Have your customers schedule you.

[hawks5999]

Hey guys,

A new service just went live that will be useful for almost everyone here.

http://hourtown.com

This service allows you to setup your calendar with availability visible to all your clients and potential clients. You can put pricing, service description and let your customers schedule exactly what they want, when they want it. Stick your hourtown button in your craigslist ad. As theUrge tipped us off, customer service is key for getting response. What's more customer service in an ad, then letting your customers schedule you on THEIR time for your service.

This is a fee based service (the free is nice, but only allows 2 scheduled appointments per month and only up to $999/task). The paid services also submit your service offerings to Google Base, Vast and Oodle, myspace and your own site.

Check it out and start driving your potential customers directly into appointments.

[Jory]

I wouldn't schedule with a customer without actually speaking to them. You need to talk to them so you know what the problem is, and can set aside the appropriate amount of time. They don't now how long something is going to take.

What if someone schedules you to do a network installation that would take half a day or more, and then right afterwards someone schedules you for the same day at a time you're committed to be doing that network install. The network install customer isn't going to know to set aside half a day for you, and the next customer is probably going to schedule you at the first available time according to the scheduler.

Plus quite frankly some jobs are just going to be more important than others. My bread and butter clients are always going to get preferential scheduling. Usually their problem means they are losing money because they can't conduct business. I make sure my scheduling reflects that by not putting residential type problems first thing in the day, but if it's something I know might be really simple I might be willing to put them first because I know I can get in and out within an hour.

If you're more than a one man show you could probably get away with it because of the extra help, but I'm just one man with a limited amount of time. I have to weight peoples needs and schedule accordingly. There is no way to do that without talking to the customer.

[geekhelp4u]

Agree with the above statement! And for $20 a month/ $240 a year i think I would be better off writing my own version of the calender, or buying a copy of the Avast! BART disk!