How YCBM uses YCBM: A deep dive into our calendar scheduling tool
Want to know exactly how our tool comes in handy? There’s no better way to find out than by asking the experts. Our Customer Education Manager shares how our teams use YouCanBook.me to save time, improve productivity, and build deeper connections.
Tiffany Darwish
- Part 1 Scheduling discovery calls and demos with our sales team
- Part 2 How our customer success team nurtures relationships with customers
- Part 3 Our Customer Education Manager offers customized training for segmented users
- Part 4 Handling escalated support issues with a scheduling tool
- Part 5 How our marketing team books guests for its productivity podcast
- Part 6 Improving the customer experience with our product team
- Part 7 Streamlining the hiring process for candidates and people operations
- Part 8 Maintaining remote company culture during a global pandemic
Small teams need to be nimble, and automating time-consuming tasks like scheduling meetings helps save team members time. How do we know? From experience, of course!
Take a look at how the small team at YouCanBook.me uses our own calendar scheduling tool in our daily workflow to:
- Schedule discovery calls with our sales team
- Build relationships with existing clients with Customer Success Managers
- Offer customized training with our Customer Education Manager
- Handle escalated support issues and troubleshooting
- Schedule podcast interviews with marketing
- Improve customer experience with our product team
- Get multiple managers in the room for interviews and recruitment
- Build remote company culture for the whole team
Are you ready to get a sneak peek into our day-to-day life here at YouCanBook.me? Let’s see just how we use our own tool to get things done and keep our customers happy.
Scheduling discovery calls and demos with our sales team
Our nimble sales team receives dozens of requests for demos each week.
To focus on helping prospects make the right decision on the right online scheduling solution, the sales specialists first offer 10-minute discovery calls.
If during this call the specialist determines that YouCanBook.me is the right fit based on the use case, the prospective client is moved on to schedule a full demo.
How does this team offer up availability to our worldwide customer base?
By using Custom Availability on a team booking page.
Each sales specialist adds blocks of time directly to their Google calendar in various time zones, allowing the prospect to self-schedule their discovery call at a date and time convenient to them.
If it is determined during the discovery call that YouCanBookMe is a good fit, our team will send a follow-up email from the first booking page with a pre-filled link to the demo booking page. All of the prospective clients’ information is carried over, eliminating the need for them to answer the same questions twice.
How our customer success team nurtures relationships with customers
The relationship with our customers doesn’t end after the sale is made. Our Customer Success Managers (CSMs) work with a large portfolio of diverse customers.
Their goal is to continue to show the value of YouCanBook.me and proactively address any account issues.
Knowing that relationships are built on communication, the CSMs encourage their customers to book meetings with them regularly whenever they want to talk strategy, expansion, or to answer general account questions.
There is no need to waste time with back and forth conversations on when the best time to meet is - each CSM includes the link to their personal booking page in their email signature. Booking a meeting at a time that works is as simple as 2-clicks!
On each of their personal booking pages, the Success Managers have created different appointment types, since different types of calls can vary in duration.
By booking the appropriate appointment type, both the customer and Success Manager can make sure they’ve blocked out the time needed for the call.
Even though the client may be based in a different country than their Success Manager, the client’s timezone is automatically detected at the time of booking, so all of their email and SMS reminders display the correct meeting time for both the Success Manager and the client.
Our Customer Education Manager offers customized training for segmented users
Now is a good time to introduce myself. I’m the Customer Education Manager here at YouCanBook.me, and I love talking to customers and coaching them on how to best set up their accounts for success.
While it’s impractical for me to talk to all 20,000 YouCanBook.me users one-on-one, I’m continuously creating written and video training content to help users self-serve.
For large enterprise customers, we offer a customized training session for incoming end-users or a refresher session for existing users.
The booking page I share is configured with a flexible booking duration, so the customer can choose how much time they need during the session.
When booking, the customer can also invite additional participants to the meeting by adding in additional email addresses on the booking form - everyone receives both the calendar invite and reminders sent directly from YouCanBook.me.
With the multiple-choice questions on the booking form, everyone gets a chance to indicate which features they’d like training on during the session.
This allows me to be fully prepared before our session to ensure our customers’ success using our appointment scheduling app.
When new employees join YouCanBook.me, I’ve also set up a booking page for group meetings for the employees to learn the basics of YouCanBook.me in a fun, informal session.
Handling escalated support issues with a scheduling tool
It may seem unconventional, but with a small support team, we favor email support for addressing customer concerns.
Email allows the team to check the customer's settings, perform troubleshooting tasks, and get back to the customer with clear actionable steps on how to resolve their issue.
