Get your love out, it’s Testimonial Time.

Mark Demicoli  18 May 2013 08:46:48 AM

At ClickBook we've often been accused of not marketing ourselves well.  The truth is that we're a small company of innovators who believe more in real progress, support and efficiency than frills, banners and hype.  But that's not to say that we can't improve in other areas.

If you're like many of our customers, you've tried many other schedulers and finally discovered ClickBook with it's vast array of features, unique approach, flexibility and reliability.

So what's this all about?

I went to lunch with the head of the top advertising company in Malta and he was surprised that ClickBook doesn't have any testimonials on the site.  Good point!

Let me cut to the chase really quickly here.  If you've been using ClickBook for a while and have found it useful for your business, don't be shy and give us some good marketing material in the comments below.  We're particularly interested in how things have changed in your business since adopting ClickBook and your experience with other schedulers.

We've worked hard to inject 'karma' into your business - please be kind and throw some back our way :)

• Comments [6]

British Embassies & Consulates worldwide adopt ClickBook

Mark Demicoli  1 May 2013 05:24:00 AM

The British Foreign & Commonwealth Office (FCO) has taken a major step on their customer services front by rolling out ClickBook to over 100 Embassies and Consulates worldwide.

In what is likely the first such rollout, British expatriates and consular staff can now conveniently and securely manage their appointments online with less hassle, whilst also taking advantage of automatic appointment reminders and 24/7 service from ClickBook scheduler.

ClickBook is proud to have the FCO as a customer.

Related Links

British Embassy Manilla now offering 'ClickBook' online appointment system
All FCO Embassies & Consulates on Google Search

• Comments [5]

Getting your Tongue around TimeBlocks

Mark Demicoli  26 April 2013 04:15:00 PM

A very important feature of ClickBook is the ability to create TimeBlocks.  A TimeBlock is a way of telling ClickBook how and when you are available or not-available for services, and for which services and location.

TimeBlocks work to adjust your weekly schedule, or can be used exclusively instead of the weekly schedule, if your services are more irregular than regular in the weekly sense.

While this is not a unique feature to ClickBook, ClickBook's TimeBlocks are by far the most flexible and sophisticated of any scheduler we know of, and sometimes for this reason can be confusing to the uninitiated.

This article will focus on "AVAILABLE" TimeBlocks.  The other type is "NOT AVAILABLE" TimeBlock, a far simpler animal.


WEEKLY AVAILABILITY

First, it's important to understand the basic functioning of ClickBook before you delve into TimeBlocks.

ClickBook assumes that your availability rotates on a weekly basis and is generally stable.

By default, ClickBook makes you available at your Main Location from 9AM - 5PM with an hour break.  Here's an example setup with varying availability from weekday-to-weekday:



CREATING EXCEPTIONS

The Weekly Availability is a good starting basis for a regular schedule, which is typical of most businesses in, for example, Health & Wellness industries.

Lets look at a few scenarios, in increasing complexity, where you will want to create exceptions to your weekly routine.



CHANGED AVAILABILITY

Lets say you need to extend your availability for particular day.  You work from 9-5 and decide to add 2 hours on a particular day.  In this case, we are not changing anything about the normal schedule except to add more hours for 1 day.




Taking it slightly further, lets say you want to extend hours for a whole week or longer.  You set the Start and End Date, and ClickBook will show you that it understand that you are changing the schedule for a multi-day period.  This is still a simple extension of availability, however it is possible to also adjust particular weekdays in that period.  For example, you may want to also change the start time on Thursdays only.  This is possible in the Advanced Duration Options section, but lets not get ahead of ourselves.



You'll notice from the image above that "This is a Special Event" is ticked.  The effect this has is to alert customers on your profile page that there is a change to the normal schedule.



CHANGED FUTURE PRICING

Sometimes, you have to raise (or lower?!) prices.  An Available TimeBlock is your friend in this regard.


Step 1:

Create new services with changed pricing.  It's important to place the new services in separate categories so as to clearly denote the purpose.  For example, lets say we have massage services, create a category first called "NEW PRICING JUNE 2013 - Massage", and add your newly priced services under that category.

