If you’re on the hunt for booking software and buyer experience is top of mind, you’ve got to think BIG picture.
For a truly friction-free scheduling experience, the right meeting automation platform streamlines every step of the buyer journey. This starts with your inbound or outbound motion, guides the buyer through the product demo stage, and after purchase, through onboarding and renewal.
Let’s take a walk through three phases of the sales process to understand every touchpoint you’ll need booking software to manage, seamlessly.
Phase 1: Building Quality Pipeline & Speed to Lead
The right booking software has the power to help build quality pipeline and accelerate speed to lead. That may sound like a tall order, but meeting automation is not just a passive calendar link. Meeting automation influences the buyer experience starting with inbound and outbound motions.
Consider this: 64 percent of B2B buyers are Millennials and Gen Z who are less willing to tolerate back-and-forth manual processes from brands. And, like it or not, 78 percent of customers buy from the company that responds to their inquiry first.
Scheduling for Inbound Motions
For inbound motions, the best booking software has the power to instantly qualify a lead, match it to an account, and schedule a meeting from your web forms, landing pages, and “contact sales” CTAs.
LeanData’s BookIt for Forms is web form-agnostic and works with Hubspot, Marketo, Salesforce, Unbound, Typeform, and Gravity Forms as well. It will match buyers to CRM records with 95 percent accuracy, providing full context. Then, it will automatically determine the best person to schedule with, based on any business logic. Buyers can instantly book an available time with the right representative.
Curious? You can take an interactive tour of BookIt for Forms to test out the tool.
Scheduling for Outbound Motions
When sales development reps (SDRs) or account executives (AEs) reach out to prospects as part of an outbound motion, scheduling software should allow for booking links in several places such as email, signature blocks, automated sales engagement platforms, LinkedIn and even SMS.
LeanData’s BookIt Links allows buyers to book meetings instantly from a scheduling link. The platform includes both individual and group booking links. Plus, users can customize meeting types and view scheduling metrics in a dashboard. Not to mention, automated email confirmations and reminders decrease no-shows and conversion rates.
When analyzing booking software features, look for a platform that includes:
- Customizable date ranges
- Form fields that will collect more information before a buyer books a meeting
- The ability to redirect prospects to a landing page after booking a meeting
- Customizable confirmation emails, reminders, and event names
- The ability to add your logo and colors for brand consistency
Phase 2: Maximize Conversion With a Fantastic Buying Experience
So now that you’ve caught your buyer’s attention, it’s time to convert that meeting to a purchase. This involves delivering a compelling buyer experience and once again, automated meeting scheduling helps.
Whether it’s the “first call” with a sales rep, a discovery call, or product demo, booking software plays a key role in each step.
First Call Scheduling Tips
The typical first call involves a sales rep, say an SDR or BDR, asking qualifying questions and scheduling a discovery call with an AE. To provide a fantastic buying experience, these handoffs must be precise and friction-free. Otherwise, qualified buyers go cold which causes low productivity and low morale in your Sales team.
LeanData’s BookIt Handoff is the most efficient way to pass buyers to the right team member. It allows employees to book follow-up calls with the right rep, every time, directly from Salesforce. Plus, BookIt Handoff includes a unique feature known as Smart Suggestions where the tool will automatically suggest the right team member for the next meeting.
Discovery Scheduling Tips
Once a sales rep has performed a discovery call, it’s time for the next warm handoff: the demo. Rather than wait for another rep to reach out, book the demo on the spot while the buyer is at peak interest. For this handoff, your booking software should offer round robin capabilities so that the buyer receives the first available specialist. Also, this handoff should include context to help teammates prepare for the demo.
BookIt Handoff includes flexible round robins that will ensure equal distribution with automated crediting. The tool will automatically grant credits when a rep’s meeting is canceled, unqualified, results in a no-show, or other reasons.
In addition, admins and managers can use BookIt’s conditions logic as filters to define pool members. This feature minimizes the amount of time spent adding and updating pools. Last, BookIt includes an Ownership Report that reveals how meetings were scheduled and distributed.
Product Demo Scheduling Tips
Product demos should be personalized to your buyer’s use case and business needs. That means the right rep, solutions consultant, or other product expert must perform the demo. With regards to booking software, it’s important to customize meeting types to account for any scenario.
Plus, when today’s buyer is often an entire buying committee, several of whom need to attend meetings, group booking features are essential.
Phase 3: Close the Deal & Nurture the Relationship
Congratulations! Your buyer became a customer. However, meeting scheduling is not over. Now is the time to support the onboarding and renewal processes with efficient scheduling automation. Certainly all internal teams need the time-saving benefits of booking software — not just your Sales team.
During the onboarding phase, it’s important for the customer to receive a warm handoff from the AE to the customer service manager (CSM). This involves sharing personal meeting links, booking calls with specialists, implementation meetings and training sessions.
Then, at renewal, booking software can help schedule renewal calls through automated customer outreach or through meeting links in a simple email.
Precise Scheduling for Every Scenario
No matter what phase of the buying or customer journey, booking software has the potential to support a fantastic experience. After all, there’s more to a meeting than just the meeting. Scheduling automation should bring efficiency, productivity, and greater visibility into your entire go-to-market motion.
Curious about LeanData’s BookIt suite of solutions? View our implementation guide here.
Kim Peterson
Kim Peterson is the Manager of Content Strategy at LeanData where she digs deep into all aspects of the revenue process and shares her findings across multiple content channels. Kim's writing experiences span tech companies, stunt blogging, education, and the real estate industry. Connect with Kim on LinkedIn.
