One of my can’t live without tools that I found a few years ago completely simplifies any events or bookings where I want clients to book themselves, sign the terms right away, pay online immediately without invoicing, and receive a series of automated reminders. If you shoot mini sessions/portrait events, teach classes or workshops, or rent out your studio space this is a perfect tool for you to use to automate your booking system.
Acuity Scheduling is wonderful and I have used this booking software in addition to using 17 Hats as my main studio management software. I use acuity if I am hosting a day of mini sessions and I want clients to self-book time slots on a certain day, if I am holding a workshop and want to have photographers enroll in a ‘limited space’ event, and my number one use for it is to book studio renters in my natural light studio. With this software, they can view an availability calendar and select a date/time and go through an automated booking process on their own. The system can be embedded right into the HTML of a page on your website, so the client does not have to navigate away from your website or wait for booking documents to come through to their email.
The system allows for you to sync with Google calendars, and you can create different calendars which correspond with different offerings you have. You can set time offerings, max number of people, a series of confirmation/followup/reminder emails, and many other features. You can even allow clients to reschedule themselves if you wish to give them that option.
Acuity can also send text message reminders to you and your clients!
While I don’t have my regular portrait or wedding clients book through this software (I want to give them a more personal experience and need to have a more detailed contract + invoice for these sessions and integrate it into a 17 Hats workflow to keep track of my regular clients), Acuity is great for those clients you want to self-book, and truly takes the headache out of the process!
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