Step 2:


The second step is to create an Available TimeBlock, fill in details as you would normally, and extend the End Date to at least several months from the start date of the new pricing.

Additionally, you must tick "OVER-RIDE WEEKLY AVAILABILITY", and specifically select the NEW SERVICES in the Locations & Services section:



Step 3:

On the day (or shortly after) that new pricing kicks in, change the prices on your pre-existing services to match the new pricing, then you can also delete the "Changed Pricing" Available TimeBlock created previously as it is no longer required.



MULTIPLE STAFF

An existing TimeBlock can be used as a template and copied to other staff / resources.  If you need to apply a TimeBlock to multiple staff, firstly get it right by testing it as yourself and from your public profile page as an anonymous user (ie sign out) first.

Once you're satisfied, use the Tools menu in any of the main views to copy the TimeBlock to multiple staff / resources:




ADVANCED CONFIGURATION (ADVANCED USERS ONLY!)

ClickBook's powerful flexibility features such as Appointment Start Interval, Custom Start Times and Weekday Availability Ranges (hereforth referred to as Advanced Customisation), can all be adjusted in Available TimeBlocks.

Any new Available TimeBlock inherits it's settings for these features from your default preferences,  which is why it's so easy to simply extend or reduce availability for a day or range of days.

Lets say, for example, that you use Custom Start Times to over-ride some or all weekday appointment times, the Custom Start Times will be automatically set in any Available TimeBlock you create, but can be changed for specific TimeBlocks as required.


MULTIPLE "AVAILABLE" TIMEBLOCK  (RECOMMENDED ONLY FOR SCHEDULES WITH PREDOMINANTLY IRREGULAR AVAILABILITY).

ClickBook allows you to create multiple Available TimeBlocks that interact with one another on any particular day.

This is NOT recommended for users that generally work with weekly availability.  This feature is designed for users that offer more irregular time than regular weekly time for their services.


In this mode (ie if more than one Available TimeBlock exists on a particular day):

a) Advanced Customisation is disabled and all Advanced Settings are taken from the default configuration in your preferences.

b) Availability created is merged with Weekly Availability (ie the Over-ride Weekly Availability option is not available).

• Comments [0]

Heads in the ’Cloud’: Security Considerations when Choosing an Online Service

Mark Demicoli  17 December 2012 09:45:37 PM

The security of your account is by far the number one priority to consider when choosing any online service.  Reputation goes a long way, and we find the majority of our long term customers have come to ClickBook by referral, somewhat of a testimony to ClickBook's reputation for reliability and lack of security incidents.  In this post, I'd like to talk a little about what underlies ClickBook's basic security philosophy and the security features that have flowed from it over the last 5 years of development.



You may have heard about the 'Cloud' in the last couple of years.  The Cloud is essentially a new marketing word for what the industry used to call Shared Server Hosting.  In reality, it's just another way of saying "We do not host our own computer server - we have outsourced that job to Company X".  This type of business decision introduces what is called Third Party Risk.  In other words, elements of your business are in the hands of someone else.

Other risks include reliability issues, because "The Cloud" is like a shared office space between hundreds or thousands of other services.  Such environments depend on a significant Administration overhead and often creates 'bottle necks' causing service availability to falter at times.

Another key problem with Cloud services is that there are many, many 'eggs in one basket' (ie thousands of businesses running servers from the same infrastructure) which makes such 'Cloud' providers a prime target for criminal activity, such as hackers and internal 'white collar' illegal activity.


We Are Not in the Cloud

ClickBook's policy steers away from this concept and maintains it's dedicated servers at a high security facility.  We are certain that this is the best option to protect yours and your customers` data.

Learn more about the dangers of The Cloud here.


Database Encryption & Daily Backup

ClickBook's data is encrypted on the hard-disks of our dedicated computer servers and backups are taken daily.  These measure are security layers to mitigate physical compromise or natural disaster.  In any worst case scenario, we can have the system up and running from off-site backup to newly commissioned servers within a short period of time.  Call us paranoid, but at least call us vigilant about the integrity of your information.


