I think it's appropriate for everyone that meets with customers, meets with people within their businesses. I even put my personal calendar on my work calendar. I'm just looking at it every day, so I think everyone could use it.
I've tried some of the other online booking services and while there were good, they didn't have all of the features that Zoho Bookings does and since I'm already a Zoho One subscriber, it doesn't cost me anything more. I think virtually any type of business can use Bookings as it's not geared to a specific industry but can be customized for use in any type of industry. I would love to see salons use it as I think it can be truly a way for them to better book clients than using a paper calendar which I see many using. I also think massage therapists would also benefit but using Bookings. If you are a solopreneur or have a sales team, there's no way you can't benefit by using Bookings for your phone appointments, Zoom/Video meetings, or in-person meetings. There is also a resource function which allows you to block out conference rooms and other resources.
Enables users to set their "working hours" and others can see if they are setting up a meetings a moon symbol next to their name to show it is outside of that invitees working hours
Allows you to easily create scheduled tasks directly on your Google Calendar
The booking page is really helpful for external people who want to chat with me, but so few people use it, that it makes it more frustrating. The solution exists but nobody is using it. It needs to be highlighted more
You have to switch between email accounts or set up additional calendars to schedule work events vs personal events
integrations with other calendars don't update quickly, so sometimes a coworkers vacation doesn't show up in the calendar until much later
It still needs more robust features and customization, like workflows and such. I'm confident they'll continue improving it, but some particular customization settings aren't available, in terms of triggers, content, look and feel, but it is mostly very detailed and particular. If you're ok with adapting to it, it is an excellent tool.
The platform itself is pretty user friendly even if you don't have a technical background. You can easily schedule meetings, block out focus time, update your time off, and add meeting notes. The settings are easily mapped out in terms of functionality and if you need help you can easily search for an answer on Google search
Some of the integrations and features are harder to set up. Once everything is set up its fairly straightforward, but if like ATI you have multiple branches or departments utilizing Bookings, you would need to set up separate booking sites for each office/salesperson
A lot of things are not great as this is a new tool, but they fix it relatively quickly. They don't have a direct phone number, but Zoho support has good service overall
Most of the other services we would use don't have the same integration with other Google services that Google Calendar has. The ability to view and set things from your email is very convenient. So is the ability to have your notifications automatically show up on an Android phone as a reminder.
I found the integration with the two above is great if you're a Google Calendar user which we are not. While with Zoho Calendar we can have two way integration with Google Calendar there wasn't a need to do so. With Zoho Bookings which also integrates with Google Calendar we didn't have to worry about that as the integration with our Zoho Calendar was virtually automatic. There was also the cost consideration as the two above have a free version it was limited and didn't have all the bells and whistles we needed. Zoho Bookings provide us with everything from a single sign-on web browser and mobile app
