or canceled, all attendees are automatically notified, keeping everything coordinated and preventing scheduling conflicts.
If you’re not optimizing your sales process to make the meeting with prospects and customers easy, rest assured your competitors will.
With meeting accelerating platforms like Cirrus Insight, your sales teams can connect faster with prospects and customers, without the time-consuming email dance and scheduling logistics.