Scheduling Made Easy with TimeBridge

MoiN | Jun 15, 2009 | Comments

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Whether you’re a sales agent or a business owner, your sole focus is on one aspect at all times – get more business! For the proactive professional this means running around setting up appointments, meeting clients and deadlines, utilizing whatever time you have in the most efficient way possible.

The reality is, a large chunk of the professionals time is spent not on how to present his ideas, services or product – but in playing secretary to him/herself! Calling clients, setting meetings and getting things done. Sure, it looks easy when reading about it – but no one ever tells you about the countless numbers of rescheduling that usually occurs, or constantly hearing about `oh I never received an email about that meeting’. Soon your calendar starts looking more like a football playbook than an organized sales persons planner!

Today appointment scheduling has shifted to Outlook, Google calendar or Apple iCal, but that doesn’t mean the mess has gone away. If one important client decides to change an appointment you will end up calling all your clients for that day just to accommodate them. The question is – is there a way to handle this without hiring a separate secretary!

Time Bridge

Well now there is! TimeBridge is a San Francisco-based startup focused on making it easy to schedule meetings and appointments. With the ability to sync with Apple iCal as well as with established calendar apps such as Google and Outlook. TimeBridge’s main pull is in the simplicity with which it gives its participants optional times and dates for each appointment.

Let say you want to schedule something with a certain person doing a specific work you asked, TimeBridge will send an email to him/her which will have 5 different time frames – he/she will be requested to choose which time suits them by selecting between “Yes,” “no,” and “Best” for each time option. Once the choices have been made, an email will be sent back to the original sender with their preferred time. Timebridge will then automatically check the original senders schedule and if that person’s `Best’ time matches up with the theirs — then TimeBridge will automatically set the appointment and send out confirmation emails! If there’s a clash in timings (e.g. the original sender will not be available during the specified time) then he/she will be notified by TimeBridge of the conflict.

timebridge

TimeBridge can do this not for one client but ALL the clients you have on your calendar, at the same time! Regardless of how many appointment mails are sent back TimeBridge will juggle them around and set the appointments automatically until it hits a situation where there is absolutely no time combination within your schedule that will work with your client.

The amazing thing is that this part of TimeBridge’s service is absolutely free! Once you have set up a successful appointment, you may also use TimeBridges online screen-sharing and phone meeting services for a really low fee ($8.95 p/m) compare that to approximately $40 p/m using WebEx or GoToMeeting.com. This is especially useful for a conference call with multiple clients (eg, when showcasing your service/product).

In these hard times it pays to be smart and effective, TimeBridge is just the tool to tip the scales in your favor!