Wrong Password Lockout

If you've ever typed your password wrong too many times in ClickBook you already know the drill.  ClickBook automatically locks your account if anyone attempts to access it with the wrong password too many times.  What's more you will be notified about the incident if it wasn't your doing.  This is a very important measure to prevent what are called 'brute force' attacks - attempts to access accounts by guesswork.

Bottom Line

ClickBook is seriously concerned about the continuity of our business, and that means placing the continuity of yours as first priority.  We have taken extraordinary measures to ensure the reliability and security of your service.

• Comments [0]

ClickBook Mobile for Clients V0.1 Released

Mark Demicoli  9 July 2012 12:12:44 AM

*UPDATE: COMMENTING IS CURRENTLY DISABLED DUE TO TECHNICAL ISSUES* ClickBook Mobile for Client Access is now available and works on practically all Android and iOS (iPhone, iPad) and Windows mobiles. While this first release is quite limited in it's functionality, we have a very aggressive development program with a weekly update schedule planned for the coming months. Version 0.1 will be targetted at your existing clients so it is important that you familiarise yourself with the way ClickBook Mobile works.  Over the coming weeks, we will begin actively promoting ClickBook Mobile to all users.  Not only will your clients find it convenient to book appointments while on-the-go, but as we believe you'll recognise, the process has been made even simpler. Improved Booking Process With the release of ClickBook Mobile 0,1, several important changes have been incorporated that improve the booking process When a Client selects "Anyone" during the staff member selection, ClickBook will automatically choose staff member rather than presenting all staff members with available times.  (One less step in the booking process). When a Client attempts to cancel a booking, your company's Terms & Conditions are displayed, suggesting the potential of penalties for short-notice cancellations. We have done away with the full Calendar date-picker for selecting a suitable date.  Instead, ClickBook Mobile shows the availability for the next 14 days as a simple list, and allows more days to be loaded (in 14 day increments) by hitting "MORE" ClickBook Mobile can be loaded anywhere by typing clickbook.net/mobile in your browser.

Comments Disabled

How FaceBook is your business?

Mark Demicoli  30 March 2012 09:30:01 PM

Anyone heard of FaceBook?

Yes, the Planet is totally consumed by Facebook.  Socialising has always and will always be our favourite pass-time.  While FaceBook isn't the only social networking tool around, it has maintained it's place as Number 1 for years.

And, a fantastic tool it is for keeping up with friends and enhancing your day.  I was about to say 'wasting time', but realised that would be stupid.  Work should not consume 100% of your day, any day.  Plus, FaceBook can have fantastic benefits for your business services.

In old parlance, 'word-of-mouth' was the catch phrase which represented the Holy Grail of cheap marketing.  If we take a look at just that one angle of FaceBook, this is exactly what it allows people to do without you lifting a finger.  What I'm talking about is that FaceBook makes it easier for people to gossip   (and don't we know that).   If you have a good product or service, then you can rest assured that it will be "Liked" or Not, just as proportionately on FaceBook as in the real world.

So, there's no excuse for not getting your services socialised.



The process is ultra simple, and you could have your services socialising with all your contacts (and beyond) within minutes.

While I don't think it's necessary to guide you through the entire process, the key piece of information that will connect FaceBook with your ClickBook profile is your ClickBook profile address.  If you don't know it, simply log in to ClickBook and click the "Preview Public Profile" at the top right.  This preview will show you the address of your ClickBook profile.

For example:

MarkEmporium.ClickBook.net

You must use this address when FaceBook asks you for your site address (see below).

[UPDATE]

CLICKBOOK NOW HAS A DEDICATED FACEBOOK APP WHICH YOU CAN ADD TO YOUR NEW BUSINESS PAGE.  ONCE YOU'VE REACHED THIS STAGE, YOU CAN INSTALL THE APP FROM THE FOLLOWING ADDRESS:

http://apps.facebook.com/clickbook

[END UPDATE]



Once you've set up your FaceBook Business Page, it's easy to "Like" your own page to get the ball rolling, and also invite your contacts to check it out and "Like" it too!

You will discover heaps of ways to keep your services attracting people, by starting conversations, posting questions and special offers.

Get started right now with FaceBook Business Pages.
Comments Disabled

December Preview

Mark Demicoli  6 November 2011 01:32:00 AM

Santa's little helpers are at it again this year, with some great new features coming to ClickBook.

