In some business scenarios, manually confirming appointments is essential for maintaining control over your schedule and ensuring that each booking meets your criteria before it's finalized. Whether you're managing limited availability, or simply prefer to review each appointment request, the manual confirmation process allows you to vet and approve bookings individually.
Before diving into the specifics, it's important to understand the overall process of manual appointment confirmation within the CRM. This method involves several key steps, from disabling auto-confirmation to manually approving each appointment request.
Access the form builder section of the CRM.
Create or select a custom form to gather comprehensive information from leads.
Custom forms can be used in conjunction with the booking widget to collect more than just basic contact details, enabling a thorough review of each appointment request.
Navigate to the calendar setup within the CRM and edit the calendar you wish to modify.
From the Forms & Payment section, locate the Auto-confirm new appointments switch. Ensure it is toggled off as shown below.
By disabling auto-confirmation, you retain control over which appointments are approved, allowing for a review of each request.
Furthermore, select the form you created from the dropdown menu to ensure it is displayed during the booking process.
When a lead requests an appointment through the booking widget, the appointment will be marked as "action required" in the appointments tab. This indicates that the appointment needs to be manually confirmed.
Navigate to the appointments tab within the Calendars section. Appointments pending review will be marked as “action required" in the Status column.
Manually confirm the appointment by changing its status to confirmed.
To streamline the manual confirmation process, you can set up notification workflows within the CRM.
Appointment Request Workflow: Set this workflow to notify you when an appointment status is new, indicating a pending request.
Utilize actions such as Send Internal Notification to tailor the workflow to your needs.
Confirmation Workflow: Once you manually confirm an appointment, another workflow can automatically add the lead to the appointment reminder sequence and update the opportunity status if required.
By disabling auto-confirmation, utilizing custom forms, and setting up effective notification workflows, you can efficiently manage and review appointments, ensuring a streamlined and professional process.
Q: I can't find the option to disable auto-confirmation. What should I do?
Ensure you're in the Forms & Payment step of the calendar setup process.
Q: Can I manually confirm appointments scheduled by me?
Appointments scheduled directly by you within the CRM are automatically confirmed. Manual confirmation is primarily for appointments requested through the booking widget by leads.
Q: How do I ensure I'm notified of new appointment requests?
Make sure you have set up the appointment request Workflow correctly. Verify your notification settings to ensure you're alerted promptly.