With a standard reply time of around 3 hours, our support team is able to efficiently address and resolve a large number of customer issues - usually on their first reply!
Occasionally, there are a few times when after some troubleshooting, some screen sharing is required to help resolve the problem.
In those limited cases, the escalations team uses a team booking page to offer 30-minute Zoom calls.
Both team members connect their calendar and their Zoom account to this page, and use Custom Availability to indicate their rotating weekly availability on their calendar, without having to modify any settings in YouCanBook.me.
At the time of booking, unique Zoom links are generated directly from their Zoom account.
How our marketing team books guests for its productivity podcast
You may have heard that YouCanBook.me recently launched a podcast, Get More Done.
In these engaging conversations, our Community Manager chats with people from diverse backgrounds on how they create efficiencies in their workflow to boost productivity.
How does our Community Manager book interviews for future episodes?
With YouCanBook.me’s scheduling software, of course!
Using Tentative Bookings on his booking page, he has final approval over whether a booked interview slot is added to his calendar.
After the interview, he has an automated follow-up email to himself set up, with a reminder to send a note of personal thanks to the guest.
Check the video: Learn how tentative bookings work.
Improving the customer experience with our product team
Our product team is small but mighty. As they plan feature releases and product improvements, customer feedback is of paramount importance.
Our Product Manager and UX Researcher use individual booking pages to book Zoom calls with customers in our newly launched Customer Discovery program.
Participating customers commit to several calls throughout the year to discuss requirements for new features, test prototypes and give feedback.
Using pre-filled booking URLs in the follow-up emails, the customer can quickly book their follow-up call with a little nudge from our automated notification system, without having to fill out the same booking form each time.
Our product team is small but mighty. As they plan feature releases and product improvements, customer feedback is of paramount importance.
Our Product Manager and UX Researcher use individual booking pages to book Zoom calls with customers in our newly launched Customer Discovery program.
Participating customers commit to several calls throughout the year to discuss requirements for new features, test prototypes and give feedback.
Using pre-filled booking page URLs in the follow-up emails, the customer can quickly book their follow-up call with a little nudge from our automated notification system, without having to fill out the same booking form each time.
Streamlining the hiring process for candidates and people operations
As a growing company, we are always on the lookout for qualified candidates to join our tiny company that does big things.
The recruitment process can require a significant time investment, especially when it comes to making sure multiple managers are available to meet.
So YouCanBook.me’s people operations team uses a mutual availability booking page to find a time that works for every manager.
All of the managers connect their calendar, and the booking page checks everyone’s calendar for conflicts.
Only times that work for everyone are offered as interview slots to the candidate.
Once the candidate books a time, the booking goes on everyone’s calendar, including the candidates, so everyone is kept in the loop.
Using shorthand codes on the booking form, the automatic confirmation and reminder emails are personalized for each candidate. The same shorthand codes pull in the candidate’s answers to the emails the managers receive, so they can prepare for the call based on the candidates booking form answers.
Check the video: Use shorthand codes & conditional statements to customize communications.
New hires have commented how seamless the interview process was for them, saving everyone time!
Maintaining remote company culture during a global pandemic
As a globally distributed remote team, company culture is incredibly important.
We prioritize company summits in warm, sunny destinations at least once a year - an opportunity to get together offline and build friendships and strengthen working relationships.
After trips to Portugal, Costa Rica, and the Dominican Republic, we are so looking forward to the next time we can get together offline.
Since the pandemic started, we’ve grown from a team of 15 people to a team of 30!
With so many new faces and no summit on the horizon, we brainstormed how we could take time in our day to just say “hey” to a coworker.
So we created a team booking page with everyone in the company, cheekily named “Anything but work.”
With these 15-minute sessions, you can book anyone in the company for a chat, from our CEO Bridget to our newest starter, Annie.
You can choose who you’d like to catch up with or click no preference for a random assignment.
The only rule on these calls? You can talk about anything but work!
These calls have been a breath of fresh air for the team, and an inspired way to make the team feel close although separated by miles.
These are just a few ways scheduling tools like YouCanBook.me help save time, automate processes, and build deeper connections across our customers and employees.
Let the variety of possibilities inspire you - how can YouCanBook.me help you in your daily tasks?
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Tiffany Darwish
Tiffany is YouCanBookMe’s Customer Education Manager. She’s passionate about making sure our customers have everything they need to be successful schedulers. You might read her words, hear her voicing a video, or see her in a webinar. She’s happiest when she’s traveling and has a gift for picking up new languages along the way.