Most prominently is the ability to select multiple services as part of a single booking, in a 'shopping cart' style.  This is a long requested feature and will make for a valuable addition for your customers.  Clients will be able to choose 'add-ons' to their standard services, and have the total price calculated as a single booking.

We are also working to streamline the look and user friendliness of ClickBook.  We've hired one of the best firms in the business to this end.  Vizualise are hard at work right now coming up with a brand new look and refurbishing the whole booking process.

Many more features are in the pipeworks, including a Facebook app, so stay tuned!

• Comments [18]

Discounting your services? Spread out your discount and avoid a flood.

Mark Demicoli  8 October 2011 01:14:33 AM

I recently had a question regarding discounted services, and how there is a tendency for coupon holders (ie purchases via Groupon et al) to flood your ClickBook.  While this may sound good on face value, experienced customers of ours don't recommend it.

The  danger is two-fold:

1.  Concentrated period of lower cash flow with sometimes devastating ramifications;
2.  Your prized, regular customers become alienated because they can never find available time as conveniently as they had come to expect.


You can avoid this issue by segregating certain days or parts of days for discounted services.

To do this, you must create your discounted services separate to your standard ones and place them in their own service category, such as "Groupon Massages" if you're a massage therapist.

What we want to do now is segregate the availability for the discounted services.  To do this, first make sure that no staff are selected as offering these services, as we are going to manage this from the TimeBlock function.  Go to the Services tab, and check each of your newly created services to make sure no staff are selected.  Alternately you can go into each staff member's profile and un-check all of the special discount services.

Finally, we want to expose the discounted services for particular days and / or time ranges.  Lets say Mondays only for this example.  Create a new Available TimeBlock and assign date & duration appropriately - in this case it will be the first forthcoming Monday.   In the Services section, select the discounted services.  Save the TimeBlock and test it out using the Standard Services panel.  If everything looks OK, you can repeat the TimeBlock so that it falls on each Monday.

Easy peasey?  Well, fairly so.

• Comments [0]

In a perfect world... Two-way sync with calendars

Mark Demicoli  8 July 2011 12:13:44 PM

Synchronisation between Google Calendar and ClickBook can now be achieved two-way, instead of just one-way as was the case previously.  Full explanation, instructions and caveats (I'm afraid)  are provided in the Subscription section of your Preferences.

With this feature enabled ClickBook periodically checks your personal calendar in Google and creates 'not-available' TimeBlocks so that your ClickBook availability is constantly up-to-date.

While on the subject, I'd like to re-iterate that synchronisation with Google Calendar is partially out of our control, since the frequency that Google updates Google Calendar subscriptions is a little random and undocumented.  But we trust Google, right?  The point is that you should always use ClickBook as your authoritative schedule, either by logging in or the Daily Forward Schedule email.

When entering your private Google Calendar address, use the Private XML feed shown in the image below.  To get to this page,  sign-in to Google Calendar then click on Settings under My Calendars.  A list of your calendars will be displayed.  Click on the appropriate calendar link to open the settings page.

• Comments [2]

Custom Forms, coming next week!

Mark Demicoli  5 May 2011 11:17:23 AM

We couldn't keep it secret any longer because we're very excited about this new feature.

It's been a long time coming and we have quite a big list of customers that have requested it.

Intake forms, as you may well know, streamline the process of inducting new clients into your services, and keeping track of various information.

The new feature will allow you to create any number of forms with Yes/No and free-text questions.  Such forms can be of a general nature, or specific to certain service(s) or location(s).

As you might expect if you've been using ClickBook for a while, all the smarts are taken care of behind the scenes.  ClickBook will request clients to complete relevant forms, and enforce certain forms if you deem them mandatory, before they are able to make a booking.  Ofcourse, this latter feature is optional.

Accurate, complete records.

An additional option allows you to keep older versions of forms if the client changes details in one of their forms.

It's time to start thinking NOW about how you can simplify your interactions by capturing as much information as possible before your client steps up.  In the week ahead, we will provide a simple tutorial on how to get started.

• Comments [23]