How did this year go so fast? It’s October news time already, and we are looking at the countdown to the holiday season. It will be either a busy time for your business or when things slacken off a little – it depends on your business model.
In the past month, there has been a lot of talk and discussion about the direction and development of the SimplyMeet.me software.
However, we have a few things to talk about that you might not have already heard.
New in September
Group bookings
While you might not need group bookings for your business, many people really need them to make them more efficient.
The benefits of group bookings are numerous. However, the three below are the primary reasons for making them a part of your schedule:
- increase client capacity
- reduce clients costs
- introduce new clients at a nominal fee.
Now, SimplyMeet.me has the option to allow multiple participants to a time slot as per your set-up guidelines.
This is where you can select the group booking option for specific meeting types.
You probably don’t want to allow attendees to invite others if you are already accommodating a group setting.
Timezone variable in reminders
It’s all very well having clients be able to book in their preferred timezone, but it’s a bit weird when the notification comes through with the company timezone instead. That could get very confusing for everyone – and a lot of missed meetings.
After a bit of work, our developers have ensured that the client timezone variable now functions in the notifications, so there is no confusion over when that meeting was supposed to be. The client will receive it in their preferred timezone, just as they scheduled it.
Admin interface improvements
We know that not everyone makes appointments online – it’s nice if they do, but some people don’t want to do it. So when someone calls you to make an appointment, you want easy access to your booking page to make the meeting booking. Sadly, this was not the case, and you had to go looking for the page link to create the booking.
We have added links to the admin interface to quickly create a new meeting in the menu bar at the left hand of the screen.
Coming Soon In October and beyond.
Admin app
It’s very nearly on its way. Our developers have been working hard to bring you the mobile admin app for SimplyMeet.me. It is much easier to keep track of your meeting schedule when you can check and manage them on a mobile app.
App for viewing booked meetings and booking new ones on the go.
Reverse Sync
Use block-booked availability in your external calendar to set irregular and variable availability without setting up individual days in your SM calendars.
Usually, with regular calendar synchronisation, you would ensure you leave space in your calendar for the appointment people might want to make. However, for people with very variable or irregular calendars, it is actually easier to dedicate blocks of time in the external calendar to denote availability. This is particularly useful when someone doesn’t work a regular schedule.
While we try to be as flexible as possible, it is not a simple matter to create availability for specific dates when every day is different.
With Reverse Sync, you will only be available when the times on your attached calendar are blocked. Thank you very much for that suggestion from one of our users…
Team building for distributed groups
Now, here is some much more human news for October. I want to talk about bringing distributed teams together. You may or may not know we have teams in several far-flung places. From our head office in Cyprus to our Asian operations in Taiwan, our teams in Ukraine, and those who have chosen to work in various places, such as Portugal, France, and Iceland (to name a few).
Last year we managed an event in Bukovel, Ukraine. However, sadly, thanks to Covid and conflict, our ability to get everyone in one place has been severely curtailed for the past few years.
Over two days, we had a company-wide online and offline team-building event in September. We like to get everyone together at least once a year to ensure everyone is on the same page and so that everyone gets to know people in different teams and different countries. It’s also a great way to get people from diverse groups to collaborate on common development queries.
The morning was dedicated to company development, while lunch and afternoons were for fun and team building. While we can’t let you into too much detail (we can’t give all our new secret developments away), we have some interesting approaches to after-sales relationships…. keep a lookout.
The mornings looked like any other, but you might not see that we’re all on the same call.
Unfortunately, you can’t fit 50 people on one screen, but at least it cycled around most people by the end of the call.
followed by lunch
Fun times and coming together
You can see how we used the time in Limassol to bring our team together. There have been quite a few changes to the team makeup over the past year, and it was lovely to get everyone talking.
It’s not all about fun and games. It’s about bringing teams together, encouraging collaboration and different viewpoints, and allowing it to create a fantastic working environment.
But it is about fun too. If we have fun building our team, we will all work together better.
Stay in touch; we will be back next month with much more news.